[bassmaster911]

I have been brewing beer for a while now no my wife is wanting to get into wine. She likes the cherry wine from St. James or a sweet red wine. Is there a kit that will provide good results for a first time wine. The beer stuff seems easy to grasp but the wine procedures have me thinking a kit is the way to go for the first batch. Thanks.

[Brew and Wine Supply]

A lot of the kits tend to follow main stream wine, ie: Cabernets and Merlots, a bit on the dry side. For a sweet wine the Island Mist kits are good. They are a lot like Arbor Mist or Wild Vines wines. To get into something like what St. James makes ( the Missouri winery ) you may want to go and get some Welches grape juice and make wine from that. There are many recipies on the forum for that and variations. Another is skeeter pee...
Welcome to the forum and good luck!

[Duster]

bassmaster911, welcome to the forum.
I would always recommend beginning with a kit.
However you said you already have brewing experience with beer kits.
Like mentioned above, you may be better off getting some 100% juice and start with that. I am unsure what you have for beer equipment, but you may find that most of your wine kits require 6 gallon carboys and the beer kits that I have done center around 5 gallon carboys. By doing a juice wine you can make whatever size of batch you want.
Also in my opinion wine is much easier than beer, there is a lot less of "kitchen time" needed for wine.
Here is a really good and easy cherry recipe my wife and I like. I know its only a 3 gallon but you should be able to adjust the size to fit whatever you want it to.

[bassmaster911]

Thanks for the info. Do the Juice concentrate(welches) make a good wine? I might just have to start with the cherry wine posted. Any changes you would make to the recipe?

[captainl]

Have you made apfwlwein yet? The beer brewers tend to rave about it and its an easy wine. I would try a batch if you haven't. I agree, if you are an advanced brewer, wine will be easy. Just some different equipment if your doing the kits...which I too recommend. Good luck.

[captainl]

As far as the welchs, I made a few 1 gallon batches when I started and they tasted like......welches. but they did make some good sangria.

[bassmaster911]

If I do the Welches do I use tap water, distilled or RO water. Does it matter?

[Brew and Wine Supply]

try to stay away from "city" water. If you are on a well that is good. If on city water, boil it and let it sit 12 hours +- to get the chlorine/chlorimine out of it. RO is ok. try not to use distilled water, too pure.

[Duster]

another thought, have you checked out any of the recipes listed here on the forum?
http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f2/
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/recipes.asp"]Jack Keller also offers some good recipes, I would recommend cutting the starting SG down a bit on his though. That is unless you like rocket fuel

[JordanPond]

My wife wAs originally a white wine drinker and I have slowly pulled her over to the dark side. Her favorite has been an rj spagnols British Columbia Pinot noir that we back sweetened to enhance the fruitiness. The beauty of making your own is being able to adjust the sweetness to your liking.