Vineco Niagara Mist Kits

My wife really likes sweet white wines so I went to my LHBS this weekend and ended up buying 3 of these kits in several different flavors. The lady in the shop was glowing on these kits. What is the general consensus? Are these kits as good as she makes them out to be?

Also, I was thinking about brewing one up and bottling it like I would beer.......prime with corn sugar and bottle it in beer bottles. Has anybody done this? I was hoping by carbonating them would produce a product similar to a wine cooler.

Niagara Mist wines are similar to commercial Arbor Mist and Wild Vines wines...SWEET. Many people enjoy them, and they are great summer refreshers on ice perhaps with some club soda. Store owners love 'em because they are quite popular with many customers, and they can be drunk quickly, so customers are back soon for another kit. But "real" wine drinkers tend not to like them.

PRIMING...it isn't going to work. In order to keep the wine sweet, it is necessary to add potassium sorbate. Unfortunately, the same sorbate stops the yeast from eating the priming sugar and carbonating the wine. If you have a kegging set-up that will work for carbonating these, and the result is pretty good.

Some people like to "tweak" these kits. EG, adding sugar prior to pitching the yeast in order to raise the alcohol level.

Steve

Thanks Steve. That is a good point on the K sorbate. I was going to omit it but I guess that would take the sweetness out of it. Thanks for cluing me in.

My wife is NOT a "real" wine drinker. She likes sweet and light on the ETOH so I think this will be perfect for her. I guess I'm not real either since I like sipping on this sort of thing from time to time as well. I don't know why one shouldn't be able to enjoy both, to me comparing one to the other is apples and oranges.

I think I might try one of those instant CO2 beverage carbonators that you would find at Costco.

Randy

I have a NM Blackberry Malbec that I just added the sorbate, and f-pack yesterday. so far it tasted pretty good, and I think after a couple weeks of clearing and a few weeks in the bottles Im pretty excited to taste it. I added about 1.5Kgs of sugar to bring the sg from 1.055 to about 1.075, or 10%abv. We will see if that was wise or not lol.