Which is better

Hiya all. I have made my own beer and wine on and off for over 25 years but my question to all of you is......
Which is better and why?
Homemade wines, wines from kits or purchased wine from shops at 5 or 6
Pounds / Dollars a bottle
Have a good day i am really inteterested why you have this hobby

Welcome to the forum!

I'd have to go back to my teenage years in the 1950's to find wine that cheap. Ripple, Thunderbird and Irish Rose is what we'd be drinking on Friday and Saturday nights. Today I'd say that the ~ 10L kits equate to a 10-15 US dollar store bought wine. Just my opinion of course.

Hi Pigsdaisys, My guess is that most people who choose to make their own wines and beers choose to do so because they enjoy the creativity and the pleasure they get from taking something quite basic (from grains to fruit juice to honey) and transforming it into something very different which they can then share with family and friends and which over time and practice they can see their skills develop. Nothing to do with being able to make a wine or a beer at less cost than buying it from a store and everything to do with the enjoyment we get from the activity itself. If we did not enjoy the time we spend wine making and brewing we wouldn't do it.
That said, I am sure there are exceptions - folk who cannot legally buy alcohol for whatever reason - but I don't think that these people are frequent flyers on forums like this one...

Welcome Pigdaisys! I use to compare my wine to $6.00 wine at the beginning of this hobby but now from the feedback I get it's at the 20 - 25 - 30 range as I stepped up my process. It's taken me 5 years to get to this point. I make wine from fresh fruit, juice buckets, kits and anything I can get my hands on lol You'll get there patience is the #1 ingredient. Take your time and enjoy the process
Barbie

Welcome to WMT, Pigsdaisys!

I am with @barbiek. You can make a much better quality of wine than anything you can get for 5 or 6 pounds. You also have the feeling of pride knowing that you made it.

Pigsdaisys said:

Hiya all. I have made my own beer and wine on and off for over 25 years but my question to all of you is......
Which is better and why?
Homemade wines, wines from kits or purchased wine from shops at 5 or 6
Pounds / Dollars a bottle
Have a good day i am really inteterested why you have this hobby

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For all the reasons mentioned already PLUS some even acquire a "lip smackin' taste" for the fruit-of-the-vine!

For me, I'm lucky to live in a region that produces a lot of grapes for wine so smaller amounts are usually available from someone somewhere. With decent fruit, its fairly easy to make wine thats better than anything available for $10 while still keeping the cost per bottle well under $10. Factor in the satisfaction of producing your own wine and, well, you'll be hooked

Agree with everything that everyone said about doing it for the enjoyment of the process but that being said you can't beat the value. A low end kit like a Vintner's Reserve cost about $2.50 a bottle to make if you don't include the cost of the bottle which is reusable and will easily match up to a $10-12 bottle at the store. A high end Eclipse kit will cost about $6.50 a bottle and will match up against a $25-30 bottle of wine from the store. However, you should never start making wine thinking you will reduce the amount of money you spend on wine. You annual expenditures for wine will probably jump by 5-10 times as much because you are 1) making more than you drink to build your cellar, 2) drinking more and 3) giving away probably more than you drink to friends and relatives.

Answering the question of which is better kits, juice pails, fresh grapes or fresh fruit will touch off a religious holy war because there are fanatical devotees to all of the above Kits are a great way to start because people with PhD's have worked out all the chemistry and packaged everything in the right quality with step by step instructions. Other people prefer the challenge of starting from fresh fruit or grapes. I will stick my neck out and say that I think your odds of being successful with your first few batches are better if you start with kits.

I pay $.65-$.75 per pound for fresh grapes, so $/bottle ends up being extremely low. I've made beer, but enjoy winemaking process more.

Hi Pigsdaisys,

I agree that it's more about the joy you get from the process than $, that said it will probably be cheaper to make wine with fruit if you have your own vineyard or orchard, or live near winemaking country. If you're like me and live about 1200 miles from the nearest noble winegrape vineyard kits are cheaper than getting noble grapes, but I can get other fruit at a fraction of the price. The question then is will you drink fruit/countrywine?

Dhaynes said:

Answering the question of which is better kits, juice pails, fresh grapes or fresh fruit will touch off a religious holy war because there are fanatical devotees to all of the above Kits are a great way to start because people with PhD's have worked out all the chemistry and packaged everything in the right quality with step by step instructions. Other people prefer the challenge of starting from fresh fruit or grapes. I will stick my neck out and say that I think your odds of being successful with your first few batches are better if you start with kits.

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You are right that the odds are in your favor for your first wine being "drinkable" if you start from a kit but you will likely never achieve a really excellent wine from a kit no matter how many "PhD's " work on it. it will always be designed around the lowest common denominator. I fully understand that most folks don't have access to fresh grapes and maybe don't want to do the chemistry and all and that's fine. But hey, if you want a top quality product, you have to put in the work

I myself ,, think that when I make the wine ,,I can change the next to make the taste more to my liking ,, when you buy wine ,, It is what some one else likes ,, but if I make it I can change the recipe to change the flavor to my taste ,, what you like and I like my be like night and day ,,,, just my thinking

Hello PigsDaisys,

Welcome to the forum. I assume you're from the UK. I believe 5 or 6 pounds would be $7.50 to $9.00 US, and yes, we can buy some very drinkable California wines in the US for that amount. I'm thinking in the UK you have access to some reasonably priced Spanish wines at this same price point which I believe are great values for their quality. To say nothing of the South African, Australian and South American wines.

OK that said, all of the above wines (homemade, kits and purchased) can be good or bad depending on many factors. It can be complicated. I'm thinking you already knew that.

For me, and my feeling is that many of us really like wine and want to know more about it. Once we make the leap to trying to make our own wine (to learn more) the creative aspect of the process kind of locks us in.

But there are many other reasons, some people want to make wine very inexpensively, which is a good thing. Other home wine makers may be trying to emulate the great chateaus to see if they can make that "special" wine. Some may be trying to follow up on a family tradition or even trying to create a wine making tradition. I think most home wine makers fall somewhere in one or some combination of these categories but I'm also sure there are many, many other reasons.

Try it, have some fun with it and learn more about the beverage you like to drink. You may be surprised to find yourself back here talking about some things you might want to do, to tweak the flavor profile of your current batch.

Regards,
Kevin