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I usually make 3 or 4 summer wines each year. I like the RJ Spagnol - Orchard Breezin' brand mostly. The summer wines are pretty much ready to drink as soon as they are bottled or bagged. I put the batch in three of the Wine-On-Tap bags and put the remainder in 1.5 liter bottles. My last one...

Bottling is something I least enjoy about wine making. I find myself always putting it off. For one reason or another, every time I find myself making a big mess and ending up wasting one-half to one full bottle of wine with every batch I bottle. Consider this a "personal" plug from a...

Here is a nice article about new methods for growing better grapes in very hot areas, like Texas, Arizona. http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20111128/WIRE/111281033/1070/opinion04?p=1&tc=pg If you get another wine making talk page, go to the bottom and click on: <Click here to proceed...

I am very interested in the Norton grape. I am reading a book "Wild Vine", about the history of the Norton. Very unusual history indeed, for a grape, whose wine won such honors in Vienna and France in the late 1800's, only to fall out of favor for many years following. A question for those of...

This past weekend my friend came back from Iowa, where he goes each year to help his friend pick grapes from his 7 acre vineyard. His friend makes and sells wine from the vineyard. Last year he brought back a bottle of wine, I don't recall the variety, that was just semi OK. It had a strong...

I have been planning this "experiment" for awhile now. I just got my Vadai 6-gallon barrel, so I am ready to go. The purpose of this actually is multiple: 1), To produce a kit Chardonnay that hopefully will be even better than what it would be if fermented in the normal manner in a plastic...

I wasn't around last week, I was on vacation. My wife and I spent the week tasting wine and taking in the sights in California wine country. Because we had a one-day engagement in LA, we started there and the next day drove North to Paso Robles, one of my favorite wine areas. Bought three...

My new MM Meglioli Barolo kit just arrived from George. It contains both a grape pack and a raisin pack, because I paid extra for the grape pack. I wasn't sure if George was just going to provide me with one of the Cellar Craft grape packs, which he stocks, or if the kit would actually contain...

I broke down and got a nice temperature compensating PH meter from The Wine Makers Toy store. Nothing like a new toy!!!

A few months ago I read that sometime in September, Wine Expert is going to introduce a new revolutionary way of making wine kits; something Tim V. has been working on for over ten years. Has anyone heard anything about this? Any new news?

I thought I had done a pretty good job of looking over all of the products George has to offer. I don't know if it is a new entry or if I just missed it, but on George's on-line catalog, at the bottom of the first column there is a heading - "Grape Packs". It looks as though we now can buy...

At about half price, I have an opportunity to buy an Italian floor corker that has likely corked less than 300 bottles. It has the metal jaws to squeeze the cork. I have seen them new on the internet as low as $114.99. I can buy the big sturdy red corker for $69.95 new and Portuguese floor...

I saw an entry at another place about floor corkers and which one is best, so I am now curious. The Italian floor corker costs a bit more (25%?) than the Portuguese floor corker and double the price of the big, usually red, floor corker, which is seen a lot lately. The Italian corker has metal...

The above quote is from another forum topic. This new topic has been created to further discuss this issue and for the benefit of new wine makers. Wade, I understand that at that the secondary fermentation stage there is loads of CO2 still in the wine, and that there will continue...

Last night I started my EP Delu Ranch Woodridge Cab Sav. When I opened the box, the juice had leaked some and caused a real mess inside. Everything was grapie and sticky. The plastic bag containing the packets of chemicals has small air holes punched into it, so you can imagine that...

Yesterday I bottled some of my MM Ren. Amarone. (I racked to a 5-gallon carboy for bulk aging and bottled 8 - 375 ml bottles.) I used the hand corker, which George includes with his delux equipment kit. It wasn't so bad, except for the first 3 bottles, because I didn't get the corks in...

Here is an article about wine diamonds. I found it interesting. Maybe cold stabilization is not always that great. http://ezinearticles.com/?Tartaric-Crystals-in-Wine:-the-Wine-Diamonds-of-Quality&amp;id=134844

I have some additives, which I need to weigh before adding to must/wine. I looked out there for a scale that would weigh in 0.1 grams. Some are very cheap, but they also get mixed reviews from users. I don't want to spend more than necessary. It doesn't have to be extremely accurate, +- 0.2...

Of those of you who made this kit, would you make it again? Would you do anything differently next time? Do you wish you had made one of the other cab kits, instead? I am debating making either this one, the EP RJS cab kit, or the CC Red MTN kit. I know the Red MTN kit is very popular right...

Sunday, my wife and I attended our first meeting at the local wine club. We didn't exactly know what to expect, but we were excited to have the opportunity to meet other home wine makers and to taste some of their pride and joys. The theme was wine and chocolate. We had a really super time and...