Hartm,
Remember, the grape packs are only 1.5liters and that volume is comprised of skins, sugar, seeds, pulp, and some stems. When I have made wine from grapes, I have ended up with 4 gallons of pressed skins after discarding a good chunk of seeds at the bottom of the fermenters.
4 gallons x 5 liters/gallon = 20 liters of skins. That's a massive difference between the 1.5 liters of skins and other solids in a grape pack. Based on the grape packs kits that I have made and this math, I don't believe that there will be a
significant change in color with the addition of a grape pack. The AllJuice Petite Sirah that I made using the Mosti AllGrape pack did not seem to make a wine that had more color than the other AllJuice comparable wines that I had made. The WE Crushendo Cab that I added 4 gallons of Cabernet Sauvignon pomace had a
marked increase in color intensity, among other things.
As Wade notes, the higher-end kits seem to produce the best color. Of the kits that I have made, the darkest were the WE International Selection French Cabernet Sauvignon and the Mosti Mondiale Masters Outback Shiraz. Even Meglioli kits have shown what I would term as lighter color intensity than comparable commercial wines.
And again, I must stress that if the flavor is to your liking, then give some forgiveness to the color. There are some sacrifices that need to be made in order to be able to make wine from grape-based products any time you want throughout the year instead of only in the Fall season, for instance. The kits are modified from what you would receive with fresh grapes to provide a very reliable and quite consistent product from kit to kit that resists spoilage and still provides a wine that ends up in the style of the advertised product.
With kit winemaking, several variables have been removed from the winemaking equation - this is one of the things that helps kits to be successful the vast majority of times they are made. Compare those success ratios to those of fresh grapes and they won't be as high. The color intensity is part of that trade off. Personally, if I find a wine to be light in color but full in taste, I don't care that much about the color. I can't taste color, after all.
- Jim