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I agree with StBIGT, 60's are good for whites. I like to cold ferment my whites, which leads to longer fermenting times. Often times it will take my whites four weeks to ferment depending on the temperature and the yeast I use. My wine cellar holds 832 bottles and 144 gallons of bulk storage...

I've done dozens of kits and am now switching to fresh juice. I do NOT stir the lees, I rack off the lees and add the clarifying ingredients. It does take longer to clear but I generally bulk store my whites for 3 to 6 months and my reds 6 to 12 months, so they are crystal clear by the time...

I've made four of these so far, three with grape skins. The first kit without skins tasted good within 18 months. The other three were not good (in my opinion) until two years. It's a great big Merlot, you have to let this one age or you will have a mouth full of tannin.

This happened to me once, I made the kit and it turned out just fine. I feel confident that you will have the same results as long as you haven't lost a lot of the juice.

I agree. Let it sit, I bet it will settle out. It may take more than a week but it never seems to hurt to age.

I purchased the All in One pump two years ago and recently was racking an 18 gallon batch of wine into three 6 gallon carboys when suddenly the doorbell rang. I didn't shut the pump off for some reason when I went to answer it. I returned to find that the pump was now sucking the wine into...

I agree with the RJS Cabernet. Of all the wines I've made, and I've made 1950 bottles in the last three years, that one has been the favorite of anyone who has tried my wine, including me.

My vacuum pump has made the bottling process so easy that I have my 12 year old son bottle with me. I've bottled over 1500 bottles this way in the last two years. One thing that I didn't realize when I bought the pump was how much CO2 it would remove. After I realized this, I opened most of...

Not sure how many of you are using vacuum pumps for racking and bottling but it's an investment that I cannot live without. I purchased the All in One pump two years ago and recently was racking an 18 gallon batch of wine into three 6 gallon carboys when suddenly the doorbell rang. I didn't...

OK. So, I finished the bottle of Eclipse Lodi Cab that I opened the night before. It was much better after having been opened for a day (it was sealed with a cork). I'll still wait before I open any more, but if I needed to drink it in a pinch, I would probably decant it for a couple hours...

I currently have RJ Spagnols Winery Series Austrailian Pinor Noir, En Primeur Chilean Pinot Noir, and Eclipse Sonoma Valley Pinot Noir all bulk aging. At 261 days old, I wouldn't consider drinking these yet. Drinking them before 18 to 24 months would be a waste of money as they taste very...

I have five different Pinot Noir kits aging at this time. Three of them are high-end kits and are 260 days old. These three show the most promise but I wouldn't consider drinking them for another nine months at the very least. The other two are low-end kits. A Vinifera Noble (109 days old)...

I just opened a bottle of mine last night because it had finally reached the 1 year mark. Very disappointing. Way too young. I will wait another six months before opening another bottle, but honestly, it tasted like it needed another full year.

Yep. Do as Boatboy says. You are making a really nice kit, I would highly recommend aging that one in the carboy for longer than the instructions state. I ended up with about a full teaspoon of sediment in each of my bottles by following the directions on that wine.

Aha! I'm not alone. I started my kit on 5/19/2013 and here are my tasting notes. Please note, I have the worst tasting descriptions ever and I never imagined I would share them when I wrote them. 9/15/2013 Going to be amazing! 1/4/14 Decanted and is good but different. Pepper? Leather? Let...

This happened to me once as well. I left it in the carboy and continued to use the wine whip with two of the three "blades" on the other wines I was making. Soon the wine needed to be racked, so I was able to retrieve the lost blade. It was easy to reattach with an allen wrench. So, as long...

DOH! Yes. I have found that most of my reds finish in the 0.992 to 0.994 range.

I used both medium toast French and American in my Merlots and Cab/Merlots.

I think there are a couple things wrong here. #1. Fermentation didn't finish. You said your starting SG was 1.000 but I think you meant 1.100 as that's close to what my big reds start out at. The wine should have fermented until the wine was below 1.095. I'm guessing there is still some...

Um, yeah, I'm embarrassed to say that the amount of drinking I've done over the last two years has increased considerably.