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Greetings, I have been making wine at home for one year. All of the kits I have made have been Winexpert. In making those kits, I followed the modified instructions by Tim Vandergrift. Now, I ordered, via my local wine shop, Two Classic Winery Series kits: CArmenere and Super Tuscan. My...

The Cellar Classic Winery Series also has an Austrailian Meritage (w/skins) that I am looking forward to trying soon. Unfortunately, most meritage kits don't use the petit verdot and malbec. Nonetheless, I look forward to trying it.

Check with your local dealers. They can often get kits via their distributors. My local shop only has WE kits, but will special order anything that their distributor has. Otherwise, there are dealers that will ship WE kits to you. Cheers, Tom

Can you agitate the wine too much? I split the amount of a carboy into two carboys. I cover the mouth of the carboy with a sterile latex gloved hand and shake side to side. It's a bit heavy, but an awesome upper body workout! When the "puff" when I release my hand is minimal, I know it's...

Thank you all for your feedback. Found out that my local supply store can order RJ Spagnols, while they normally carry just Winexpert due to space limitations. I plan to order the Meritage and Carmenere. Cheers, Tom

Greetings All, I'm not familiar with the RJ Spagnols line of kits. Can someone please explain the quality pecking order of the kits, i.e. Cru, Cellar Classic, etc.? I cannot tell which are the higher end kits. Thank you, Tom

For giggles, when making the WE Brunello with skins, I placed sanitized glass marbles in the bag to weight it down. Part of the bag still floated to the top. Nonetheless, I punched it down daily. When fermenting was complete, I wore latex gloves (sanitized), and squeezed the mesh bag to get...

The new Eclipse line just came out last week, replacing the Estate Series. Some reds from Estate are still there, but with skins added, such as the Cab. Winexpert is doing a "soft launch" while they ship kits to the lower 48. Per my LHBS, they should be available in the Midwest at the end of...

I'm looking forward to the Eclipse Lodi Cab, as it now contains the grape skin pack. When you do the math, it only costs a small amount per bottle to upgrade to a better kit. MOwino, my wife picked up two bottles of Norton on our last trip to visit family in MO. Looking forward to them. Cheers!

The waiting and wondering is over: http://www.winexpert.com/products/ultra-premium/eclipse

I was going to purchase the LE2012 Nebbiolo with skins, but will wait for the Eclipse Piedmont Barolo with skins. I'm just starting the Brunello with skins, which has two yeasts. Wonder if WE will keep the existing wines with skins as the premium, or move them to the Eclipse line. Cheers, TJ

nickallen, I agree that since this is your first kit, you should follow the instructions to the letter. In subsequent kits, you may try to adjust your times for aging. Tim Vandergrist is a WE tech guy and suggested adjusting the timing of aging wine in this article...