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I just bottled a Cellar Craft Showcase Amarone at one year and there is no way this will be around another year. I always had considered the RJS Super Tuscan the best wine kit I had ever done, until now...

I settled on Verona. I am starting small with fifteen vines. We can compare notes!

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Most of the frotenac reds that I have sampled here have been, in my opinion, bad. I did try an Outlaw series wine that was decent but it was semi-sweet and I just would not want to make gallons of a wine like that. I would not drink it. For the whites, most of them have been decent. The...

I hear that Marquette is very tough to work with due to high acidity and very low tannins. I know some yeast selections can alleviate some of that, but I have no experience with that. What is your experience with Marquette? Perhaps I should just forget the reds and try to produce a nice...

I have an acreage here in Omaha with a small orchard and a pond. I want to put in about twenty vines and probably need a cold season grape. Around here there is a lot of Frotenac but I have not been impressed by the wine. I like italian reds like Super Tuscans and Chianti. I love Amarone...

I love Super Tuscans. Where would one go about ordering this limited edition?

The RJS Super Tuscan is probably one of the most consistently rated excellent kit wines. I make one or two every year. I would say it drinks like a $15 - $20 wine. Actually, I talked to their rep once and was told that wines in the 16 to 17% alcohol are not uncommon with this kit. One of my...

Yes.SA to V ratio is huge in the natural world. It is why a Yukon Moose is 1.5 times larger than a Shiras Moose. One day, I would like to order a 50 gallon oak barrel , and then make 8 batches of really good kits, like the RJS Winery Super Tuscan, and then age them in a new barrel for a year...

Sure. Without getting too crazy.... Essentially it comes down to the fact that you simply cannot approximate the conditions one would find in a year or two in an oak barrel in a very climate controlled room. Carboys are anaerobic, oak casks are probably a little aerobic. The surface area...

I like to switch out yeast because EC1118 is boring. I do not rack every three months, there is really no reason to do so since the wine is not dropping sediment like a fresh grape wine will. I do k meta though every three months. Like others said, hydrometer tells you when to go to secondary...

The French hate to admit it, but a lot of their cooking was borrowed from the piemontese. French royalty would send for piemontese chefs. Many french dishes are actually la cucina alta or high cuisine from piemonte.

What you refer to is tanin. Chew a grape stem from some store bought grapes you will experience it. You can add grape skin and stem tanins to achieve your desired level. Dryness refers to residual sugars. If you go to dry, there is none. Alcoholic wines are called "hot". It is considered...

That is good to know. I also hear the alcohol potential of this kit is upwards of 16%, which might be pushing the alcohol limits of the BM4x4 as well, but to be honest, if it goes a little off dry, 30 bottles of recioto is not a bad thing at all.

I would like to substitute the EC-1118 with BM 4X4 since I really like the fruit forward profile this yeast produces. However, I have never used it on a kit before (just local grapes). I have heard that I should add extra nutrient. How much since the kit already has some nutrient in it? Or...