Chilean Juice

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brewbush

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So my local winery is having a mass order program for chilean juice and it seems a good deal, $58-$60 per bucket with choices like cab franc, cab sauv, carmenere, malbec, merlot, petit syrah, pinot noir, syrah, zin, chard, gewurtz, mocatel, pinot grig, riesling, sauv blanc, and viognier. I have never done a juice bucket only kits and frozen must pails.

So my questions are
I do not have access to grapes for skin contact. Do you find the juice to be good by itself with no grapes to ferment with or do you have a place you order them online at a reasonable price?

I noticed FVW has grape packs, but for 3 of them at 8.8 pounds each, the shipping is $60...seems unreasonable compared with wine kit shipping. I may have to call them.

Which ones of these juices you think would do well if I do NOT have access to additional grapes. Obviously the whites...but looking at the reds specifically.

Thanks
 
pinot noir. grapes of this variety are thin skinned are are adverse to supplying any color. you can always add powder tannin to any red juice, it is the same as to what the grape skins add.
 
I made many different red wines from juice pails and finally gave up. I found the Chilean is slightly better then the Californian but just about all lacked color and character. I should have added grapes but was too lazy and more importantly too cheap. The white wines were good.
 
As A club in the Chicago-land are we normally order at least 700 buckets of juice at very good pricing , Please contact me for more information -

pick up only !!
 
I use juice pails every year and love them. I have done hundreds of gallons of both white and reds. In my opinion, juice buckets are as easy as it gets...
 
So my local winery is having a mass order program for chilean juice and it seems a good deal, $58-$60 per bucket with choices like cab franc, cab sauv, carmenere, malbec, merlot, petit syrah, pinot noir, syrah, zin, chard, gewurtz, mocatel, pinot grig, riesling, sauv blanc, and viognier. I have never done a juice bucket only kits and frozen must pails.



So my questions are

I do not have access to grapes for skin contact. Do you find the juice to be good by itself with no grapes to ferment with or do you have a place you order them online at a reasonable price?



I noticed FVW has grape packs, but for 3 of them at 8.8 pounds each, the shipping is $60...seems unreasonable compared with wine kit shipping. I may have to call them.



Which ones of these juices you think would do well if I do NOT have access to additional grapes. Obviously the whites...but looking at the reds specifically.



Thanks


Those prices seem pretty standard for the places I know of for private home winemakers, maybe even slightly higher. Seen some varietals for as low as $48. bulk pricing going even lower.
The juice is perfectly good by itself. That's why there's really no such thing as grape "packs" with fresh juice buckets. There's no diluting going on so I can't imagine you'll gain much with grapes of the same varietal.
Seems like you're comparing to kits and they are really much different. Having Just Kits as your reference point will make it more complicated. Definitely do a batch. The process can be very simple if you choose and have time. Yeast and k-meta are the only necessities if you go old school. It will degas over time by itself with proper rackings. And should clear by itself given enough time as well. And if it doesn't just research what is needed and adjust and learn as you go.
I would highly recommend doing a few simple batches before you start adding and tweaking. Make the wine as the juice is intended to be made into. If nothing else you'll have a few control batches to reference. Then blend or add grapes or fruit or tannin or the other million things you could do.
Kits are fun for off season. But fresh juice buckets are what winemaking is all about IMHO.
 

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