Kit to make fruit wine? But not the wine cooler type...

[Newbie]

Hi,

Does anyone know of a kit to make fruit wine? Not the Niagara Mist or wine cooler types, but a true full body wine with fruit.
There's a small winery in eastern Canada that makes a blueberry shiraz, and blueberry amerone. I've LOVE to make something similar.

Or can I take a kit and fermet it with blueberries?

The reason I'd like to use a kit is that I've only had it done at a FOP and I think it might be a little ambitious to try a fruit wine from berries as my first attempt.

Any thoughts?

 

[Tom]

1st WELCOME,
I know of no kit that does a straight fruit wine. All the fruit wines are make fron fruit. Yes there is alot more to than a kit wine. I would stay with kits until you are comfortable. Then, make a fresh fruit wine. The one you are talkling about is a blended wine. To make that you make a shiraz and add blueberry flavorings like a f-pac.
There is a Vitners harvest that comes in a can and they may have some fruit bases. MAybe someone else can give you more info.

 

[cpfan]

First, unfortunately I don't think that Vintner's Harvest is available in Canada.

Second, how about the name of the winery? It doesn't seem to be Rossignol Estate in PEI. and I got tired of looking after that.

A Blueberry shiraz would have to be a blend or mixture of some form. The Niagara Mist (etc) kits accomplish it by fermenting a grape wine and then adding fruit flavouring.

You could make blueberry wine and then blend it with shiraz wine. Or add blueberries to a shiraz at fermentation.

Steve

 

[arcticsid]

Steve since I joined this group I see alot of winemakers from Canada. is there a reason? Is alcohol outrageous there? I haven't been through Canada in quite a few years, but I do remember alcohol was pretty spendy in the bars. It could also be Canadians appreciate nice wine. I also recognize most Canadians ask about kits. I too live in the north country but fruit isn't untouchable, just expensive. And I would like to hear more about this BOP, is that a Canadian thing? I have to wonder if we can do that in the US?
Troy

 

[Tom]

Steve since I joined this group I see alot of winemakers from Canada. is there a reason? Is alcohol outrageous there? I haven't been through Canada in quite a few years, but I do remember alcohol was pretty spendy in the bars. It could also be Canadians appreciate nice wine. I also recognize most Canadians ask about kits. I too live in the north country but fruit isn't untouchable, just expensive. And I would like to hear more about this BOP, is that a Canadian thing? I have to wonder if we can do that in the US?
Troy

Troy Here in NJ there are close to a dozen. But kinda different than what you think. Here you buy either 1/2 or a full barrel of wine. They make you do most of the work (all from grapes) destem and transfer etc. and then a year later you bottle. Its a pretty good size investment for just ONE wine.

 

[Wade E]

I would make 2 seperate wines, one being a kit and the other being from fresh or frozen fruit or the Vintners Harvest wine bases which some of them are awesome but not all. Then I would do small trial blends until you are happy with the result recording exactly how much of each you mixed in and then multiply that by what is left of the 2 batches or make a few variations of whats left. Say you start off with a 6 gallon kit wine and 3 gallons of fruit wine, maybe you will need 2 gallons of the fruit wine to blend with 5 gallons of kit wine and then youll have 1 gallon of each also to have separately. The Vintners harvest Blueberry, Blackberry, Cranberry, Raspberry, and especially the Black Currant are very good. I have tried the Marionberry which was awefull and had no taste at all. The Cherry was weak in flavor.

 

[cpfan]

Troy:

Alcohol taxes are outrageous in Canada. It varies from province to province but they are outrageous or worse.

So many, many Canadians make wine and beer, particularly from kits. In fact, nearly all of the kits talked about on the wine making forums are made in Canada (Winexpert, Vineco, Spagnols, Cellar Craft, Paklab, etc).

Ferment on Premises (FoP) or Brew on Premises (BoP) type stores are legal in British Columbia, Ontario, New Brunswick, and recently Saskatchewan. These stores nearly all just make kits. I ran one for 6 years in BC.

In most of the USA, an FoP must work within the winery laws. They do exist but not too many of them, as far as I can tell. There may be more in my town of 50,000 than most states.

In Canada, there are some wine makers that make fruit wines, my store did some business selling equipment, yeast, and other stuff to them. Some FoPs will make wine from fruit, but not many.

Steve

 

[arcticsid]

Tom, we only have 4 months or so of summer here. i can't imagine anyone coming to my "shop" in the middle of January when it's -50F to check on their wine. And what would my obligation be to them? I have to pay the heat?
It's a great thought, and makes good sense, but I was just wondering. They have a class at the university here on wine and beer making and it is filled up immediately, but someone else pays for the heat. I may be interested in forming a group to teach or help with wine making, beer is not in my interest, though I could teach a class on drinking it. I really enjoy the wine making and if thing sgo the way I am hoping I will sure be looking at all of you for guidance.
Troy

 

[Tom]

Troy:

Alcohol taxes are outrageous in Canada. It varies from province to province but they are outrageous or worse.

So many, many Canadians make wine and beer, particularly from kits. In fact, nearly all of the kits talked about on the wine making forums are made in Canada (Winexpert, Vineco, Spagnols, Cellar Craft, Paklab, etc).

Ferment on Premises (FoP) or Brew on Premises (BoP) type stores are legal in British Columbia, Ontario, New Brunswick, and recently Saskatchewan. These stores nearly all just make kits. I ran one for 6 years in BC.

In most of the USA, an FoP must work within the winery laws. They do exist but not too many of them, as far as I can tell. There may be more in my town of 50,000 than most states.

In Canada, there are some wine makers that make fruit wines, my store did some business selling equipment, yeast, and other stuff to them. Some FoPs will make wine from fruit, but not many.

Steve

Is that on top of the PST & GST?

 

[Tom]

Tom, we only have 4 months or so of summer here. i can't imagine anyone coming to my "shop" in the middle of January when it's -50F to check on their wine. And what would my obligation be to them? I have to pay the heat?
It's a great thought, and makes good sense, but I was just wondering. They have a class at the university here on wine and beer making and it is filled up immediately, but someone else pays for the heat. I may be interested in forming a group to teach or help with wine making, beer is not in my interest, though I could teach a class on drinking it. I really enjoy the wine making and if thing sgo the way I am hoping I will sure be looking at all of you for guidance.
Troy

Well if you do you know we are here for you and ALL.

 

[cpfan]

Is that on top of the PST & GST?

Yeah alcohol taxes are crazy compared to the GST & PST.

OK maybe I exagerate a bit, but I believe that the following prices from last summer when I was living in BC, are at least close.

Yellow Tail Shiraz 750 ml $14 (all taxes etc included)
Yellow Tail Shiraz 1.5 litres $10 at Costco Spokane Washington
At the time the two dollars were basically even

Steve

 

[St Allie]

Sheesh Steve,

No wonder you all make your own alcohol. Do they not add extra tax to the kits then?

Allie

 

[Wade E]

cp, was the store in Canada a huge chain store also, cause you cant compare a local liquor store to a huge discount store. If I go 2 rodas over there is a grocery store where i can buy cheese for $6.99 a lb but if I go to the next town over were BJ's is which is the same thing as Costco i can get it for $2.99 a lb for the same exact cheese. Apples and Oranges.

 

[cpfan]

cp, was the store in Canada a huge chain store also, cause you cant compare a local liquor store to a huge discount store.

Gee Whiz...I thought I was comparing two monopolies. One the government run BC liquor monopoly, the other Costco.

Sorry there basically are no alternate prices in Canada. Yeah there are some private liquor stores, but they offer convenience rather than pricing. Maybe there are some deals in Alberta, but no big savings in the Alberta stores I've shopped at. I recall a small town Alberta store benig about 25 cents cheaper than a big Calgary store on one particular bottle of wine. The same thing in BC was basically the same price.

I (and my friends that I've talked about this with) haven't been in any big US liquor stores. We shopped at Costco, and Wal-Mart.

Steve

 

[cpfan]

Sheesh Steve,

No wonder you all make your own alcohol. Do they not add extra tax to the kits then?

Allie

Actually little or no taxes on kits in Canada. After all it's just grape juice and some other stuff. Specifically no GST on kits. No PST on kits in BC, Alberta, or Sakatchewan. I don't understand the PST in Ontario as I get hit a very small amount in one store and nothing in another.

Steve

 

[cpfan]

Wade:

Current pricing for 750ml of Yellow Tail Shiraz (the regular one, not the reserve).

BC $13. Ontario $12. Today a US dollar would probably cost me about 1.17 Canadian on my credit card. So $11.11 US in BC, and $10.26US in Ontario.

Doing a dumb Yahoo search brought up a couple of stores at $7US.

Steve

 

[Newbie]

First, unfortunately I don't think that Vintner's Harvest is available in Canada.

Second, how about the name of the winery? It doesn't seem to be Rossignol Estate in PEI. and I got tired of looking after that.

A Blueberry shiraz would have to be a blend or mixture of some form. The Niagara Mist (etc) kits accomplish it by fermenting a grape wine and then adding fruit flavouring.

You could make blueberry wine and then blend it with shiraz wine. Or add blueberries to a shiraz at fermentation.

Steve

Cpfan, the name of the winery is Auk Island Winery. I'm planning to tour it this summer while on vacation and sample EVERYTHING! And ask lots of questions...

Ok, so I need to take baby steps... first, I should try making a few kits at home... then attempt a batch of fruit wine, and blend them until I like the result.

A few yrs ago someone gave me several bottles of homemade blueberry wine, I drank one, didn't think it was great and forgot about the other bottle. 2 or 3 yrs later, I found it. WOW, it was good! And to think that I almost dumped it down the sink.

If only I had the recipe....

 

[cpfan]

Newbie:

Not much info on their web-site. You could make a Shiraz kit and add some blueberries to the primary fermenter. (Amarone kits tend to be more expensive, so start with Shiraz). You mention Niagara Mist, so I'll assume that you have access to Vineco, so maybe Ken Ridge Classic Shiraz or Vinterra Shiraz. You may not want to spend more on a Ken Ridge Showcase Australian Shiraz for this experiment.

If you have access to a Wine Kitz store, ask about the 1 gallon Woodland Estates kits. This would mean an equipment purchase but less wine if the experiment is less than satisfactory. I haven't made one of these, so I have no feedback on the kit in general.

Steve

 

[Ceegar]

I would make 2 seperate wines, one being a kit and the other being from fresh or frozen fruit or the Vintners Harvest wine bases which some of them are awesome but not all. Then I would do small trial blends until you are happy with the result recording exactly how much of each you mixed in and then multiply that by what is left of the 2 batches or make a few variations of whats left. Say you start off with a 6 gallon kit wine and 3 gallons of fruit wine, maybe you will need 2 gallons of the fruit wine to blend with 5 gallons of kit wine and then youll have 1 gallon of each also to have separately. The Vintners harvest Blueberry, Blackberry, Cranberry, Raspberry, and especially the Black Currant are very good. I have tried the Marionberry which was awefull and had no taste at all. The Cherry was weak in flavor.

Wade - have you tried the Loganberry? I have a can sitting here waiting for my buckets to arrive and then I'm going to attempt a 3 gal batch of the Loganberry. I hope it's good.

 

[NSwiner]

I checked for the fun fun of it to see the price here for the yellow tail Shiraz and it's $12.99 taxes in . The reason we got into making our wine is Hubby and me have started drinking enough wine the last couple of years to make it worth doing a kit .When found out how cheap it was that was a bonus .Now we know what kinds we like best and what we don't like but there's always something different that catches our attention ,maybe made by a another brand . Newbie maybe you should check out the Lunenburg county wine you can buy it at the NSLC http://www.canada-wine.com/history.html they make a blueberry wine and if you get to NS there's alot of wineries down in the valley ,also our favorite Jost wines in Malagash you can go there and sample all the wines you want for free before you buy .