Other Kit wine taste?

Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum

Help Support Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Kit taste is like Dark Matter - we're all pretty sure it exists, but no one knows what exactly it is, what it tastes like or what causes it.

That said, in virtually all of the kit wines I have made in the last 10 years (vs. the all juice/grape must), I can recognize a 'plastic-y' taste when I drink the wine, regardless of its age. It's like the smell of plastic toys - makes me think of the smell of opening a new Barbie doll or action figure package. No one else I have asked when tasting the same wine has that same sense, nor has my family noticed a kit taste, despite my asking occasionally.
 
Maybe it's from the juice being contained in a plastic bladder for a long duration?
 
I had the opportunity to try a merlot made from kit last summer. The wine was good, but it did have a some here in this thread have previously described as either bubble gum or kind of a strange strawberry like flavor to it.

I have another bottle of it that has aged another year since then, ( I think that means it is approaching 2 years old now) so I might give it a go and see if the flavor is still there.
 
Nor do I, I only make dry red wines ones that do not include F-Packs.
Sadler's Reserve kits do not include invert sugars, added sugars, preservatives or colours and they seem to have much less KT.

I suspect the cause for KT is twofold. The direct relationship between KT levels and amount of water added to re-hydrate a kit seem to indicate that the water extraction process might be involved. I also suspect that the enzymes/processes they apply to the must to help break down the skins so they give up their color/tannins directly lead to KT. Maybe someone who knows specifics about the process can chime in?
 
I suspect the cause for KT is twofold. The direct relationship between KT levels and amount of water added to re-hydrate a kit seem to indicate that the water extraction process might be involved. I also suspect that the enzymes/processes they apply to the must to help break down the skins so they give up their color/tannins directly lead to KT. Maybe someone who knows specifics about the process can chime in?

I don't think there is a direct relationship to the amount of water added, the strongest KT I encountered was with a WE Eclipse high end kit (18 litres concentrate, SV Pinot Noir no skins).
 
I don't think there is a direct relationship to the amount of water added, the strongest KT I encountered was with a WE Eclipse high end kit (18 litres concentrate, SV Pinot Noir no skins).

How long was it aged? High end kits usually take at least 18 months to become ready to drink and lose the KT. Prior to that, they go through all sorts of stages between good, bad, and different...
 
I'd have to say that for me, kit taste is a strawberry raspberry chemical taste. I have a WE Eclipse Lodi 11 ranch cab that, after 26 months, is still unimpressive, uncharacteristic and thin. Even after 8 weeks in a Vadai barrel. It seems to be a common smell and taste in my kit wines that I don't get with my frozen grape wines. Cheaper ones like the mezza Luna red are more pronounced though. I started adding pressed grape skins to my kits and it helps quite a bit. I have an eclipse old vine Zin in the barrel now that tastes nearly commercial and looks and smells amazing!!View attachment 21945

I think the same thing about my Eclipse Cab! Its a huge disappointment. Mine will be approaching 2 years this September. I kinda think that Cellar Craft is a better brand. I also have started juice buckets so we shall see
how they turn out!
 
How long was it aged? High end kits usually take at least 18 months to become ready to drink and lose the KT. Prior to that, they go through all sorts of stages between good, bad, and different...

I brewed it in mid Aug 2014, lastest tasting indicated significant reduction in Kt but still it's the dominant aroma.
 
some interesting things of note, if any of you guys research individual grape varieties, there are known, flavours of other fruits associated with certain grapes, this isn't just associated with grapes either for example, some fruits have hinted flavours of others once fermented, its what makes wine so individual.

Commercial wineries get around these problems by blending, it is my belief that blending and a large storage capability, is one of the main differences, between home brewers and commercial wineries, for obvious reasons, most home brewers cannot store massive amounts of wine, unless there is plenty of storage area where you live.

For me personally, I blend a lot of my wines, with others, which I have made and although I make lots of fruit wines, I find oaking ages them, in ways which I find beneficial, to my tastes.

At the end of the day, one benefit of home brewing wine, is that you can make a wine which suits your personal tastes.

So say for example you end up with a wine which is too sweet or dry, dont bin any of them, age it and blend it with one which has the opposite characteristics, obviously in small sampler doses at first until u get a good idea of the ratios of wine a and wine b to add, that is then a blend nicer, than the sum of the two wines which you have mixed, in essence.

I personally evolved my wine making style after reading about the Spanish solera system on wiki, which I then applied on a small scale to my own wines. Also most of my wine is not stored in barrels, but the principle of mixing wines to achieve a desired taste is one which I have adopted.

On top of dryness and sweetness, it can also be applied to the principle of the blending, of flavours, to suit your own taste pallete, commercial wineries, blend in order to produce a taste associated with their wineries in essence.

Fruit crops can vary from year to year, also, and is one reason for retaining wine, from previous ferments.

Also, bear in mind terrain on which the fruit is grown can effect the final taste, as well.

Even oak grown in different regions of the world can affect flavours, so, if there is a known flavour you dislike associated, with any kit wine u have made for example, try making a similar wine, from another kit maker, a blending of the two may well help achieve a flavour which suits your own personal taste.

All of these things, outside of a wine makers control, contribute to the final wine, hence why I blend a lot of mine, its also interesting and fun, to turn something you might not particularly like into, something quite enjoyable.

Its, also, one of the things which makes, wine production, an art, not just a science.
 
Last edited:
For me personally, I blend a lot of my wines, with others, which I have made and although I make lots of fruit wines, I find oaking ages them, in ways which I find beneficial, to my tastes.

At the end of the day, one benefit of home brewing wine, is that you can make a wine which suits your personal tastes.

Fruit crops can vary from year to year, also, and is one reason for retaining wine, from previous ferments.

Also, bear in mind terrain on which the fruit is grown can effect the final taste, as well.

Even oak grown in different regions of the world can affect flavours, so, if there is a known flavour you dislike associated, with any kit wine u have made for example, try making a similar wine, from another kit maker, a blending of the two may well help achieve a flavour which suits your own personal taste.

All of these things, outside of a wine makers control, contribute to the final wine, hence why I blend a lot of mine, its also interesting and fun, to turn something you might not particularly like into, something quite enjoyable.

Its, also, one of the things which makes, wine production, an art, not just a science.
I don't disagree with any of those points, but I have a little different philosophy about retaining prior vintages to blend - but that's not to say 'I'm right' and 'you're wrong', however...
By *not* blending one year to the next, you can distinguish the various traits of each year, the terroir, the weather, the oaking, and the aging itself. Blend them together and you may smooth out the rough edges of some of those aspects, but I usually find the result too bland and generic.Which I think is part of the reason that "vintage" labeling rules require 90% or greater of a given wine be from a particular year/region (depending on the jurisdiction).
 
Sorry to bring this hated topic back up but its better then to start another one on the subject.

I hate to say I fall in the catagory that clearly tastes the KT.
100% 'Bazooka Joe' childhood nostalgia.
Its exactly thát taste that I couldn't lay my finger on at first.
Even in the kit I degassed like there's no tomorrow its prominent.

I'll stop using sorbate for my next kits as I understand this is a suspect.
But did anyone try to substitute their tap water by bottled water?

The differences in water might possibly explain why some don't have this problem?
 
@Dutch:

I was in the same boat with my first few kits. I too, stopped using sorbate on the dry wines. That helped. Aging the wines for a year or longer is a great help as well. I find most of my kits to have some degree of that flavor profile early on.
 
This may be just slightly off topic... I have several red kits aging. One an inexpensive WE VR Cab... Others or high end Petit Verdot, Stags Leap Merlot... To me, they taste quite similar while very young. Never did a side by side tasting but they all have "that taste" to them. I'm thinking its just a "young" taste to the wine. Am I correct with this and is it just time that produces their individuality?
 
Scram,

One test would be to compare each of your wines to a commercial one of the same varietal to see if there is an identifiable KT.

The other test is to taste each of your wines over the course of aging to see when KT goes away over time.

I haven't done that either test but both seem like cool esperiments.

Heather
 
This may be just slightly off topic... I have several red kits aging. One an inexpensive WE VR Cab... Others or high end Petit Verdot, Stags Leap Merlot... To me, they taste quite similar while very young. Never did a side by side tasting but they all have "that taste" to them. I'm thinking its just a "young" taste to the wine. Am I correct with this and is it just time that produces their individuality?

I tend to think you are on the right track with this thinking. To somewhat support this, i have noted a similarity between my (young) kits and other wines that I know are young. These include VERY young wine at German Neuer Wein festivals, Beaujolais nouveau, and Austrian wines at heurigers. They all have some notes in common with young kits. However, they are not exactly the same, and I think some of my kits (typically the cheaper ones) hang on to this taste longer than others (typically the more expensive ones).
 
This link talks about pasteurization of kit wines.
All kit wines have to go through pasteurization — that is, they get heated to around 160 °F (70 °C) for a minute or so, and then are cooled very rapidly and packaged. This kills spoilage organisms and keeps the kits shelf-stable. During the heating process it was thought that sugars could bond to other compounds in the juice, making it difficult for some yeast to ferment them — thus the strict adherence to the strain included in the kit.

This turns out to be a very slight consideration: The actual change in the sugars by pasteurization is minor, and any perceived flaws in a substitute strain in your kit are more likely to be due to your personal taste rather than an artifact of pasteurizing — it was more a factor in the old days of kit processing, when temperatures were higher, for longer durations.
https://winemakermag.com/1390-yeast-trials-wine-kits

Could that be a source of "kit wine taste"?
 

Latest posts

Back
Top