This is why I shop for most of my stuff at
http://finevinewines.com/ as he backs his warranty 100% with no hassles.
Ummmm, I wasn't going to mention the place, but that's the place I bought it from. In his defense he did say he would issue a refund in 2 weeks if I'm still not satisified. I'm just miffed that he made stuff up to make it look like I did something wrong. Want a laugh? Here's the email trail.
Steve:
Hello,
I recently purchased this kit and it finished today. This kit tastes terrible, like it’s very old. The description says it is “significantly sweeter than traditional wines” but in fact it is more like semi-dry after adding the f-pac.
Speaking of the f-pac – this bag looked like it was supposed to hold 12 cups or so of flavoring but it only had about 4 cups in the bag, and no it didn’t have a leak. That is the first thing I check for when opening a kit. There was a lot of extra bag here. This is supposed to be a wild berry zin but it tastes so bad that there is no hint of any berries at all in this. Can you check this out for me please? Right now as it stands this stuff isn’t worth the bottle to put it in. I’m pretty disappointed with how this turned out, I think it was a bad kit, if there even is such a thing. Thanks.
George:
I have not had any problems with that kit, but there is always a first time for every kit. We just made the Green Apple Riesling. We served it a party and 20 people went through 4 bottles in no time.
I will be happy to replace the kit, but let me ask several questions:
1. When did you start the kit?
2. When did you add the flavor pack?
3. What was the s.g. when you added the pack and what is it now.
I think I know what happened and your answers will help me determine if I am correct.
Steve:
I started the kit on 7/16. It finished rather earlier than the 20 days the instructions said it would. The FG was .996 when I racked it yesterday and the airlock had no bubbles coming through. I then added the sorbate and k-meta, degassed the daylights out of it, then added the flavor pack and then the fining agents. I know the instructions say to degas for 24 hours, but I have one of those plastic stir rods I attach to my drill and degassed for almost an hour before adding the f-pac and it was pretty clear. Plus I didn’t want to leave that big void in the carboy for 24 hours to wait to add the f-pac. I didn’t take a reading after adding the f-pac. All I know is it was rather on the dry side and wasn’t anywhere near as sweet enough so I had to add some simple syrup to get it up to sweetness. Right now the SG is 1.020 after sweetening with nearly 4 cups of sugar. The description says it has a sweetness of 10 – or at least I thought it said that on the website. And I think the most disappointing thing was there is no berry flavoring to it, at least that I can taste anyway. I thought I followed everything to a T with the exception of waiting 24 hours to add the f-pac, only because of the headspace I had in the carboy.
George:
Based on what you have told me, the wine is less than 2 weeks old and I have never known a wine that you can evaluate at that point.
It appears you rushed the wine and did not follow the instructions. The instructions clearly state to add the flavoring pack on day 20, which would be August 5th. This delay is provided to allow the yeast to die. My guess is that you added the flavoring pack too early when you still had live yeast cells. This allowed the yeast to ferment the sugars in the F-Pack which is why your wine tasted dry. I make this determination based on your adding the 4 cups of sugar as that will raise your s.g by .02. Since your s.g. is now 1.020, all of the sugars in the flavoring pack have been converted to alcohol, thus the dry wine. In addition, the flavors can not develop in 2 weeks, they need time.
With that being said, I want you to wait 2 more weeks and try the wine then. If you are still not satisfied, I will contact Mosti about a refund.