Well i just tasted my first batch of wine. Being my first batch i used a kit. It is a Vintners Reserve Chardonnay. I poured it side by side with a French Chardonnay I bottled from a winery. Just a tad bit lighter in color than the french chardonnay and a little bit lighter in taste as well. Over all i am very pleased with the taste. I am gonna let it set another week and bottle it next weekend. I am guessing it will get better with age in the bottle. Making my first fresh squeezed grapefruit wine now. next with be a frozen Welchs concentrate and i will use oak chips and try an simulate what i did in the kit. hoping the welchs turns out as good as the Vintners Reserve kit. will be much cheaper and will not have to drive an hour for the kit. Thanks to all who helped me out with my questions...
Tasted my first batch
- Thread starter Lonzo
- Start date
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As a very small kit (10 liter to make 6 gallons) thats about the quality youi can expect and if your happy with that then thats great. If you want your wine to blow the doors of that French wine then upgrade to a 16 liter kit which will need more aging but the end result is soooooooooo much better! Not sure the Welches will compare well with a kit even like this but it will be drinkable.
Just trying to go by the instructions from the kit, Ive racked it 5 times to get rid of sediment. the instructions said i was to bottle yesterday but i figured it wouldnt hurt to give it another week. maybe i will wait till Feb 1st so i can call it a Feb wine. racking it the last couple times it is not topped off anymore. will that make a difference? wouldnt want it to spoil cause it isnt topped off
5 rackings is a lot for a chardonnay (white). I would let it set awhile, then rack only once more to get rid of final sediment, then bottle. However, if there is no sediment in a month from now, I would not rack it, but just bottle it instead. A white can oxidize very easily.
If the carboy is not topped off, I would not wait a month to bottle. Topping off with a small amount of some other chardonnay won't affect the taste of yours at all. If it oxidizes from not being topped off - now that WILL affect the taste and color adversely.
If the carboy is not topped off, I would not wait a month to bottle. Topping off with a small amount of some other chardonnay won't affect the taste of yours at all. If it oxidizes from not being topped off - now that WILL affect the taste and color adversely.
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Question: As I stated i have bottled my Chardonnay. Got 29 bottles. After about a week I did open 1 bottle and drank it. It was good but could have used more flavor, almost watery. I did top the carboy up with water as per the instructions and it was prolly a lil over a gallon of water. Is this why it is "watery" or when it ages in 6 months will it be the full flavor Chardonnay I am hoping for?
I don't know why the instructions on some kits say you can use water. On this forum, we pretty much preach to never top off with water.
A gallon of water in a 6-gallon batch of wine means it is going to be pretty well diluted. The taste will improve in six months, but the wine will remain thin because of all the water.
So sorry. Next time top off with a like-wine.
I have never made a grapefruit wine, so Julie, Tom, or one of the other fruit wine makers can jump in and tell you.
When you rack any wine, save the sediment/lees in a small, sealed glass jar. After a week or so, the contents in the jar should settle leaving nice, clear wine at the top. You can user a sanitized turkey baster to suck the clean wine off and put it back with your container of wine.
Over a few rackings, you can recover a considerable amount of the wine you would otherwise have dumped.
How's the white grape-peach wine taste? I made some in July and am bottling it now, tastes a little like beer to me. I stabilized it with potassium sorbate so maybe that gives it the wierd taste
