I have never made a RJS kit but would have to add that you don't have to let them bulk age that long. Ideal to me and only to me would be to bulk age for a year and a half or so and them bottle and wait for 6 months or so, but it is not necessary. You can bottle it if you want when the kit is done, wait a few months and enjoy.
A lot of what you read is just "eclectic" (wine snob) talk. The person wants to feel like a winery owner in France or Italy. Yes, age will help a wine but the description you posted seems out there to me. This is only my opinion though. I have drank many a kit wine aged 2 years in the bottle that were just as good or far better than the average $15.00 to $20.00 bottle of wine.
On average though, the normal home wine maker gets too inpatient and drinks their wine too young. You see many that make a kit, open a bottle in 6 months to sample and another a month later, so on and so on. If it suits them. Enjoy. If not, let the rest age longer.
It will be better with age but kits are made to be drank faster. The true benefit from bulk aging is to keep you out of it until it matures. There are some other benefits to bulk aging as the entire lot of wine matures together but in the long run, it is not necessary. I have enjoyed plenty of my wines that have aged a year. They will be better in another year and probably peaked by then.
The only true benefit I have experienced to long term aging is the aroma. After a year or so at rest, I have found the taste of the wine identical to the commercial. I don't find the aroma the same. many speak of a kit taste. I have never experienced this but I do notice a kit smell. To me, all kit wines smell pretty much the same until about 2 years of age. I can then tell the difference in the varietals. This is mainly for reds. Whites mature much quicker, normally within a year.
Many don't realize it, but many of the commercial wines are made just like our kits. They use a concentrate, ferment it, rack it, clear it, age it a year or so in a steel tank. Oak chips or cube like we use are utilized and then it is bottled. Now your higher end wines are made the traditional way with barrel aging but many (not all) of your $6.00 to $10.00 dollar a bottle wines are made just like we do it, only on a larger scale.
Smurfe
