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That was one I purchased as well. Short the water a bit, EM for at least a month, and let it age for 3 years or more before you start tasting the occasional bottle.
Don't be afraid to over-oak it as well. within reason.
 
Occasionally Costco puts its Argentia Ridge wines on sale. I bought a double (60-bottle) kit of Chardonnay and another of Merlot in-store for $64 CND each. That's about 50 US bucks for a 60-bottle kit.
I've been making the Argentia Ridge wines for some time. The initial 6-gallon batches I made precisely following the supplier's instructions weren't awful but I wouldn't serve it to anyone who I wanted to keep as a friend.
I now make them in five-gallon rather than the six-gallon batches and find that they produce acceptable every day wine equal to a $10 commercial bottle.
Since participating in this blog I've been experimenting with adding, depending on the wine variety, sugar, raisins, dried grape skins, tannin, glycerine and different yeasts.
The Chardonnay is pretty good just with the reduced water content. The kit comes with oak. I found my tweaks either did little or made the wine worse except, to my tastes, when I added a 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of raisins. Others couldn't tell the difference.
The reds are a different story. The Argentia Ridge Merlot is my least favourite red but at that price? The addition of dried grape skins made the Merlot a much better wine, richer colour and to my taste a deeper plum flavour.
As you've guessed by now, I'm always looking for a bargain. The dried grape skins cost almost $15 with tax. Thanks to Joeswine's suggestion I tried adding black table grape skins.
Since I was already in Costco, I bought a $5 bunch of black sable grapes, destemmed them and crushed them. I drank the juice with my breakfast and plopped the grape skins with a bit of residual pulp into my fermenter with the kit ingredients just before adding the yeast.
It's now cooking in its second ferment. I was astounded that the flavour jumped out from a small sampling without significant sweetness nor any harshness in a more profound way than the dried grape skins. I am super eager to see how this batch turns out.
 
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The oak chips plugged up my syphon hose 3 times. I do have the cap on to stop it, but it didn't help. I lost some wine due to mixing up the trub on the bottom. How do I avoid that in the future?
 
The oak chips plugged up my syphon hose 3 times. I do have the cap on to stop it, but it didn't help. I lost some wine due to mixing up the trub on the bottom. How do I avoid that in the future?

Good morning Reign.
There are a few things I’d suggest that will at least minimize your issues here.

First, you want your wine perfectly settled when you rack it from the vessel (fermenter, carboy, whatever). I have an AIO so I put my sending vessel of wine on the floor and use a rolled bath towel to keep the vessel still and stable. Let it sit there undisturbed for about an hour before you start racking. Use that time to make sure your receiving vessel and all your tools are sanitized. Then start your rack. This will also minimize the amount of wine loss to your Lees at the bottom.

Next, rest the head of your racking cane at the lowest point in the vessel without punching into to.

Finally, if you’re still having issues, use a brew bag or something similar over your racking cane. I’m not a big fan of of this one. But, it might help.

Really, if you’re using gravity alone to rack your wine, you’ll probably always have the little frustrations of the cane stopping up or it going too slow. And, if you don’t have one, a vacuum system like the AIO will make allof this a very pleasant experience
 
The oak chips plugged up my syphon hose 3 times. I do have the cap on to stop it, but it didn't help. I lost some wine due to mixing up the trub on the bottom. How do I avoid that in the future?
Always put oak chips and skins (if included) in a muslin bag. Don't worry about picking up a bit of trub, each subsequent racking will have less and less.
 
Home Brew Ohio has 15% off of everything, today through the 19th. No coupon code needed, it's automatically applied to your cart. Free shipping over $50. Home Brew Ohio
 
I made a Cab, heavy body from them. Very very disappointed in the finished wine. Had NO body and did not taste like a cab. Looking at the bottled wine, can easily see through it, and I followed their instructions to the T.
 
I made a Cab, heavy body from them. Very very disappointed in the finished wine. Had NO body and did not taste like a cab. Looking at the bottled wine, can easily see through it, and I followed their instructions to the T.
It was wine lovers on line.
 

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