wine kits vs home made vs commercial

[winer]

Thanks, foodie. I saw your post on the "Rants and Raves" board. I've copied my original question below. If my understanding is correct, you started off making "home made" wine, and evolved into a commercial winemaker. I would be very interested in your comments on the relative merits of wine from kits and homemade wine.

Incidently, as a newby to the idea of making your own wine, I would be interested in why you think the U-Brew wines are all low quality stuff. Here in Vancouver BC, we have two manufacturers of kits, Brew King and RJSpagnol, both of which sell their products to the U-Brew stores. Both (if you believe their advertising) offer some very high quality kits.

[Thomas]

The last time I made wine at home was in the seventies. The kits then included grape concentrate. If that is what U-Brew or any other kit is, then the quality can't be much better than what I got.

I don't believe grape growers would sell their best crops to go as concentrate, plus wine is such a natural product that the very idea of creating grape concentrate goes against the natural idea.

You can get fresh grapes and fresh pressed juice during harvest from suppliers who are in the business of servicing home winemakers--at least it can be done in the U.S. I do not know much about what is available in Vancouver.

[Kcwhippet]

If you want a good source for grapes (usually frozen), check this. - www.brehmvineyards.com/

[Egloff]

Winer & Foodie
I've posted a bit of rant reply already.

You can get fresh grapes in Vancouver, usually in September, depends on the harvest in California. None of the local vinyards sell grapes that I know of.

Typically by the time you rent the press it is best to go in with some friends, we make about 200 bottles a year. It is a risky endevour, prices change as does quality and things can go wrong.

Also with several people involved lots of issues come up. How much sulfite to add, acid ballance, oak cask or no, how fast to force the press, how long to wrack and who owns which carboy.

We measure the sweetness of the grapes before we buy and balance acidity after the press. This requires scientific equipment and friends who know how to use it. We wrack the wine for almost a year before we bottle.

Kits can be fine, but get ones without added sugar and I would recomend at least a month in the carboy after killing the yeast. Get rid of as much of the chemicals as you can.

[winer]

Thanks to all. Foodie, the kits I've seen recently have BOTH concentrate and juice in them. The higher priced kits (higher quality?) have a higher proportion of juice. I've tasted a few wines made from kits, and I've liked them. Do they compare to commercially bought wines ? My opinion is that the ones I've had have been as good as the lower priced (less than $10 - $12 Cad) commercial wines. Good enogh that I would like to try making a batch, if I can find someone willing to share a batch with me !

[Thomas]

Seems to me that winer should meet egloff...

Egloff, which chemicals are you talking about when you say, "get rid of as much of the chemicals as you can."

SO2, sulfur dioxide, which you probably add as campden tablets or metabisulfite powder, cannot be got rid of; when you add it, some binds in solution and some remains free--the free agent is the one that dissipates over time (and the one that helps protect against oxidation), the bound builds with each addition of SO2. In the U.S. there are limits on how much bound can be in commercial wine, although, with the exception of asthma, I haven't determined on what those limits are based.

Anyway, the point is that it is about the only "chemical" you should need to use before fermentation, and very little of it.

Incidentally, SO2 is carbon-based and naturally occurring in this universe. Under the loose definition of the word "organic" in the food world, that makes SO2 also organic--and it is.