This is a collection of beginner tips distilled from multiple sources and influenced by my experience and opinions.
 Making Wine From Kits
 Avoid a Costly Mistake
 Improvements for wine kits  

 Brettanomyces

 Making Wine From Kits

For your first wine kit you may want to buy a kit that is middle of the road. A middle of the road kit costs between $45 and $60 for 23 liters of finished wine and is concentrated about 74%. One example is Brew King Vintners Reserve, the volume of the concentrate is 6 liters and you add 17 liters of water to produce 23 liters. I suggest a middle of the road kit for two reasons. If you are successful you have some middle of the road wine you can be proud of. If you totally blow it, then you don't have to dump out $100 worth of bad wine. When I started making wine again after a 20 year hiatus, I bought a cheap kit and a middle of the road kit for my first attempt at making wine. I tasted the must after it was diluted as recommended by the experts. The cheap kit tasted like Welch's grape juice and the middle of the road kit tasted much better. I worried a lot how to make the cheap kit taste better, added lots of stuff and ended up making vinegar out of it in an attempt to salvage my investment and my efforts.  The vinegar turned out well but not until it aged for many months (see my page on making vinegar at the link above).  The middle of the road kit turned out middle of the road wine and I then started two Brew King Selection kits which cost about $85 each.  The initial must tasted very good and the resulting wine was also good after aging 6 months.  I blended Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot to make Meritage wine (similar to a Bordeaux blend, see wine blending page at the link above). 

You can check current prices at the following links:

Arbor Wine ,  Ebrew ,  Beer&Wine

Wine Making Progression

My 1999 wines were made from kits as stated above.  In 2000, I made wines from 100% juice from Mosti Mondiale and they were better than the concentrate kits.  I did volunteer work at a local small winery in 2001 and purchased must from them.  The wine was better than the wine I made from Mosti Mondiale juice.   My 2002 wines were made from Colorado and California grapes and they are the best so far.  2003 wines were even better, with 4 weeks of skin contact.  2004 wines had 6 weeks skin contact and are progressing nicely.  I suggest that once you have made a few concentrated kit wines that you consider moving up to juice and then to grapes.

A Costly Mistake To Avoid

You will probably read something about the benefits of Malolactic fermentation. Wines contain several acids, tartaric, citric and malic are the primary ones. Malic acid is the primary acid found in apples and is not desirable in red wines. Grapes grown in colder climates like Canada contain higher levels of malic acid. It is widely recommended that home wine makers add a malolactic culture to the must towards the end of the primary fermentation. Malolactic fermentation converts the harsh malic acid into the softer lactic acid and increases the complexity of the wine. All of this sounds great, so what is the costly mistake? According to Drapeau and Vanasse in The Encyclopedia of Home Winemaking (available from XYZ Publishing by email xyzed@mlink.net), adding potassium sorbate to stabilize the wine while the malolactic fermentation is still active results in a strong geranium odor that renders the wine undrinkable. The solution is to add one level quarter teaspoon of meta crystals to kill off the yeast and the malolactic bacteria, then wait three days prior to adding the potassium sorbate.  Better yet is to leave the potassium sorbate out altogether if you are making red wine.  Sorbate is meant to prevent fermentation from restarting in sweet white wines.  Before you attempt to perform  Malolactic fermentation on your kit wine, read the article by Brew King's Tim Vandergrift at: http://winemakermag.com/feature/28.html.  Tim says that kit wines are low in tartaric acid and high in malic acid, so malolactic fermentation leaves your kit wine low in acid and with a "flabby soft character."
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Three Inexpensive Improvements For Most Wine Kits

There have been many articles published on how to improve your wine kits and none of them were any help to me. They all say follow the directions, but don't be afraid to "tweak" your kit in some vague way. My suggestion is throw away the bentonite (a fining agent that clears suspended particles from the wine) and the yeast that came with your kit.

Most directions for the use of bentonite say to add it to the must with the yeast, but if you choose to use bentonite wait until primary fermentation is complete. See Fine Art of Fining by Erik Matthews Spring 2000 issue of Winemaker Magazine (back issues available from http://www.winemakermag.com). A few Quotes from the article: "For top-quality wines, it shouldn't be used until after fermentation is complete, because some of the particulate matter provides complexities of flavor that would otherwise be diminished." "Bentonite is not usually used on red wines, as it may contribute to drastic color loss." Two red wine Brew King Selection kits I bought came with bentonite!  Bentonite is widely used in the commercial wine industry and is an excellent fining agent, it even adds some earthy flavors to the wine.  Bentonite is suitable for removing proteins from white wines and will help prevent protein hazing.  A better alternative is to use a Wine Art product called Claro KC.   Wine Art got bought out, but I found a few places still selling it in July of 2005 by doing a Google search.   Claro KC cost about $2 in July 2005 and consists of one packet of kieselsol and one packet of chitosan.  Kieselsol is negatively charged and settles out the positively charged particles in your wine, chitosan is positively charged and settles out the remaining negative particles. You add the kieselsol first and the chitosan a day later.  Claro KC is also an excellent fining agent, but it does not strip flavor or color from the wine.

For those who want to learn more about fining wine, read about fining trials in one of the suggested books in the left pane.  Beginning winemakers perform fining to remove particles quickly from wine.  Advanced winemakers perform fining trials to remove unwanted flavors in wine and filter out the particles.

What is wrong with the yeast that came with your kit?  Hopefully nothing, but The Strain Game by Daniel Pamianchi in the fall issue of Winemaker magazine  contains a wealth of information to help you get more out of your wine by matching the yeast strain with the type of wine you want to make (see the yeast strain chart on the Winemaker web site Yeast strain chart . The Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon Selection kits I am currently making both came with Premier Cuvee yeast which is described as neutral in flavor and can be used in "Anything but residual sugar wines". I chose to use Pasteur Red which is recommended for Cabernet, Merlot and other wines and described as "Full-bodied red wines, fruit flavors, complex aromas."  These two kits turned out great and I have used Pasteur Red on several other wines since.

The third improvement is to throw out the oak sawdust or chips that came with your kit and use French oak cubes instead.  Buy them at this link: http://www.morebeer.com

Brettanomyces is a wild yeast: Is it bad or good? Quotes from the link below.

http://www.makewine.com/makewine/brett.html

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