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Trying an ice wine kit

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Echostatic

NewBee
Registered Member
Apr 5, 2011
468
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Dallas, Tx
I bought a small bottle of ice wine Friday ( http://www.wineglobe.com/50897-1.html ) and thought it was wonderful. Easily one of the best wines I have tried (though I admit to not having tried many.) Unfortunately, I do not have the budget to buy this stuff very often, but I read good things about this ice wine kit.

http://www.amazon.com/Diamanti-Specialty-White-Style-29-76-Pound/dp/B002RZ1QBI

I found a forum thread somewhere, where someone made and enjoyed it, though apparently the product is misleading in claiming it yields 30 750ml bottles when it only yields 30 375ml bottles, but that's not a big deal. I've never made a wine before, but I'm excited about it and expect a pretty good product that should look great in blue, long necked 375ml bottles. I just hope it won't take long to age.
 
Cool! Wine kits are way easier than making mead :) And what I've found with wine kits is like JAO - it's definitely drinkable and usually pretty good right when you bottle it, but it gets better with age.

I like ice wines too and I'm too cheap to buy ice wine, or even an ice wine kit so I improvised and just diluted a regular $35 wine kit to 3 gallons instad of the full 5 or 6... worked out quite well, I now have a case of Zinfandel Rosé ice style wine that's aging out some over-oaking... it was pretty good when I bottled it, it was really good last time I tasted it and I expect it will only get better.
 
That's good news! I'll probably have to drink a few bottles with friends shortly after it's finished, but I think I will be able to leave it alone for at least the winter when everyone is enjoying my latest JAO as a hot drink.

Pretty clever use of a wine kit, I'll have to keep that one in mind. Actually that led me to do some research on wine kits, and it looks like they make dry ones too. I have a friend that can only drink dry wines, I might try making one of them for her. Thanks for that unintended help!
 
I'm pretty sure most basic (non-ice style) wine kits are designed to ferment out completely dry, except the ones where you add a "fruit pack" after you stabilize the finished wine... I've also experimented with that too, after looking at the ingredients of my Raspberry Merlot and discovering that it had never seen a real raspberry... I took a cheapo California White wine kit, fermented it dry, stabilized, added two cans of Welch's Raspberry frozen concentrate, presto, summerberry wine, bottle, enjoy...

But then, if you've seen posts about my JAO experimentation, I can't leave anything alone, this should come as no surprise :) ...next on the list is playing with beer wort...

The stuff I made for my wedding two years ago and my mom's wedding about six years ago now (two California White and one Shiraz), I don't think I even bothered with the stabilization packets, I knew they were completely dry, no chance of more fermentation, and they weren't going to be stored long anyway.

That reminds me, I've got a sherry wine kit just sitting here waiting to be made...

 
Yeah, other than some specialty style wine kits like port or ice wine they all go totally dry from what I've seen. Partially because a lot of people like it that way (or if they prefer a little sweetness they can add some gunk the LHBS has that is sweet but won't ferment) and it's safer, no risk of bottle bombs with dry wine.
 
Well, my kit came in the mail today... And the darned juice bag had a tiny hole in it. It was leaking out, and naturally the whole thing is ruined. Apparently it is ineligible for returns under Amazon's return policy. Well, we will see about that.
 
Did you use a credit card?

Echostatic said:
Well, my kit came in the mail today... And the darned juice bag had a tiny hole in it. It was leaking out, and naturally the whole thing is ruined. Apparently it is ineligible for returns under Amazon's return policy. Well, we will see about that.
Click to expand...
If you used a credit card, you can always dispute the purchase. I've done that quite a few times and have never lost a dispute.

If you used a debit card, you could be S.O.L. It's just like paying cash, i.e., MUCH harder to get their attention. Never, and I mean NEVER, use a debit card for on-line purchases.

Here's wishing you good luck in your quest for the merchant to make this right!
 
Man oh man were they easy to deal with. They got back to me quickly and are going to send me a free replacement, no need to return the original. That being the case, I'm gonna try to salvage this one if possible too.
 
Aha, an excuse to experiment!! (as if we needed more)

I started my sherry kit the other day, took a while to get started (SG 1.120 and came with EC-1118 ) but it's going now!
 
That's odd, I can't imagine good ol' EC-1118 having much trouble with anything not too out of the ordinary. That's supposed to be a strong, hardy yeast, isn't it? This grape juice was at 1.117 and im getting a light foam after just a few hours. Good to hear yours started up eventually at least!

I expect my replacement kit to show up on Tuesday. Barring any leak incidents with *that* one, I'm gonna put it aside until it cools down some, these 107*F days aren't very conducive to brewing. The temperature inside the fermentation bucket is about 82*F right now, but since the aforementioned leak prevented any waiting, I'm just going with it. I used EC-1118 to ferment my hard lemonade earlier this hot summer and it turned out fantastic.
 
I just checked on it, I'm getting more bubbles and noticable currents in the must. Stuck my head in the bucket and confirmed a thick, choking blanket of co2. SG reading was about 1.108, down from about 1.117 yesterday. If the instructions are accurate, it should really take off by tomorrow or Saturday. We shall see.
 
I need to try a wine kit or two, as I may have a kid getting hitched next year and I'd like to make all the wine and beer for it. I didn't know you could find them on Amazon, though!
 
Shipping costs seem like they'd be painful on them though, and there's always (here anyways) a pretty good selection locally.
 
There always seems to be the full range, from the cheapest ones up to ones more than double that price, red wine kits with bags of skins, all kinds of things. I've only ever made one kit and it was one of the cheapest ones and was Sav Blanc, which it turns out I dislike... so I can't really provide much feedback!

But checking a few different stores I honestly can't imagine that there'd be much you couldn't find.
 
My kit was eligible for free shipping, I got it in about a week. I'd say it's worth looking on Amazon for suchlike items if you can't find them locally.
 
There are, in fact, wine kits on Amazon Prime. Holy awesome that makes my night.

- Brett

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