Making Wine

[BadSeed]

Has anyone who has branched out into the wine caper got any good tips for a young player.
I just purchased a Winexpert Merlot kit ($100 ) and the required hardware (new fermenter, glass demijohn & cool drill/stirrer thing etc)

So I have mixed it up the kit and it is bubbling away nicely in primary. I intend to make a few kits first to understand the process before going 'All Fruit ' Much the same as I did with beer making.

Any advice, recipes anything at all gratefully recieved.

[blandy]

I've found the wine takes a lot longer to age. Make sure you've still got the majority of it left after 3 months, otherwise you've wasted it.

[Cortez The Killer]

I made 400L last year - from grapes - from flemington markets

turned out pretty well

notes are here http://hyperfox.info/wine.htm

Cheers

[regan]

i did a few batches 6-8 years ago with the father of a girl i was seeing at the time, he may be a qualified wine maker these days as he was going to school for it and was looking into doing it as his primary proffesion rather then just a hobby.

we must have been doing 1500-2000L batches. started off with a truck load of the most disgusting looking grapes i ever saw from mildura, some starting to go mouldy and coverd in a fly of some kind.

crushed and destemed the grapes (as far as a crusher that was suppost to destem could destem) into plastic apple crates for a primary ferment under some old bed sheets.
pressed the lot and into 44gal plastic drumbs for a second ferment. later it was age in american oak and french oak barrels in a shipping container for 9-11 months and then bottled, labled, and sold for $10 per bottle or $100 per dozen.
we did a few variertys with it all, my favorites being the shiraz and the cab sav out of the french oak barrels.
dive strait in to all fruit badseed, and get an oak barel or 3