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If you are new to making wine, then you have found the right place to be. This is a place for newcomers to learn from my mistakes! And I am sure I make plenty to show you all the things not to do. Not really but this is my second Wine, but unlike my first this one came with a set of instructions.

What do we look for in a wine, well simply put we need to like it. I am not much of a wine drinker and by no means am I a connoisseur. So when I make wine it is for the Wife. Her preference in wine is lite and fun. So I picked a Peach Apricot Chardonnay for her.

This is an Island Mist kit. It will make 30 750 ml bottles. The price tag on this should be in the $60.00 USD range. I paid $66.00 for mine from a local Home Brew store. You can also find these kits on-line.

As you can see this kit comes complete, well almost so and I will get into that in a few. All of the bags are numbered in actual order of use. The instructions are clear enough to read, even though it was a little repetitive, I almost did a few steps more than once because of that.

Ok, so if you are new to making wine, and do not have the desire to ruin $66.00 worth of wine, then do yourself a favor, READ THE INSTRUCTIONS!! Do this before you do anything else. If you really want to do this right, read them the day before AND the day of your attempt. Then read them again.

Look, I am a man, I have no use for instructions, but to tell my Wife that not only did I waste $66.00 but had to throw her wine out too is not a prospect I need in my life!

Following the instructions I read above I added Hot water, about a half gallon. I added Packet Numbered 1. I added the Juice and added some water. Now for something that was not in the box.

I really want you to think outside the box. In my case I read the outside of the box and saw that the projected alcohol content of this wine was 6-7%, to me that is beer, not wine. So what you see me doing here is adding 2 cups of granulated sugar, this should boost the content a bit more into the wine area. Sugar = Alcohol, remember that.

I have been told you could add 5 pounds of sugar, one standard bag, but since wife is not trying to get hammered, two cups will do. (For Now)

So from here I continued to follow the instructions without deviation. To deviate from the instructions is not always bad, just make note of what you did, if you like the outcome it would suck for you not to remember what it was you did. If you did not like the outcome you now have a written note of what not to do.

Having a bucket with a spigot really helps. I do not need a 'Wine Thief' (sterilized turkey baster) to take a Hydrometer reading.

On the subject of Hydrometers, The snooty types will tell you this is a 'must have' piece of equipment. And if you stay with this as a hobby it is, but you can make wine (or beer for that matter) just fine without it. It also will do you no good if you do not write down your readings. My first wine has an unknown alcohol content because if it. All we know is that it is strong, very strong! So if you do not have a Hydrometer do not fret that your wine will not come out, it will be just fine.

However if you do not have a hydrometer the reading of your instructions becomes even more important. When it says to let ferment for 5-7 days, 10 will be better! If you pull it out after 5 it may not be done, a hydrometer could tell you this. But since this is wine, an extra few days of fermenting will not harm it in the least little bit.

I am sorry that the flash killed the numbers on the Hydrometer, but I can assure you that the reading was 1.060. Maybe I should have added a bit more sugar.

The instructions said it should read 1.043-1.051 but my two cups of sugar boosted the Specific Gravity a bit.

At this point I do not add the juice into the bucket, nope not me, I instead taste it. Yup go ahead and take a few sips and see what you think. It should be sweet.

From here the bucket was capped and put in a cool dark room. once cooled I added the package of yeast as instructed and put on my airlock.

Oh I add Rum into my airlock. As I see it water breeds bacteria and sanitizer is just yuk! Rum can not harm your wine in the least little bit.

I will add more to this as I continue on my quest to please my wife!

Ok ,a week and then some has passed, the fermentation has taken place, this wine bubbled like mad the whole time, it started to taper off a week and a day later, so the next day I racked it into the carboy.

I took a hydrometer reading of it, 1.001!! No I am not kidding. For those of you who know that means this will be a 'good' wine!

My wife did make an observation, the smell of this young wine had a remarkable resemblance to...... well lets just say something that happens when you eat way too much fruit! I tasted the wine in the tester just the same, if it was bad I wanted to know now, it wasn't. In fact it was quite good, and I imagine it will be much better when it has time to finish properly.

Now to let it sit for 10 days.

I has been 11 days and I needed to do some stuff to thiswine as it says in the instructions. First off it said I needed to '�€�˜stir' upthe sediment from the bottom. This is confusing to me as I want a Clear wine,not a cloudy one but I am assured that doing this will clear the wine quitewell.

 

Now there is a few ways one can stir the wine to get the CO2out of the liquid, one way is to have a long, thin, sterilized paddle that willfit into the carboy and hook it up to a drill and stir it for a few minutes. Orif you are like me and have no such paddle you can do the He-Man method andpick up the carboy with its contents and shake it like Magalia Gorilla. I recommendgetting the paddle. Too bad the pictures of me shaking the carboy did not comeout. LOL

 

I added all the packages to the wine as instructed andnow its back in the basement to wait 2 weeks for the wine to clear and I canbottle it. Now would be a good time to come up with a label for your wine.

It took longet to come up with a label for the wine than it took to make the wine, this I am not kidding about but this is what I came up with.



So here are the continuing steps in my attempt at the wine, Remember I did not understand how stiring everything up would clear the wine, well it did and then some.


 In this picture you can see the yeast and sediment on the bottom of the carboy quite clearly. In fact you can make out the blueprint on the wall behind it. Not bad if I do say so myself.









Here I am filling up the bottles, not too bad of a process, it is easier than the next step!
















Not the most fun jobs, but it needs to be done, getting the corks into the bottles. But once this job is done all there is to do is wait 3 days before placing the bottles on their sides, chill open and drink! Thanks for reading.