Wine Making Kits: Would You Serve This Wine To Company?
Making wine at home has long been popular, with origins in the United States going back to the 19th century. Wine lovers who immigrated from Europe brought with them a knowledge of making wine, and often did so for personal consumption. There still exists a common misconception that making wine at home is illegal. It’s not, as long as you don’t sell the wine you make at home.
Wine making these days has evolved into a very popular hobby, akin to gardening. There’s a certain amount of pride one takes from growing or producing a consumable product. That said, making wine requires certain equipment, which in my grandfather’s time was rather sizeable and took up a lot of space in the basement. Now, you can buy a wine making kit online and have everything you need to become a burgeoning wine maker in just a few days.
A typical wine making starter kit will run anywhere from $125 to $200. You’ll receive everything you need for your first batch, including wine making tools, ingredients, corks, and large sealable jugs to store the wine during fermenting.
In a wine starter kit, included are a couple of air sealable jugs to store the wine, ingredients, corks, and specialty wine making tools. And of course, complete detailed instructions. From opening the box to drinking the wine, the whole process takes about a month. Your ingredients will vary depending upon what kind of wine you choose to make.
Process And Results
With the detailed step by step instructions, the wine making process wasn’t difficult, but it is a bit stop and go. After the first step, which is mixing ingredients, there’s a 24 hour waiting period so the ingredients can settle. Then, another cleansing process at the 6 day mark, followed by a 4 to 6 week wait while the mixture ferments into wine.
Our first batch was what we’d call a simple red table wine. The taste? Drinkable and palatable, but certainly not worthy of any wine competition medals. Nor did we serve it to our friends. However, like any skill, we improved with practice.
The next batch yielded better results. We produced an apricot wine, using a recipe modeled after a wine we’d enjoyed on one of our U.S. wine trails travels. We were brave enough to share some of this wine with friends and family, and were pleasantly surprised that it received positive reviews (and requests for a 2nd glass).
We’ve basically stayed with fruit wines since then, as we’re able to experiment somewhat in terms of how much fruit we add and how it affects the end product. While we still enjoy a good wine purchase, it’s been fun to share with people that we’re wine makers!
So, if you’re looking for a fun hobby and enjoy wine, consider wine making with a starter kit. You’ll need a little patience and a desire to experiment, but you’ll experience the pride that comes with producing wine from scratch.