7 day wine kits

[narmour]

What;s the concensus on these things?

I've just completed a 7 day Winebuddy merlot kit and to be honest I wish I hadn't bothered. I should point out I followed the instructions exactly, yet it looks like Ribena and tastes dull and insipid. In my opinion if something is worth doing it's worth doing right. My brews which have taken a longer time have brewed into a nicer, rounder wine and haven't ended up down the drain, which is where this one is destined for. :cry:

To be honest it's put me off 7 day kits in the future, but I would be interested to hear from anyone who has a good experience with them. Especially the Winebuddy merlot.

Cheers

 

[Moley]

Personal opinions:

1. I would never touch any “7 day” kit.
2. I would never touch any kit which said “Young's” on the box or tin.
3. I would never touch any kit which required the addition of sugar.

I don't believe it's possible to make anything which is worth drinking in less than a couple of months, and that includes juice wines.

 

[graysalchemy]

It is what happens after fermentation which is important, be it beer cider wine etc.

 

[RobWalker]

I'm not a wine man, but it's fair to say that anything with a "cut corners" appeal is probably gonna be whack. Probably the quickest thing to reach optimum drinking on the home brew market is wheat beer - about 1 month. Wines take months, cider takes months, most beers take a few months too. It's all about building a stash

 

[brews-brothers]

Winebuddy
Cellar7
Youngs..... none worth the effort to me.

But I have done Solomon grundy 7 day rose. It is light and refreshing not full bodied but then I didnt want it to be heavy for summer sipping.

 

[tonyhibbett]

Winebuddy reds are very lightweight but the whites are fine. I have tried the Cellar 7 cabernet sauvignon which cost little more than the Winebuddy version but 2 and a half times the grape concentrate, so much greater depth of colour, flavour and body. However the strength (10%) is the same. This is easily boosted by simply adding less water, but the fermentation takes longer.
All grape concentrate based kits either require or contain sugar, because there is a limit to how far you can concentrate juice. Even if you used pure juice in cartons, you would still need to add sugar to produce wine of typical commercial strength of say 12%, because the high grade wine grape juice is reserved for commercial winemaking, while the low sugar stuff is used for concentrate and non alcoholic drink.
The more expensive (28 day) kits contain an unspecified amount of 'pure varietal' juice, but still contain an unspecified amount of invert sugar.
You can buy 'sweet reserve' from an company called Vigo. This is pure varietal grape juice, but it is expensive. Commercial winemakers don't make much profit on a bottle of wine after you account for the cost of growing, harvesting, pressing, fermenting, fining, filtering, ageing, bottling, labelling, transporting, the wholesaler's cut, the retailer's cut and finally duty (very high in the UK) plus vat.
German and some French wines often have up to 10% sugar added in non vintage years. The use of concentrate and sugar is a necessary compromise to make home winemaking affordable.

 

[narmour]

It is what happens after fermentation which is important, be it beer cider wine etc.

I totally agree, but a wine which gives you a sachet of synthetic cherry flavouring to mimic the cherry notes in a good merlot can't be up to much. Surely if the grape juice was as good quality as you could expect, you wouldn't need to add synthesised flavourings.

As a wise man once said..."You can't polish a turd"

 

[graysalchemy]

You will probably find that it doesn't have much grape juice in it. :lol: :lol:

 

[Paul Dodd]

I recently tried out one of the 'Make Your Own' Red wine kits from The Range store near me, it took 10 days to brew and tasted great. Don't get me wrong it's never going to win any awards but I'd compare the standard to a entry level commercial, or house/table wine in a restaurant.

 

[tonyhibbett]

Synthetic flavouring is a sore point. Trying to turn the Cornucopia raspberry merlot kit into a reasonable wine has tested my resolve and ingenuity and it still tastes like synthetic raspberry. Does anyone remember the cider lolly?

 

[crofty83]

I'm not a wine person myself but I've recently brewed a 7 day wine kit and my SWMBO and all her friends seemed to think it was a nice wine

 

[Slate Miner]

At the end of March I bottled up a Cellar7 Cab Sauv kit, I made it slightly short and ended up with 26 bottles, I also added about 30gms of oak chips at the start of the fermentation process. FG 995.

The last bottle wasn't quite full so Mrs Slate Miner and myself decided to try a sample glass each. We both felt that there's something not quite right with this wine, the smell is quite musty, not much in the way of fruitiness, and what there was smelt 'artificial'. The slight glimmer of hope is that the taste was slightly better than the aroma :rofl: Although disappointed, I carried on and bottled up all the wine, it went into the garage where it will be forget about it for a couple months or more. :whistle:

I wonder if I over did it with the oak chips and this is the 'musty' aroma/taste :hmm: which in turn has overpowered the friut flavours? Either way I wasn't too impressed with this kit.

IMHO it's well worth paying the extra for a Beaverdale or Cal Con kit. :thumb:

 

[tonyhibbett]

I added oak chips too, but did not reduce the water. It was only when finished I discovered it was only 10% abv. It certainly improved after just a couple of weeks and I was sufficiently impressed to order the merlot when it was on special offer, which I have yet to start.
However, the California Connosseur reds are better, but take longer and of course, cost more.

 

[bobber]

i have read that cellar7 improves with age. ha!ha! if you knew my extended family you you'll realise i'm never likely to test that theory out. i cheat as well. i add a 3ltr box of shiraz from aldi (£13.99 i think) to every gallon i decant from brew. maybe that's why we get so many visitors to our 'free wine pub'. :thumb: