wine makers - who are we?

[percival]

Hi wine making enthusiasts,

it seems to me that our numbers are growing so i thought a thread where we all say hi and something about our wine making could be useful.

Wine making probably always will be a niche interest on this forum, but there's no reason why it can't also be a very functional, active, populated, fun and organised section. A T is keen to get this aspect of home brewing really moving on this forum, we have discussed it a bit in PM's, i dare say that he has discussed it with others too. With our ideas for how we want this section to look and feel, and his actions to implement those ideas, we should end up with something that we all enjoy. Personally i think the main section of the forum works very well and we could shape wine section similarly.

 

[percival]

I like making wines from more or less entirely following recipes, whether they come from books or word of mouth.

I would be describe my style as being something like cooking.
I like to experiment, but in little steps changing one thing at a time.
Country wines get my motor running, tho i'm also happy to make other stuff and will soon be trying a kit for the first time.
Wines from unusual ingredients interest me.

I try to avoid being analytical whenever possible. I will use a hydrometer, and may one day get into taking more interest in the acidity of fermenting wines for the sake of yeast health. On the whole i like the inherent simplicity of brewing and like to encourage people to brew who feel that anything more complicated than following a recipe is beyond them.

At the moment i am steering a course away from all purpose wine yeasts and trying out specific varieties.

i'm always looking to improve my brews to suit my own tastes (i drink more of it than anyone else!), but firmly believe in the adage 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. if people who drink my wine suggest strengths or weaknesses in the taste then i'll make a mental note and may try to alter it accordingly if i think it can be easily achieved.

My fermenting bin is often active, i only have one, the list of wines in my signature have all been made since summer time 08.

so you can get a ball park idea for my standards when i buy wine i'm quite happy with a bottle that costs about £5, tho sometimes these are reduced by a few quid and should cost nearer £10 normally. I like Aussie Shiraz & chardonnay, Kiwi sauvignon blancs from time to time. Other New world wines, most commonly South African, Chilean. Some Sweet Spanish wines that you can't get here (mostly made from moscatel grapes in Andalucia).

So who are you, how often do you make wine, what do you like to make etc etc

 

[A T]

Great post Percival :clap: I think a lot of the beer brewers dabble from time to time in wine, i'm considering it myself soon. Hopefully a few will chip in here and we can get the wine brewing section of the forum into motion. Personally i don't understand much about making it but i look forward to learning

 

[BrewStew]

just a quick hi to say i dabble in wine making.

still very new to it though.

 

[Wez]

I've dabbled with kits with OK results, plan to do a wine from scratch in 2009. I read the wine threads with interest

 

[percival]

nice to see you slowly rolling in, probably being modest with your descriptions of yourselves as dabblers

i reckon a few more regulars in the wine brewing sections will drop in sometime, like all wines they'll be worth waiting for!

 

[slurp]

dabbler moi no way i am a kit man My first efforts of fermentation was trying to make wine from scratch i carefully collected the raw ingredients blackberries,apple pear ect and soon had it bubbling away in my collection of demijons unfortunately the results were mostly undrinkable apart from a kit someone had given me .When i eventually got into brewing beer [full grain mash]i couldnot believe how easy it is compared to trying to make wine from scratch.I would however be up for another bash and perhaps now with the support of this forum i could succeed this time.Part of my problem is i dont know outside grape wine what other wine i might like ,blackberry wine and raspberry wine sound great and would be ingredients i could get hold of but would they taste as good as they sound :wha:

 

[percival]

hey Slurp

kits .... nothing wrong with that at all, don't blush .... beam, you'll be able to add a good deal to this section with your kit knowledge.

very briefly, cos in time i'm sure this wine section will go into more detail for specifics, blackberry certainly can end up tasting very much like a red grape wine. mine has. tho i am blessed with very good quality fruit and that is probably a good deal of the reason why.

other stuff you mention, i don't know about them, never tried, hopefully someone will say hi here who knows what they are doing with this stuff and in good time they'll make a thread.

thanks for your post, its exactly the sort of thing we need here

 

[falafael]

hi, and a great idea, like i mentioned in other posts, i did winemaking 15 years ago, was really good at it, tried beer, but always ended up in the manhole in the street!
Anyways, now i have got the beer sorted, i wanted to move back into wine as well, been a lover of wine a while, like a good white, as well as rose, some red, but not a lot.
When i made wine, i always did them from scratch, which usually was me picking them from the tree/bush, in the past, i have made, strawberry wine, apple wine, blackberry wine, elderberry wine, rowanberry wine, orange juice wine and carrot whiskey.

Some of these i will be attempting again, as well as some i always wanted to try out, one being nettle, another is the parsnip.

In the end, i think that like most things, theres some thiings you just cant buy, and that is wine made from things that i have picked, strange recipes, i mean, when was the last time you saw nettle wine in asda!!.
The same goes for other things, thats why i am making dandelion and burdock, the traditional way, likewise, when i went to my daughters harvest festival at school, i couldn't believe it, homemade blackberry jam, damson jam and green tomato chutney!!, i went mad and bought virtually them all!!
some things are best made, and not bought, thats why i ahve gotten back into this hobby, and one that i thought was dying out, but with people on here, and people i know starting up for the first time, i'm glad i made the decision to brew again, like right now, am drinking a half of geordie lager, its crystal clear, head sticking to the glass,and tastes great, no its not AG, but I made it, its MY beer, and thats the most important thing above all!!
Wow, sorry if i rambled on there a bit.

Just saying hello to this thread!!! lol

 

[percival]

Thanks Falafael, great post. i think you have found indeed found some kindred spirits, as have i! :drunk:

i'm looking forward to the productive seasons when we can get out picking stuff and compare recipes, methods and results.

thanks for posting

 

[Jonnyv]

Hello!

I've only done a couple of 6 bottles kits (which usually get drunk from a demijohn ) but I have a 30 bottle Beaverdale Shiraz fermenting outside at the moment - my god it pongs. I had to move it outside with a thermostatic heater cos SWMBO was fed up with the smell! It's got about a week left I reckon then I'll be putting 20l into a polypin and bottle the rest.

I do fancy trying my hand at some country wines next year when I can pick some fruit. I never got round to it this year though

Perhaps there should be a specific 'Wine' forum rather than being lumped in with the TC/cider lot

 

[percival]

Hey Jonny

thanks for posting. We have some folks here who do kits, i'm gonna have a go myself sometime soonish. and as you can see the country wine folks are present too.

regarding a wine only section, this is the sort of thing we'll be able to shape with A T's help. Once we have a decent sized and active little wino population then we'll be able to have some votes and stuff on how we want things to be for us lot.

 

[NickW]

Well, what can I say?

I got into brewing when walking through the local market and saw a lady selling some basic equipment and kits.

I purchased a red wine kit and off I went!

That first kit wasn't great, I read the instructions wrong and it was a bit watered down :lol: , but my second kit seems a success. But I feel it can probably do with ageing 6 months or so.... like that will ever happen! (I'll probably bottle one, and leave it in a dark corner somewhere, the rest will be drunk by newyears!)

I've only just made 2 wines from scratch, a parsnip wine and a pinneapple wine. They're both nowhere near completion, probably looking at the best part of 11months. So I have no idea if I've messed up or what. But everything seems ok now!

(btw perci, that pinneapple wine came up to 1.155 SG! I think I added too much sugar! Although I did follow berrys recipe. I'll post on the pinneapple wine brewday post shortly)

I really am looking forward to tasting these wines eventually. I've got a banana wine to start tomorrow too, I'll get some pics ready for that.

At the moment I'm brewing cider, and beer from kits. I imagine I'll be doing this constantly to replenish the kegs - but obviously the wines can take a year or more - so its different with those. I imiagine I'll still be using kits, just to pass the time away whilst making the proper homebrewed stuff :)

Well, thats me! Not sure what else to say! Apart from I'm ****** off that the parsnips and bananas were going for 5p a kilo on xmas eve in asda!! Darn it, nevermind aye!

 

[percival]

Thanks for dropping in crE

you're a busy brewer! the OG of that pineapple wine does sound high eh! but it is for a sweet wine (IIRC) so time will tell. I think i'm gonna be brewing with a hydrometer most of the time from now on. While following recipes has stood me in good stead as far as confidence goes, all my brews have been satisfactory or better, i'm ready to tinker with recipes now and hope that what i aim for and what i achieve are one and the same.

by the way i did a banana wine some years ago, it never cleared and i eventually gave it away when i moved house. it tasted fine tho.

 

[falafael]

at the moment have got friends saving me their wine and beer bottles, xmas is a great time for bottle collecting, my strawberry wine is fermenting along quite well, by the time spring kicks in, i should have a decent supply of empty bottles to get my stock up, not forgetting nettle wine as well.
I will be using corks for my wine bottles as well, i have even emailed the likes of blossom hill, telling them that by using screw tops, gives the wine a cheap appearance as well as making people redundant who harvest the corks!
No reply yet!!
I wonder why that is then!!!!

 

[NickW]

Plus, we cant reuse the screw cap bottles with out corks!

 

[Wez]

Can you not get a cork into a screw top - if thats the case thats not good

I've not tried just assumed it would be ok!

 

[percival]

yes you can. screw necks tend to be a bit bigger, so get bigger corks to be safe. if you still have doubts about whether it'll be safe then put a screw cap on aswell (you might want to puncture the cap), or a heat shrink neck. i have corked plenty of screw top bottles this year, they dont look as pretty with the thread, but they do the job.

 

[Smod]

I just sterilise the caps and screw them back on.

Is this wrong?

 

[percival]

if it works it can't be wrong mate.

we talked a little about screw caps somewhere else, i think one problem was concerns over a proper seal. another one was caps not being universal so keeping the original caps with their bottles was a good plan.