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Once you have made your favorite wine kit a few times, you may want to experiment with additions in order to adjust the flavour or body of the wine.
Be careful because making these sort of additions may void the manufacturers warranty should you mess up.
Don't make changes for the sake of it, know what you want and then make additions to suit.
Anyway, here are some tips and advice from a guy called Zac Brown copied with his kind permission from the winepress website.
.................................................. .........
I will share the tweaks I have found make MY kit wines taste their best.
1. Use a yeast which can handle concentrates , 95% of the time you are best off to use the yeast that comes with the kit. Other wise read the yeast manufacturers description of the yeast many are listed as concentrate friendly. Also be aware that some yeasts need more nutrient , I know a guy who owns a LHBS and has had very good results barrel fermenting chardonnay kits (WE) using d47 yeast but this yeast is nutrient demanding (or it will produce H2S) so he adds Fermaid on day 2 and 5 , 1 tsp . His more adventurous customers have tried this with good results . I have tasted two wines he did one as per , the other with barrel fermenting and D47 , the latter I liked more. Doing this sort of thing does violate your warranty though.
2. Use better Oak , use a barrel it is a worth wile investment, if not use better cubes like stavin,
the sawdust that comes with kits sux (this is my number one bitch with the kit companies, premium kits should come with premium oak, charge a dollar more but give us better oak) I would even recommend marketing it , ie written on the side of the box in big letters NOW WITH STAVIN PREMIUM OAK CUBES INCLUDED. Go easy on the amount of cubes you add , it is easy to over oak , you can always add more but you can't take away , to only cure for over oaked wine is to blend with unoaked wine. I add my cubes after the wine is clear and stabilized and is ready for bulk ageing. I rack onto a handful or two (1-2 oz, 25-50 cubes)(depends on the style of wine) of cubes in a new carboy and then taste the wine every week (don't forget to top up) when it tastes slightly too oaky (it will mellow int he bottle) I rack it off the oak. When topping up use red for red white for white it doesn't have to be an exact match , trust me on this one.
a barrel is really what will take your wines to a higher level because you get micro oxygenation , concentration and oak flavour of wine in Oak as opposed to oak in wine. leave the chips and dust out of the primary if you are doing this. also using cubes bulk ageing is important .
so the schedule looks like , once your wine is clear and stable , rack onto oak for 1-12 weeks , rack off the oak , 3-9 months later bottle.
medium toast is the place to start.
nice Hungarian barrels ( just like french oak , half the price )
3. Bulk age your wine especially reds , a minimum of 6 months in a carboy a year is better (whites only need six months) before bottling. Add 1/4 tsp kmeta to the carboy at 3 months and again right before bottling ( 6 months or so later)
4. you need to degass your wine , this is important but somewhat overstated in this forum. another advantage if you buy a barrel is it will degass on its own while ageing. Splash rack the wine at the first racking this will drive off some Co2 and other fermentation gasses like the tiny bit of H2S yeast produces.
5. use a kit (reds) with natural grape material , this may be a crushendo kit , it may be that you add raisins , real grapes , pomace , this will add more tannin and natural sugar which helps the yeast cope with concentrates.
6. When you get more experienced ,
try small amounts of some wine makers additives , some tannins are worth experimenting with , you may or may not like the results, Biolees (sur lie sold by more wine is a similar product) added 4 tsp per carboy and left in for 2 months (or more 6 months is no problem) before racking has been a great tweak with every kit I have used it on red or white.
I have found many kits a bit flat on the pallet , I have found a tablespoon or 2 of tartaric acid added before fermentation a tweak I like , you might not, and yes the acids are balanced , but I find a bit of an acid edge is good , but my taste is my taste.
7. your wine has now spent a year in the carboy , and you have bottled it, it will be in bottle shock for the first 2 months , wait 3 months before opening the first bottle after bottling , six months in the bottle is better yet. your kit red wine will peak between 2 years and 3 years. whites 1-2 years
8. To really get a wine show worthy , filter it . I do this once and use medium pads . no need to sterile filter a kit , just polish it. if you have done multiple rackings and bulk ageing in a barrel or you are doing it in a carboy and there is no sediment after your last racking you can skip this .
These are all things that have helped my wines show their best , some of these tweaks are to manage KT , but they all are intended to result in better wine.
you need to experiment with your own wines and find what works for you .
I think the greatest disservice the kit industry does is market kits as six week and four week kits but nowhere on the box do they tell you the truth , they should be labelled as 12 month and 18 month kits.
Zac
Be careful because making these sort of additions may void the manufacturers warranty should you mess up.
Don't make changes for the sake of it, know what you want and then make additions to suit.
Anyway, here are some tips and advice from a guy called Zac Brown copied with his kind permission from the winepress website.
.................................................. .........
I will share the tweaks I have found make MY kit wines taste their best.
1. Use a yeast which can handle concentrates , 95% of the time you are best off to use the yeast that comes with the kit. Other wise read the yeast manufacturers description of the yeast many are listed as concentrate friendly. Also be aware that some yeasts need more nutrient , I know a guy who owns a LHBS and has had very good results barrel fermenting chardonnay kits (WE) using d47 yeast but this yeast is nutrient demanding (or it will produce H2S) so he adds Fermaid on day 2 and 5 , 1 tsp . His more adventurous customers have tried this with good results . I have tasted two wines he did one as per , the other with barrel fermenting and D47 , the latter I liked more. Doing this sort of thing does violate your warranty though.
2. Use better Oak , use a barrel it is a worth wile investment, if not use better cubes like stavin,
the sawdust that comes with kits sux (this is my number one bitch with the kit companies, premium kits should come with premium oak, charge a dollar more but give us better oak) I would even recommend marketing it , ie written on the side of the box in big letters NOW WITH STAVIN PREMIUM OAK CUBES INCLUDED. Go easy on the amount of cubes you add , it is easy to over oak , you can always add more but you can't take away , to only cure for over oaked wine is to blend with unoaked wine. I add my cubes after the wine is clear and stabilized and is ready for bulk ageing. I rack onto a handful or two (1-2 oz, 25-50 cubes)(depends on the style of wine) of cubes in a new carboy and then taste the wine every week (don't forget to top up) when it tastes slightly too oaky (it will mellow int he bottle) I rack it off the oak. When topping up use red for red white for white it doesn't have to be an exact match , trust me on this one.
a barrel is really what will take your wines to a higher level because you get micro oxygenation , concentration and oak flavour of wine in Oak as opposed to oak in wine. leave the chips and dust out of the primary if you are doing this. also using cubes bulk ageing is important .
so the schedule looks like , once your wine is clear and stable , rack onto oak for 1-12 weeks , rack off the oak , 3-9 months later bottle.
medium toast is the place to start.
nice Hungarian barrels ( just like french oak , half the price )
3. Bulk age your wine especially reds , a minimum of 6 months in a carboy a year is better (whites only need six months) before bottling. Add 1/4 tsp kmeta to the carboy at 3 months and again right before bottling ( 6 months or so later)
4. you need to degass your wine , this is important but somewhat overstated in this forum. another advantage if you buy a barrel is it will degass on its own while ageing. Splash rack the wine at the first racking this will drive off some Co2 and other fermentation gasses like the tiny bit of H2S yeast produces.
5. use a kit (reds) with natural grape material , this may be a crushendo kit , it may be that you add raisins , real grapes , pomace , this will add more tannin and natural sugar which helps the yeast cope with concentrates.
6. When you get more experienced ,
try small amounts of some wine makers additives , some tannins are worth experimenting with , you may or may not like the results, Biolees (sur lie sold by more wine is a similar product) added 4 tsp per carboy and left in for 2 months (or more 6 months is no problem) before racking has been a great tweak with every kit I have used it on red or white.
I have found many kits a bit flat on the pallet , I have found a tablespoon or 2 of tartaric acid added before fermentation a tweak I like , you might not, and yes the acids are balanced , but I find a bit of an acid edge is good , but my taste is my taste.
7. your wine has now spent a year in the carboy , and you have bottled it, it will be in bottle shock for the first 2 months , wait 3 months before opening the first bottle after bottling , six months in the bottle is better yet. your kit red wine will peak between 2 years and 3 years. whites 1-2 years
8. To really get a wine show worthy , filter it . I do this once and use medium pads . no need to sterile filter a kit , just polish it. if you have done multiple rackings and bulk ageing in a barrel or you are doing it in a carboy and there is no sediment after your last racking you can skip this .
These are all things that have helped my wines show their best , some of these tweaks are to manage KT , but they all are intended to result in better wine.
you need to experiment with your own wines and find what works for you .
I think the greatest disservice the kit industry does is market kits as six week and four week kits but nowhere on the box do they tell you the truth , they should be labelled as 12 month and 18 month kits.
Zac
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