Best Magazine

Wine Maker Magazine, but Jack's site is the best -

I am not sold on Winemaker after subscribing for two years. I find their advice is often conflicting from issue to issue or author to author, they rely too heavily upon juice/must manipulation (this is, of course, personal preference) and don't take a clear line on issues which, to me, are clear (kits versus grapes). I think the "lattest" is due to advertisements, etc. but I do not intend to slander the magazine.

Patrick, Not at all, giving your opinion is what this is all about. Is there another magazine worth getting? Darlene

wine-maker.

Hi Patrick,

I'd have to agree with you, in general. Although, a lot of times I read things in this group that are conflicting from message to message

-- thread to thread. The art of winemaking contains many paths that lead to the same end. Often times I think the conflicting information is a result of this. The author of each article has his or her own take on the subject. It's the same here, where one resident expert may have their way of doing something that differs from another resident expert.

Also, it's only slander when spoken; otherwise it's libel. In this thread, I don't think there's any harm done. Rather, it's libel to make people read the magazine out of curiosity. :-)

Cheers!

-Paul

I enjoy Winemaker Mag. I do not know of another one. Anyone? Yes they do cater to juice and kits which is where their advertising comes from and yes there is a lot of conflicting advise given by different authors as there is conflicting advise given by different authors on this site. You have to take it with a grain of salt (not in the wine!) as tricks used successfully by one winemaker may not work for another due to differences in other techniques.

My complaint about the magazine, and it does not stop me from reading it, is that they do not do any meaningful comparisons of juice and kits. I think they are concerned about loosing advertising. But you can only loose advertising if the advertising can move elsewhere. Where is it going to move? There isn't another magazine out there. I would like to see an annual rating of kits on a fixed scale where users rated the kits they made.

Ray

I would agree that the magazine should do comparisons both between different kits and between kits and juice ( self pressed or bought). Readers could help a little with opinions of Kits --but many, and I include myself, tend to stick to one manufacturer and indeed to one particular range. This makes it problematical to make proper comparisons. However the magazine is in a perfect position to do this sort of "testing"/tasting by having an invited panel to peruse wines made from kits etc provided free by the suppliers. The home wine maker is already aware of the quality differences produced by different price ranges and sensibly the magazine could compare truistically between similar priced products. But I suspect that it would not consider this sort of function. There used to be a quarterly magazine in UK, which was free from you local home brew shop, ( it stopped about 2 years ago -- due to lack of support from the kit industry ) It suffered from similar pressure to extol every different wine and beer kit that came on stream. But it did have a good readers letters section and there were always sections on "country wine" recipes.

Inevitably there are going to be differences between advice given. You only have to read this NG to see that -- after all we are only human and cantankerous with it! I would advise anyone to select the advice to follow with care!

Please see this message from a WineMaker editor.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Colby" To: "Patrick McDonald" Sent: Saturday, December 13, 2003 2:54 PM Subject: Re: rec.crafts.winemaking

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---snip

Never seen someone dance so lightly between kit wines in my life...

I think many would simply like winemakers using both grape and kits "telling their story" in a candid straightforward way in The WineMakers. Ok, so we have to make sure that the "brands" get mixed and all advertising is "saved". Most of us would like just to know others winemakers "finesse" to their wines and their set ups.

So the August/September issue was great in showing winemakers like Daniel Pambianchi's* set up and others. This feature section was of course all fresh grapes, but there is nothing to say that the format could not be placed on simple kit winemakers as well.

SG Brix

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Boy, I wish there was someone out there that could make every kit into wine and rate them on a given scale. It would be great wouldn't it.

But reality sets in. No way would I expect WineMaker Mag. or anyone else to do that. But it would not take much to do a Customer satisfaction thing. Set up a site on the web where customers could rate the kits that they use and then report the rating in a Mag issue once or twice a year. Lots of retail sites give customer ratings for TV's, Washing Machines, etc. It would be nice if such was available for kits. They should be rated for whey the kit is "suppose" to be ready to drink, after 6 mo.s of aging, 12 mo.s of aging, 2 years, etc. No, every wine kit would not be rated every period, and No it would not be perfectly scientific, and No it would not be as good as having all the kits made and blind taste tested. But it would be instructive. I BET it would have a big effect on the kit makers. They would have to listen to ratings or go out of business. Good kits would be rewarded and bad kits would be eliminated.

And while we are at it, why not rate sources for juice and even fresh grapes.

I could even see how this could be turned into a major marketing thing for both kits and the magazine to increase sales of both. But that should only be discussed off line.

Ray

winemaking.

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Who's saying they have to test all kits? They could just test all Cab kits one year or even just the major ones. How about all kits in a price range or cab kits from one manufacturer in all of their price ranges to see if they warrant the price increases. I'd be interested in reading any or all of the above.

Maybe I'm missing something but it sounds like they've pre-arranged their excuse. I do know one thing though, if they started fairly rating kits year after year, it would result in better kits across the board.

Don

Don

Not the same thing for 2 big reasons.

First of all, expectations. Never mind things like special features, everybody wants the same thing from a TV: good picture and sound. Everybody wants the same thing from a washing machine: clean clothes. So apart from telling you how good any particular appliance or whatever does those things, consumer reviews are really about features.

What features do you want in a wine? If you want to think of particular flavours and aromas and textures, etc as features, sure they could be documented. Does everybody want the same things in those areas? No, so how could you justify whether a kit was good or bad. Let's face it, there are some horrible wines being made out there from kits, but someone is drinking them and enjoying them. There is no accounting for personal taste.

Second big problem: TV's and washing machines don't require the end user to assemble them. Wine kits do, in a manner of speaking. How good the wine turns out is not only based on the kit, but the skills of the person making it.

So if Person A (the reviewer) creates a wine with certain characteristics that are nicely written up in a magazine, and Person B reads that and thinks, hmmm, that sounds like the perfect wine for me...

What happens when the reader can't reproduce those characteristics because they have different winemaking processes or conditions? The whole review concept just falls apart.

That's my take on this whole thing, anyway.

Brian

Yes, but we do find subjective user ratings of other products useful. Movies, art, restaurants are all rated and these all depend on the likes and dis-likes of the rater. Hopefully, if the number of people rating is large enough it all comes out in the wash.

But if person A makes three different Cabernet kits and finds kit #1 to have better fruit and is better balanced than Kits #2 and #3, that may be useful. Even more usefuly if person B, C, D, E and F also think so.

Andy

It would not be perfect but it could be made to work. When people buy a Merlot, they expect a certain type of red wine. They may like one Merlot better than another and not everyone will judge the same Merlot to be best. But you will not, typically find one person who says one is terrible where others say it is great. If they do, they will average out. Answer 0 to 5: Is it full bodied? Is it dark enough? Is the taste what you expected? Were the instructions clear? Overall rating? etc.

Some will expect a $125/bottle wine and they will give every kit a bad rating. Others will be happy with ponk and will give anything a good rating. It will all average out.