If you knew then what you know now what would you do differently?

Don't buy a hand corker, get a good bench or floor corker. I use the Portuguese and it's hard to beat. You can do synthetic corks with it in addition to natural.

Joe

I would have started years earlier.

Good quest!

My mistake was making two kits, then waiting until they were drinkable only realize I would run out before I could make and mature the next wines. I now have a "drinkable dates" plan to map out when each kind of wine will be ready to drink, so I don't have anymore dry spells. :*)

-- DAve p.s. And I agree about the floor corker, my experience with the hand corker was just horrible. Love my floor corker.

Ryan Case wrote:

Larger volumes earlier.

My first wines were 5 gallon batches. Too small - better quality control at higher volumes.

I also would have kept the batches going, one right after another. And I wouldn't have been so obsessive about sanitation either. It certainly is important, maybe not as critical with wine as with beer however.

Paul

I would only change one thing... do 2-3 five gallon batches each year, each with different yeast/fermentation protocol variant, whereas I limited myself to 1 three gallon batch each of the first two years.

Alas, I ended up not having enough 'ready to drink' wine from those first two years. Live and learn.

Gene

Ryan Case wrote:

My first couple wines I oversweetened prior to bottling.

If they taste ok at bottling, chances are they will be too sweet when they are ready to drink.

Depening on when you bottle, btw.

Ryan Case wrote:

Find a girlfriend who doesn't like my wine so there's more for me. I'm glad she doesn't read this ;)

Oh, that's bad!! ROFL! I'm still looking for a mate that will clean my empty bottles. hahaha.

Thanks so much for all the replies.

So far this year I have started 5 gallons of cherry

5 gallons of Apricot and am planning on 5 gallons of Merlot 5 gallons of Riesling and 5 gallons of cider

I already have the grapes spoken for at a local growers.

If all goes well I might consider bumping some of them up to 10 gallons next year. Only thing is, that home brewing beer is really my first love, so I don't know that I really need to bump wine up to 10 gallon batches with the beer around too. Will see.

Once again, thanks for the replies.

Ryan

I've learned three things quickly

1) Get the best starting fruit you can find - it really shows up later

2) Overoaking is really easy and rarely a good thing

3) Letting time do the work results in a great lazy hobby. I nearly threw out my first, very good wine because I was too impatient.

Rob

One thing that comes to mind is to never bottle too soon. Wait until wine (esp. white) is completely clear and free of sediment and also don't bottle before the wine tastes like it should (don't hope that age will correct a problem). When I first started, I had to rebottle and recork a batch of Riesling because of sediment that was thrown after bottling (sediment doesn't really bother me too much, but we give a lot of wine as gifts). Another time I over-oaked a Merlot and bottled it anyway hoping it would even out over time. It did improve some with age but I should have taken other actions before bottling to correct this.

Also, I second the floor corker suggestion. We now have the same type that Joe has and love it.

I make beer too and that sounds like a plan. One thing to consider is 'give away' wine (just like beer). I know I don't drink 20 gallons in a year but am sure I give that much away. In other words, think that through now and include it in your plan, at least for the Merlot. It needs a little time to come around and giving wine away is a slippery slope. You could end up on the short end...

Joe

I hear you. In fact my little brother-in-law got hitched last weekend and I am now out of all but my coffee stout and a few bottles of weizen. I didn't plan on taking beer to the party the night before, so I didn't brew to have extra on hand when we ran through it.

I always make 10 gallon batches when it comes to beer. It just isn't enough extra work to justify only making 5. I have a friend that normally splits the batches with me. Unless of course it is one of my recipes that people like real well and then I keep it all so as to not burn through it with company too quickly.

I do think that one of the things that will help me in the vein of running out by giving away, is that my dad and brother are slated to give it a go with me on the grape wines this fall. We will each do a 5 gallon batch. So there will be 15 gallons of each variety in the family.

If the cherry and apricot turn out well, I could definately see doing 10 gallon batches of those next year. The fruit is free, so why not?

On another related note. A friend has Riesling starter vines that he is going to give me in the spring. How long, on average, before a vine will produce fruit in a usable quantity? I have been told that a mature vine will produce enough fruit for a gallon of wine on average.

Ryan

It takes 3-4 years to properly grow vines to get grapes from them. See Jeff Cox's "Vines to Wines" for a good, basic background on this.

I've got 54 first-year Riesling vines growing in our front yard this year. I've approximated that I'll end up getting 150-180 bottles/year from that in average years.

Good luck!

Rob

Thanks! I will find a copy.

I've heard and read that it takes 600-800 grapes per bottle! So a mature vine needs to produce a lot of grapes to make a gallon.

A mature vine does indeed produce a lot of grapes. A gallon per vine is not unreal. This amounts to about 12.5 pounds of grapes per vine. I think a lot of growers limit their vines to produce a little less in an effort to improve quality.

Hmmm, I will definitely have to let you all know once I get there. I am quite anxious for next spring now, so I can get them in the ground. Of course there is all that nasty prep work to be done this fall.

Ryan