I've now bottled my second year's Shiraz production, and it raises two related questions:
First, all the sources of grape juice I've found have had the PH balanced, and sugar added, in advance. Well, the whole point of this exercise is that I want to try making my own wine: does anyone know of sources for pure wine varietal grape juice I can use as a starting point, and do my own additives from the get-go? I'd rather not start with Welch's if I can avoid it....
Second, it seems like everything on the grape side of hobby winemaking is based on a 6 gallon batch, from the size of the fermenter to the size of the carboy to (most importantly) the amount of juice in a kit. Well, for me that's likely to be close to a year's red wine consumption! Since I'd like to do a lot more experimentation with the recipe (that's how the two questions are related), I'd also like to make batches more like a gallon at a time, so I can be trying things every month or so (yes, I do realize this means I'll have at least half a dozen experiments aging at the same time). Over on the fruit wine side, from what I've read it seems like gallon batches are the norm. Is there a reason for bigger grape wine batches?