Homemade Wine

1/6/08 – Today I racked the blueberry wine, so I cleaned the fermenter and immediately started the Piesporter kit. The kit has about 7 liters of juice concentrate. It also has a big bag of elderflowers. This is the first time I’ve made this kit.

1/14/08 – Tonight I siphoned the wine into a 6-gallon carboy. The specific gravity was 1.010 as recommended by the instructions. It now has to sit for at least 10 days before moving on the next step.

1/27/08 – It’s sort of 10 days. Today I added the Potassium Sorbate and Potassium Metabisulfite, the F-Pack, and the Isinglass and stirred and stirred. It seems weird to mix up wine that has already cleared, but that’s the way they do it and Winexpert has made a lot more wine than me. I know from experience (and I’ll do a separate entry) if you don’t wait long enough or stir it up enough, you will get bubbles in your wine. I had bubbles in my very first batch. It says I can bottle in 14 days, but I’m in no rush. As long as there is an airlock on top with liquid in it, the wine can sit for a very long time. I’ll probably bottle in three weeks, just to give it a little extra time to clear.

2/17/08 – I bottled the Piesporter this morning. In the past, I have often gone from the carboy directly to the bottle. Today I used a bottling bucket because I wanted to add additional Potassium Metabisulfite to the wine. The directions suggest adding 1.5 grams in 125 ml of water to the wine before bottling. The only way to do that is to either rack to another carboy or to a bottling bucket. I calculated the 1.5 grams to be about 25 ppm, so I used my 2.5% solution Potassium Metabisulfite and added 50 ml. I did this because I’ve had some of the white go bad after only a couple of years in the bottle. You wouldn’t expect a commercial white to go bad after 2 or 3 years in the bottle, so I finally broke down and added sulfites at bottling.

I don’t have a label for it yet. Unfortunately, the kits don’t come with labels any more. It was nice when they did, you just wiped the back of the label across a wet sponge and applied it to the bottle. They also came off easily in hot water. I’ll probaby go for a simple laser printed design applied with a glue stick. Another idea I’ve had lately is to make a full color page and get copies made. It’s got to be cheaper than using my inkjet printer.

I’ve never had the Piesporter before, so I’ll post a taste comment here in a month or two.

3/30/08 Tasting Notes – (I’m writing this a month later, so taste details have been forgotten, however …) I took a bottle over to the winery.  Even though it has only been in the bottle for a month, this has already become a very nice wine.  The elderflowers come on a little bit strong at first, but quickly mellows.  The wine has a nice body that is really enjoyable.  The three of us polished off that bottle in no time.  Piesporter is one of the least expensive kits available, but it has definitely lived up to all the hype.