1st Wine Kit

We started our first wine-making kit! 

Donnie has been wanting to start a homemade wine kit for quite awhile, but it never seemed to be the right time. First we needed to save up and Christmas helped with that. Then we needed to find a time to go to the wine shop together to pick one out. The shop with the most selection is close to our parents' house so we tried to find a time to combine trips.

Five months later we finally made it! 

Since we had been thinking about this for some time we knew what we wanted: definitely a red and nothing too sweet. Something like a Syrah or Merlot would be perfect.

We looked around, read the boxes, and left with a sweet white wine. Go figure. 

What we bought was a Washington Columbia Valley Riesling. It was 30% off, which you just can't pass up. (Especially if it doesn't turn out quite right since it is our first attempt.) In addition, not all of our family likes red wine, so we thought this might be a better wine to share.

A couple days later we got it started:

 

Pouring the juice into the primary fermentation bucket. It smelled just like apple juice. Apple juice!?! Isn't this supposed to be grape?

After the bucket was filled the rest of the way with water it needed to be stirred to combine the ingredients and aerate. Donnie has a special drill just for this, which makes stirring 6 gallons at a time no problem.

 

Checking the hydrometer reading and temperature to make sure it is the best environment the yeast. It was perfect, so in went the yeast. The lid was put on the bucket and it is now sitting either on the counter or the top of the fridge depending on the inside temperature of the house.

In about a week it will be ready to transfer into the 6 gallon glass carboy for the secondary fermentation.

Hmmm....Does this count as a boxed wine?