Susan:

A lot of people are very happy drinking the wine from that kit much
younger than 1 year. In fact, the Ferment on Premises business has a
term for it..."trunk aging". Customers bottle in the store, load the
bottles into the trunk, and its magically aged when it reaches their
house.

Don't get me wrong, the wine will be much better in 3..6...9...12
months. So get your Dad to try after a month in bottle, and see what
he thinks. After all we all have different tastes.

Degassing...the winemakers biggest problem. Many days I think that we
are making more work for ourselves. I spend much more time degassing
than I did 5 years ago, and I don't think there is any difference in
the result. I don't remember the wine being gassy back then and it
isn't now.

At least one kit company (Vineco) does not recommend the use of drill
mounted stiirers because people stir too hard and whip air into the
wine thus using up the free SO2 and shortening the wine's shelf life.

I do NOT have a good answer to "how to degas" question. And in my
opinion neither does anybody else.

Steve

On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 10:13:34 -0700, wrote:

Hi gang!

I'd just like to say that I think winemakers have a great sense of
humor and feel that this was the post's intention.

Okay, I'd like to get my Dad off the two buck-chuck, but the wine kit
I bought is "Vintners Reserve - Cabernet Sauvignon." The guy at the
store tells me that I should age this in the bottle for at least a
year, before drinking. Well, I guess Dad's going to be two-bucking
for a bit longer.

I am now at the degassing stage, it's quite foamy. I have the drill
attachment, but I always feel I'm causing the foam with the motion?!?
I'm going to search for more info on this subject.

Thank you all for your advise.
Susan