My first experience with Vin Bon was when I ordered two batches of wine
(Chablis and Merlot) to make "on premices". Both turned undrinkable. Massive
sediment in merlot, very unpleasant smell in chablis... I've got my money
back. But, seems I didn't learn. I bought a pail of juice from the same guy
and tried to make the wine by myself. Same situation happened - it fermentet
a while, then stopped. I tried all known ways to restart fermentation. Every
time the juice started to ferment, but after a while stopped again. I gave
up at 1.020. The taste was sour and bitter with no smell of juice or wine. I
threw it away...


"Charles" wrote in message
...
Insprucegrove wrote:

Would it be worth throwing it all back into a primary, adding some sugar
and
refermenting by adding yeast? If I could salvage anything out of it, I
wouldn't mind keeping it as back up low quality wine...If anyone thinks
this
might work, let me know, and roughly how much sugar one should ad (19
litres of
juice)

My first wine was made from similar pails however my experience was
different... though yeast had been added it was kept too cold to
ferment, so when I brought it home and warmed it up it fermented fine
and made a more than drinkable wine. Althought this wasn't Vin-Bon brand
juice. Though I will also say that I bottled mine after 9 months in bulk
aging.

What kind of wine did you buy? I did an alicante, and I added plenty of
oak chips to it and let it bulk age with those for at least 6 months
without raking... if it's a red this is the route I'd go. If the SG is
still 1.005 you could try making a starter with some EC-1118 and then
adding that to the must, keeping in mind a warmer temperature if you
have a red. HTH

--
charles

"Once ... in the wilds of Afghanistan, I lost my corkscrew, and we were
forced to live on nothing but food and water for days."
- W.C. Fields

Well, I guess I will give it one shot at restarting the fermentation, but your
post doesn't make me too optimistic. I just hate throwing it away, especially
when every other kit/juice I have used has turned out perfect. Even the
cheapest one I ever made is far better than this Vin Bon stuff.

Makes you wonder how they stay in business. The sulphur smell alone from the
juice/must makes me wonder...Mine is Merlot as well, but you would never
recongnize it as even wine, never mind Merlot!

I'll give in another 4 weeks, but if it's still crap, down the sink it goes. I
need those bottles for other purposes





My first experience with Vin Bon was when I ordered two batches of wine
(Chablis and Merlot) to make "on premices". Both turned undrinkable. Massive
sediment in merlot, very unpleasant smell in chablis... I've got my money
back. But, seems I didn't learn. I bought a pail of juice from the same guy
and tried to make the wine by myself. Same situation happened - it fermentet
a while, then stopped. I tried all known ways to restart fermentation. Every
time the juice started to ferment, but after a while stopped again. I gave
up at 1.020. The taste was sour and bitter with no smell of juice or wine. I
threw it away...