Exactly right Ray, this is a summer wine. I make country wines
regularly, and these are 1 gallon batches. For drinking while the
fruit wines are aging, I do these kits. I like a sweet wine, so I've
done some White Zinfandels. I stumbled onto these Island Mist kits
and they are great. My wife won't touch regular wine, but loves
these. It's really like a wine cooler, and is only about 7%.

If I do a regular kit, I will allow extra time to bulk age.

As reported, I stuck to the instructions and stirred up all that lees.
It was painful to dig up about 2 inches of the stuff, but I did it
last night. Today I got home from work and the top 4 inches or so is
pretty clear, it's settling out nicely.

I also just started a batch of homebrew. Any of you folks do beer
also?

Greg

On Mon, 21 Jun 2004 15:39:22 GMT, "Ray" >
wrote:

>
>>
>> I've made many kits. While I advocate following the instructions for most
>> operations, the deviation you should make is time. Add some time between
>> racking, do at least one more racking than called for, allow some bulk
>aging
>> time.
>>
>> Doing this, I'd found my wines to be clearer and more mellow.
>> Ed
>>
>> http://pages.cthome.net/edhome
>>
>>
>
>In general I would agree with you Ed. But the particular kit he is using
>makes a low alcohol picnic type wine. It is mellow enough on it's own and
>is not designed for long storage. In fact, when I have let this wine age
>for a year it is TOO mellow. It is fine after 6 weeks and probably will not
>improve after 3 months.
>
>That is my experience with this wine anyway.
>
>Ray
>
>