Andy,

I haven't tried what you suggested. I did save some pressed skins
from 2002 and 2003, and added both to some free run juice from the
2003 batches -- the idea was to ferment only 90% of the 2003 Syrah
juice with 100% of the skins in order to get better concentration,
then to reuse both the 2002 and 2003 pressed skins on the 10% free run
juice. The latter seems to have been a dismal failure -- pretty poor
colour and flavour, and still hasn't cleared. The only wine I ever
produced that I'm planning to dump down the drain -- fortunately only
6 or 7 litres :-(

I did save some of the spent 2003 skins (not the ones I used in the
above experiment) to try further experiments, but have 2 baby boys now
and by the time I have time for more winemaking these may be too
freezer-burnt to use.

In any case, I'm not sure I would add spent skins to a premium kit,
for a number of reasons:
(1) fear of introducing MLF -- probably not a high risk, but would be
catastrophic if it occurred
(2) not sure worth the extra effort of having to press
post-fermentation
(3) potentially losing a bit of the kit wine to the spent skins and
pressing process, and not having extra to top up the carboys
(4) fear of vegetal notes or some other undesirable effect coming from
the spent skins and spoiling the whole thing

One thing I'm unsure about is whether my failed experiment is due to
the year-long freezing of the 2002 skins. I suspect it may have
something to do with the failure of the wine to clear. If freezing
them and using later is a problem, then that in itself is a bit of a
problem because I generally would never have time and capacity to do a
kit wine at the same time as my grape wines because I generally do all
the fresh grapes that I can handle. I do several different varieties
because it seems to me that these cheaper red grape wines benefit
greatly from blending, and I want to have lots of blending options.

All other factors aside (timing, availability, etc) I would probably
instead save some extra fresh grapes and ferment those whole (but
crushed) with the kit. I wouldn't necessarily pick the same varietal
as the cheap grapes I work with usually aren't that good for the
"main" varieties. I'd probably instead pick something like a Ruby
Cabernet or a Valdepena (aka Tempranillo) that has decent tannins and
colour. Here again you have the issue of having to press, but you've
added more juice and so don't have the top-up problem.

Of course the other option is to make batches of each type of wine and
blend post-fermentation. But I think this is probably the riskiest in
terms of MLF -- I've never had a fresh grape batch that didn't
eventually go through spontaneous MLF -- so I probably wouldn't try
this unless I had some lysozyme on hand to try and prevent the MLF
from starting up again in the blended wine.

Anyhow... Hope all that rambling gives you some ideas :-)

Richard