Anyone have any preferences on these two brands of "sterile must"?

Here's a datapoint of one (and as an engineer, I hate this type of
research). I made a Mosto Italiano reisling that everyone who tried
stared at me and said something like "This is really good. You did
this?" Everyone raved, and a number of them want me to do it full
time

Based on discussing with others, if you do it right, sterile must is
more likely to give you better wine than kits, and if you do it wrong,
sterile must is more likely to give you much worse wine than kits.
Sterile must isn't near as manipulated as what it takes to make kits,
and therefore is much more like starting with grapes.

It's enough that I won't do kits, I'll start with sterile must.

BTW - my opinion, I'm not impressed with the Home Wine brand, from
Alexander & sons. It started weak, and it's getting weaker.

Rob


(Gus) wrote in message . com>...
> Anyone have any preferences on these two brands of "sterile must"?

On 13 Feb 2004 11:53:20 -0800, (Rob) wrote:

>Here's a datapoint of one (and as an engineer, I hate this type of
>research). I made a Mosto Italiano reisling that everyone who tried
>stared at me and said something like "This is really good. You did
>this?" Everyone raved, and a number of them want me to do it full
>time
>

Rob:

If you still have the pail, do the ingredients include juice,
concentrate or both?

FYI, Mosti Mondiale 23 litre pails (based on a sample size of one) do
not mention concentrate. Not to say that they make a better wine
cause I haven't made it.

Thanks, Steve

Home Wines/ Alexanders is actually California Concentrates, they have
a website. CaliforniaConcentrates.com. I'm not saying the juice has
concentrate in it, just letting you know where you can get info.

I prefer Regina to Home Wines, but to each his own. Never used Mosti
Mondiale
Regards,
Joe


> BTW - my opinion, I'm not impressed with the Home Wine brand, from
> Alexander & sons. It started weak, and it's getting weaker.
>
> Rob
>
>
> (Gus) wrote in message . com>...
> > Anyone have any preferences on these two brands of "sterile must"?

Steve and Joe -

Both the Mosto Italiano and Home Wines claim to be juice.

I actually acquired the Home Wines from the factory where they make
that and the Sun Country Concentrates (I live close enough to get
there). Their claim on the 23L container is that it's just juice (not
from concentrate), but it has obviously been adjusted in some ways, as
they list certified amounts of Brix, Sulphite, and TA on the container
(and I confirmed all three as being in their ranges). I had assumed
that the Home Wine brand was just the Sun Country concentrate, before
they took all the water out :-). The 23L container only holds juice.

The Mosto Italiano comes in a sealed 23L pail, with the juice in a
bladder, and with kit ingredients and instructions (yeast, sulphite,
bentonite, etc.) both in the pail. I didn't measure sulphite (didn't
have any titrets at the time), but adjusted sugar and acid before
starting to get to numbers I wanted to work with; the numbers were
such that I don't beileve the juice was particularly manupulated
(TA=0.45!) As I had some experience with making wine straight from
pressed grape juice, I treated it as if it was free run from the
press.

Hope that answers the questions.

Rob

> Based on discussing with others, if you do it right, sterile must is
> more likely to give you better wine than kits, and if you do it wrong,
> sterile must is more likely to give you much worse wine than kits.

Rob,
If done wrong, why would sterile must be more likely to give you
much worse wine than kits?

Don

Rob,
Thanks for the info. I make a lot of my wine from juice since I
travel a lot on business.

The brands we have available locally are Regina and Home Wines. We
used to get Lodi Gold too. All are in 6 gallon (23L) pails. We
probably go though 100 truckloads of juice alone, Pittsburgh is a big
home winemaking town.

I always wondered if Home Wines used any concentrate, now I know.
Regina uses citric to bump the acid when necessary, but you would
expect that given the low cost of the juice. They also claim it's
only juice. I'm pretty sure it's illegal to add sugar to the must
when making wine in California, but do not know if that applies to
juice destined for home wines. Even after shipping and pailing we are
still in the $30 to $45 range here, so I have no complaints.
Regarfs,
Joe

(Rob) wrote in message . com>...
> Steve and Joe -
>
> Both the Mosto Italiano and Home Wines claim to be juice.
>
> I actually acquired the Home Wines from the factory where they make
> that and the Sun Country Concentrates (I live close enough to get
> there). Their claim on the 23L container is that it's just juice (not
> from concentrate), but it has obviously been adjusted in some ways, as
> they list certified amounts of Brix, Sulphite, and TA on the container
> (and I confirmed all three as being in their ranges). I had assumed
> that the Home Wine brand was just the Sun Country concentrate, before
> they took all the water out :-). The 23L container only holds juice.
>
> The Mosto Italiano comes in a sealed 23L pail, with the juice in a
> bladder, and with kit ingredients and instructions (yeast, sulphite,
> bentonite, etc.) both in the pail. I didn't measure sulphite (didn't
> have any titrets at the time), but adjusted sugar and acid before
> starting to get to numbers I wanted to work with; the numbers were
> such that I don't beileve the juice was particularly manupulated
> (TA=0.45!) As I had some experience with making wine straight from
> pressed grape juice, I treated it as if it was free run from the
> press.
>
> Hope that answers the questions.
>
> Rob

(Joe Sallustio) wrote in message . com>...
> I'm pretty sure it's illegal to add sugar to the must
> when making wine in California, but do not know if that applies to
> juice destined for home wines.

If it's not illegal, it's greatly frowned on in *commercial* wine.
That may not mean that it doesn't happen. I've read (from others who
claim to know this) that there are cases of chaptalization (adding
sugar) in poor years in places where the ripening of grapes is
marginal.

But home wine making, well, just read the posts - there are a lot of
things going on here that commerically one just wouldn't expect to do.
If it tastes good, though, it's the right wine. I make wine with
friends in Oregon off grapes on their land, and the grapes tend to
remain a little under-ripe even when the rainy season starts. We
sugar them just so we have a balanced wine.

Rob

> Rob,
> If done wrong, why would sterile must be more likely to give you
> much worse wine than kits?
>
> Don

The theory is that kit wines have been "processed" to meet the
requirements of shipping, storage, and the variability of the
confidence and capabilities of the winemakers who use them. The
manufacturers do this by taking a lot of the variables out of the
juice in the kit, setting acid levels, sugar levels, etc., as well as
giving exact directions. Give this kit to 10 winemakers of varying
skills following the directions and you're likely to end up with 10
relatively similar wines. (BTW, as you read around this forum,
though, you'll notice that there's a lot of variation in the end
result of kit wines. I think that comes from a lot of folks who've
done kits "by the book", found that to be very successful, and then
branched out to see what else they could do, whether it was other
fruits, adding things to kit wines, starting with grapes of their own,
etc.)

With sterile must, you're likely to have an unprocessed material to
start with, other than the assurance that the starting juice is
sterile. This means that there are a lot more variables that the
winemaker has to take into account, and not all winemakers will make
the same decisions on those. Finally, sterile musts don't necessarily
come with directions, which creates a lot more variables. Give a
sterile must to 10 winemakers of varying skills, and even if they all
follow directions you're likely to end up with 10 much more diverse
wines. There'll be even a larger spread without directions.

As an example, the reisling I spoke of making earlier, there's no way
that would have been a kit juice with such a low TA, and it would have
had a higher Brix as well. Adjusting those to where I wanted to start
actually gave me a different wine than anyone else who started with
the same sterile must, and left me open to both great positives if I
chose correctly, and great negatives if I chose poorly.

HTH

Rob

Rob,

I'm curious about the low TA you mentioned, and you also said the Brix
level was low? Riesling is a high acid grape - for example, juice I
got from Washington State last year was 22B and 9.5g/L TA. 5g/L is a
huge difference, I don't see how they'd get such low acid (with low
B). I know you can't measure TA on kits before fermentation - there's
something in the kit processing that binds part of the acid. I'm
wondering if this might be the case here too. When you measured the
acid later, was it where you expected it to be with your additions or
was it much higher?

I'm curious because I'm sometimes getting strange acidity shifts in
some wines and haven't figured out the cause yet.

Pp



(Rob) wrote in message . com>...
> > Rob,
> > If done wrong, why would sterile must be more likely to give you
> > much worse wine than kits?
> >
> > Don
>
> The theory is that kit wines have been "processed" to meet the
> requirements of shipping, storage, and the variability of the
> confidence and capabilities of the winemakers who use them. The
> manufacturers do this by taking a lot of the variables out of the
> juice in the kit, setting acid levels, sugar levels, etc., as well as
> giving exact directions. Give this kit to 10 winemakers of varying
> skills following the directions and you're likely to end up with 10
> relatively similar wines. (BTW, as you read around this forum,
> though, you'll notice that there's a lot of variation in the end
> result of kit wines. I think that comes from a lot of folks who've
> done kits "by the book", found that to be very successful, and then
> branched out to see what else they could do, whether it was other
> fruits, adding things to kit wines, starting with grapes of their own,
> etc.)
>
> With sterile must, you're likely to have an unprocessed material to
> start with, other than the assurance that the starting juice is
> sterile. This means that there are a lot more variables that the
> winemaker has to take into account, and not all winemakers will make
> the same decisions on those. Finally, sterile musts don't necessarily
> come with directions, which creates a lot more variables. Give a
> sterile must to 10 winemakers of varying skills, and even if they all
> follow directions you're likely to end up with 10 much more diverse
> wines. There'll be even a larger spread without directions.
>
> As an example, the reisling I spoke of making earlier, there's no way
> that would have been a kit juice with such a low TA, and it would have
> had a higher Brix as well. Adjusting those to where I wanted to start
> actually gave me a different wine than anyone else who started with
> the same sterile must, and left me open to both great positives if I
> chose correctly, and great negatives if I chose poorly.
>
> HTH
>
> Rob

It was where I expected it to be, although it was more acid than I
wanted, as I temporarily mistook grams for ounces (Doh!) adding acid.
Luckily caught myself before a full disaster, but once I recalculated
what I did, the measurements corresponded to what I expected. BTW,
Brix went to where I wanted as well.

With kits, they have to bind the acid otherwise they lose a bunch of
the tartaric acid in teh concentration process (almost like an
incredibly weird cold stabilization) and you get a very weird wine.

Rob


(pp) wrote in message . com>...
> Rob,
>
> I'm curious about the low TA you mentioned, and you also said the Brix
> level was low? Riesling is a high acid grape - for example, juice I
> got from Washington State last year was 22B and 9.5g/L TA. 5g/L is a
> huge difference, I don't see how they'd get such low acid (with low
> B). I know you can't measure TA on kits before fermentation - there's
> something in the kit processing that binds part of the acid. I'm
> wondering if this might be the case here too. When you measured the
> acid later, was it where you expected it to be with your additions or
> was it much higher?
>
> I'm curious because I'm sometimes getting strange acidity shifts in
> some wines and haven't figured out the cause yet.
>
> Pp
>
>
>
> (Rob) wrote in message . com>...
> > > Rob,
> > > If done wrong, why would sterile must be more likely to give you
> > > much worse wine than kits?
> > >
> > > Don
> >
> > The theory is that kit wines have been "processed" to meet the
> > requirements of shipping, storage, and the variability of the
> > confidence and capabilities of the winemakers who use them. The
> > manufacturers do this by taking a lot of the variables out of the
> > juice in the kit, setting acid levels, sugar levels, etc., as well as
> > giving exact directions. Give this kit to 10 winemakers of varying
> > skills following the directions and you're likely to end up with 10
> > relatively similar wines. (BTW, as you read around this forum,
> > though, you'll notice that there's a lot of variation in the end
> > result of kit wines. I think that comes from a lot of folks who've
> > done kits "by the book", found that to be very successful, and then
> > branched out to see what else they could do, whether it was other
> > fruits, adding things to kit wines, starting with grapes of their own,
> > etc.)
> >
> > With sterile must, you're likely to have an unprocessed material to
> > start with, other than the assurance that the starting juice is
> > sterile. This means that there are a lot more variables that the
> > winemaker has to take into account, and not all winemakers will make
> > the same decisions on those. Finally, sterile musts don't necessarily
> > come with directions, which creates a lot more variables. Give a
> > sterile must to 10 winemakers of varying skills, and even if they all
> > follow directions you're likely to end up with 10 much more diverse
> > wines. There'll be even a larger spread without directions.
> >
> > As an example, the reisling I spoke of making earlier, there's no way
> > that would have been a kit juice with such a low TA, and it would have
> > had a higher Brix as well. Adjusting those to where I wanted to start
> > actually gave me a different wine than anyone else who started with
> > the same sterile must, and left me open to both great positives if I
> > chose correctly, and great negatives if I chose poorly.
> >
> > HTH
> >
> > Rob