Young's Definitive 6 bottle wine kits - Chardonnay and Zinfandel Blush

[Drzava]

Fired on two Young's Definitive 6 bottle wine kits over the weekend - one Chardonnay and one Zinfandel Blush rose. Both are made in the same way - tin of goop + 450g sugar + water, and ferment. Further sachets for finings and sulphates. Easy peasy really. AFAIK both simply contain generic grape juice and flavourings so are Chardonnay and ZB 'style' respectively. Hell, as long as the wife likes them I don't mind!

OG on the Chardonnay a rather disappointing 1.074, suggesting 10% alcohol would be about as good as it gets. It was a bit 'gloopier' than the ZB out of the can, but I did give it a good shaking to dissolve. ZB a bit better at 1.088. Chardonnay was out of the blocks quicker - roughly a day ahead of the ZB on krausen formation and collapse; was also a degree warmer for the first 36 hours or so (incubated together). Both are currently fizzing away merrily (rather like cider) and the Chardonnay colour has lightened from its initial rather dark shade.

Will report back when things are looking like finishing up - a week or so I guess.

[Drzava]

Well this took longer than I expected - probably because I thought it was a one week wine kit, when it's actually 3 - 4 week! Still waiting for the rose to clear up a bit, but I bottled the Chardonnay last night. It was 4 weeks in primary before racking onto the stabiliser and finings. Racked again two days later and again two days after that (last night, before bottling). Surprised myself by ending up only about 100ml short of six full bottles - although at the expense of transferring over a little sediment. What the hell though - more wine! Verdict on taste is.......this is really very good, even with no aging. I love my red wine, but rarely touch the white so I can't claim to be an expert on it and certainly couldn't discern varieties etc. However it definitely tastes like white wine and I've certainly paid for worse! It doesn't taste 'homebrew' or anything to me. Wife thinks it's nice too so mission accomplished!

[Will_D]

Thats great to hear. When SWMBO (the Misses) is on board you have cracked this hobby!

[Drzava]

She likes my Finlandia cider too, which I'm disappointed with so far!