Any recommendations for a home brew wine kit?

Just buy some honey and make Mead?

Don’t do it, it’s a cheap way to make cheap wine, the sort you’d feel aggrieved if you payed £4 for at the supermarket, the produce is never beyond “drinkable”. Make beer instead.

^^^+1

Been there, done it – crap and Unsatisfying. If you like good wine, you’ll only drink home brew because you made it, not,cos it’s worth drinking.

Make beer instead.

This.

These have had very good reviews if you don’t want to start with all grain. Much better than the normal beer kits.

Fresh Wort beer kit

Be warned, it’s very addictive. I started in December with a kit and now have a shed full of kit, fridges, boilers, kegs and pumps.

It can be quite good fun actually.

Whites seem to work better than reds, get a lot and give it a go.

Maybe I’ll try the beer then, sounds like a safer bet!
What’s the Wort Beer taste like?

I’ve tried a few kits but easily the best is Youngs Definitive Zinfandel Blush/Rose. Don’t bother with anything red. The Youngs Definitive Chardonnay Style is a good white (Don’t expect Chardonnay). They’ve always worked well but do take a while to make usually about 4 weeks.

The other option is making it from fruit (Blueberries, Blackberries etc.) Dead easy and frozen fruit is cheap. It does take longer to mature 1 -2 years.

What’s the Wort Beer taste like?

Wort is the sugary liquid that you start with and add yeast to it to make beer. The yeast eats the sugar and produces alcohol.

The fresh wort kit is unusual, it’s quite a bit more expensive than other beer kits but you should get much better results. Normally in a beer kit you have canned malt extract, much lower quality than this.

More detail here

Homemade wine is indeed invariably awful. Unless you own a vineyard I suppose.

I have used the Kenridge wine kits several times and they are high quality. I used spring water (tescos), and followed the simple instructions….the white wine kits are equal to £15 supermarket bottles IMO. Works out about £2 a bottle.

My uncles home made wine was legendary, not because it was even remotely palatable but because it got you absolutely fall down drunk.

His beer is actually quite decent.

I borrowed all the kit you need of a neighbour a fortnight ago and tried a thirty quid Cellar 7 Chardonnay kit. Literally just had the first taste and, being honest, it’s not that bad. I’m quite surprised as I was expecting something that would be only good enough for putting on your fish and chips but considering the amount we spend on wine in a month I’ll see what it’s like after a month or so. The whole kit only costs forty quid and you get thirty or so bottles per kit so it’s been worth it for the laugh!

We’ve got a vine in the back garden, just picked them and mashed them, been in the bucket now for 24h with some campden tablets, just added the yeast and the first of 3 additions of 600g of sugar!

Im guessing the british climate doesnt produce particulalry sweet grapes if it needs another 2kg in 5 gallons!

As for kits, drinkable for a party but not much else. Itz not bad, but theres none of the subtlty of nice wines.

OH makes wine and beer, he buys Solomon Grundy wine kits from the local home brew shop and they turn out a really nice drop. I don’t like his home brew beer though. The wines do improve over time, and a red will taste fuller after a few months.

Wilko – as good as any and much cheaper