Winemaking

Do you enjoy drinking wine but dislike how expensive buying wine can be? If you answered yes to both, then making homemade wine is the hobby for you. Wine making can be fun and easy. Why spend $10 and up per bottle of wine when you could make wine for a fraction of the price.

All the beginner needs to start making wine is a basic wine making kit, which you can buy online or a local wine making supply store. Usually the basic wine kit includes a primary fermenter, carboy, hydrometer, stopper and fermentation lock, siphon-hose, sterilizer, and step by step instructions. The kits usually run around $55 to $75. Once you have the essential wine making equipment, the next step is to decide if you want to purchase a wine kit that contains concentrated juice and additional ingredients, or if you want to purchase grapes or other fruits and process it yourself. I recommend buying a wine kit to start with to get a feel for the many steps it involves. Wine kits run from $50 to $120. You may think that is a lot of money, but if you do the math it ends up costing $1.66 to $4.00 per bottle because each 6 gallon batch usually makes 30 bottles. A wine kit also is ready to drink in three to six months and you don’t have to worry about crushing the grapes or fruit yourself.

Many people enjoy wine. You can personalize wine labels to create a beautiful, unique gift. Come up with a clever name for your at home winery, personalize a label and people will love receiving it for a gift. You could also go a step further and create a wine basket. In an ice bucket, include a bottle or two of your home made wine, crackers, cheese, fruits and nuts. You could also include wine glasses, bottle stopper, personalized picture costars or a cheese board.

So I suggest you get busy making your first batch of wine. The key ingredient in making home made wine is your passion for the hobby. Not only will you love having a collection of your favorite wines, but now you have gifts on hand to give to your family and friends. You will be amazed at how much money you will save.