I was pleasantly surprised by this kit.. I made it to the directions, but added 2 oak spirals (purchased seperately) during fermentation. For some reason, this wine took more time to ferment than the directions stated, which is why I always go by hydrometer readings and not the "guidelines" in the directions. This posed no problem for me as it gave the wine longer to extract flavor from the oak.. My kit took just over 6 weeks from yeast pitch to bottle. Fermentation alone took 4 weeks. This is also the only kit I ever made using tap water, so that "may" have affected fermentation..
All in all, this wine is a winner to me, and everyone who has tried it has given it a thumbs up. The oak gave it the soft buttery and vanilla flavors which I have always loved in a Chard.. If you are not a fan of oaky Chards, and decide to make this, please post your results without using oak. I am interested to see if the oak added significantly more character to this wine or not. For the money, I think this is a steal!! Especially since it comes with corks, shrink capsules and labels!!!
I will definatley be ordering this kit regularly, and already have orders for more bottles!!
I also modified the kit instructions. I hydrated the yeast, however, the instructions said that you could do this as an alternative to using the yeast sprinkling method. My SG at start was 1.08. The first fermentation ended on day 11. After racking, I added toasted oak chips. I racked the wine again on Day 21 when the SG was .990, and again on Day 23 due to the amount of ugly sediment that was forming quickly at the bottom (and I was going on a business trip). The wine at this point was extremely cloudy, and tasted and smelled horrible. The alcohol tasted very strong and I thought that the alcohol content was way too high. I then removed the oak chips and added the gels. The wine cleared within a couple of days and seemed to darken a bit over the next week. I racked the wine again on Day 33, crossed my fingers and tasted the wine. I was shocked that it tasted good but I wish that it had more body and had more oak flavor and had more body. I have not bottled the wine yet but am thinking of adding more oak and bulk aging the wine a bit longer. Note that I am probably at 20 liters but I am not adding water or wine, but am spraying inert gas (Wine Preserve) into the carboy whenever I lift the airlock.
I like a very oak flavored Chardonnay and this kit contains no oak. That is the only reason that I am ranking this kit as a 4 star instead of a 5. I hope that Amazon continues to sell Vino Italiano kits. I would to try out the red and see how they compare to the much more expensive Vino del Vido and Mosti Mondial red wines that I have made.
Based on my results thus far, I would recommend this kit. I will add more information to this review if I am able to later.
Update June, 2011: Just opened one of my last bottles. It keeps getting better. Very smooth, very good flavor. I am ordering another kit.
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This kit makes a very nice chardonnay with some adjustments. First, be careful and use a hydrometer when you make up the wine to volume. My kit made 20.5 Liters at 1.090 instead of 23. In fairness, the kit says it makes 23 L at 1.075 to 1.090. I opted for reduced volume in lieu of diluted wine.
Secondly, the kit does not contain yeast starter nutrients and the kit instructions have you just sprinkle the dry yeast into the wine must. That's really not a good idea! I bought some GoFerm for rehydrating the yeast and some Fermaid K yeast nutrient to add during the fermentation. Rehydrated the yeast by sprinkling it into 6 grams of GoFerm suspended in 4 oz of water. After 30 min, I added 4 oz of white grape juice (no preservatives) to let the yeast start their metabolism. After 6 hours, I added another 8 oz of grape juice and let the yeast grow overnight. Used this starter culture to innoculate the wine kit must. Added 3 grams of Fermaid K nutrient on the first day after pitching the yeast and 3 more grams when the must had fermented down to about 1.060 specific gravity.
With those modifications and with some attention to the details of aeration and stirring, the kit makes a very good chardonnay. I'll give it 4 stars because the quality of components makes such good wine. However, if you just follow the kit instructions and sprinkle the dry yeast directly into the fermentation vessel, you run the risk of a very slow start and increased risk of contamination. If you don't add any yeast nutrients, you risk having stalled fermentation somewhere along the way. The yeast nutrients are cheap; they should be in the kit!
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First, a disclaimer for those looking at wine kits who aren't familiar with them; this is *not* absolutely everything you will need to make wine kit, but it does have just about all of the disposable items you'll need other than bottles. If you don't own any wine making equipment, you will want to get a fermenter, a carboy and... well, you'll need to get a STARTER kit. This has just about everything someone who has already been making wine will need, except for the bottles... and if you're like me you'll just save your bottles anyway to sanitize and reuse them.
That said, wow. It did have everything I needed. It included the corks I'd need for my bottles, the Chardonnay bottle labels as well as a bottle sealer that I found extremely cool but had not used before. The yeast (Lalvin-1118) is my go-to yeast when I make mead or hard cider and it worked well here. It will tend to leave a dry wine, but then you can backsweeten it if you want... but with a chardonnay, you'll probably want to leave it dry. I used the same fermenter, carboy, tubing, etc. that I use whenever I make my adult beverages, but the kit completely covered me for all of the "consumables" that I would otherwise have possibly bought, even including some clarifiers I hadn't used before but I will be using again.
I ordered this back in September in order to make this batch for some chardonnay lovers in my family for Christmas and I did the final bottling yesterday... I am not a big chardonnay fan personally (I like sweeter wines myself) but even I enjoyed the final product. The only thing I added which was not in the kit was oak chips (available here or at your local brewing supply store) to give it an oak flavor, but that's certainly not necessary.
This is my first Vino Italiano kit -as I said above, I normally make mead or hard cider so I don't have a lot of experience with wine kits, but I will definitely be trying other Vino Italiano varieties for some of the sweeter wines that I do like... Yes, most kits cost more, but this is a case where I feel like I'm getting more than I paid for. Highly recommended for fans of chardonnay who already have a wine making starter kit and 30 or so 750ml wine bottles they can use. :)
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This is my 9th kit of Vino Italiano Wine.I make it to 6 gal. and add 3 cups of simple syrup, (just heat water and add sugar)at the beginning fermentation. This will make the wines abv about 12% .Each pound of sugar raises the abv about 1%. Make sure to use quality water like bottled spring water,not tap or well water. I also added 2 cans of white grape juice for extra body,The directions are easy to follow..It also gets a little better after being in the bottle for a month or two.The Vino Italiano wines at amazon are very good too for a regular non fruit wine.Great value with corks and labels and hats.I also don't put labels on all the bottles unless i'm giving them away,too much work to clean them off next time,just use a little adhesive tag to label them.I highly recommend these wines,and its fun to experiment with different techniques that you read other people tried. Enjoy, but remember,its addictive.
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