Cornucopia Fruit Wine Kit, Red Raspberry Pinot Nero, 17.5 lbs

Decided to try Cornucopia kits because of the price and the decent reviews. The good reviews seem to be right! Everyone has been impressed with this wine. It's a little sweet for me but those that enjoy a sweet wine have loved it.I used the entire bag of green apple "juice" when we flavored so it could easily be lightened up a bit by using less. When I made the pinot bianco base I added about 2 pounds of sugar to boost the alcohol. It would have ended up around 6% but after boosting it ended up somewhere around 8.5%. I was happy with this as there is more alcohol but it didn't mess with the flavor or characteristics of the wine. If it had any more I think it would end up being a "sneak attack" of sorts, as it's been reported to me that some have sipped quite a large glass of this wine before the alcohol actually hits...I didn't filter the wine, but I think I rushed the bottling after the clearing process as I ended up with a small amount of sediment in the bottles. It's only noticeable if you hold a light to a bottle and I doubt it will have any effect, but if that bothers you filtering would solve that. Letting it sit a few more days before bottling probably would have helped.On the aging of the wine, I doubt this will be around to even mention that in the future. It takes great as soon as it's done, so aging won't be needed. I'll try and get a couple bottles around as long as I can to see how it is a year from now. Thankfully I've been making other wine so it won't be as tempting to open them all!To sum it up: Recommended as a great desert wine, party wine, or anytime really! Ready to drink right away, but I do suggest adding some sugar to the must to get the most out of the kit. Looking forward to making some more Cornucopia kits in the future.

I have made about 8 wine kits so far and this is 'White Tropical Riesling' my absolute favorite. In fact, it is the best dessert wine I have ever had in my life.Again, it is a dessert wine, so if you do not like sweet white wines, you won't like this either. If you want it less sweet, you can add less of the F-pack after fermentation. I added the entire F-Pack and like it that way.The fruity taste and aroma are difficult to describe but is simply wonderful - like being in a tropical paradise. This is unlike any other wine I have ever tasted.What I also like about PakLab wine kits (Cornucopia, Vino Italiano, Diamanti, Chateau Classico, Reserve du Chateau) is they are all GMO-Free. No GMO corn-syrup, etc. For those of you who are clueless about GMOs, genetic engineering is at a very primitive stage and during the gene insertion process hundreds of genes are damaged in the plant DNA. These damaged genes induce the formations of toxins in the plants that are bad for your liver, kidneys, and digestive track.I did modify the directions. I wanted a higher alcohol content, so I added 13 cups of cane sugar to increase the sp.gr. to 1.090 (total volume 6 gallons) so I would get a final alcohol content of around 12%. Before adding this cane sugar, I boiled it in 13 cups of water with a teaspoon of lemon juice to convert it into invert sugar, then cooled it to room temperature before adding to the mix. I also added 1 TBSPN of pure Vanilla extract to the mix. Adding this extra sugar increased the fermentation time at 70F to 6 weeks. Also, the fermentation stalled at sp.gr.1.033 after 2 weeks, so I added 1 TBSPN of yeast nutrient and more yeast (EC-1118). After fermentation my final sp gr was 0.998 before adding the F-Pack.The final result is delicious and potent with no aging needed.

Seems like the reviews for this brand mix all the varieties into the same place. so its hard to tell what some reviews are for. Im rating the Tropical Riesling. Some of my friends like this wine, but most including me found it to be way too sweet. which is crazy because I only put in about 1/3 of the post sweetening mix. I could not imagine what it would be like if I put it all in!However, you could probably make this better from what Ive learned. For one, don't add all the water it calls for, I bet 3 liters or more could be omitted from the primary. My batch also had a low alcohol contend at finish (7-8% tops) so cutting back on the water would be good for this reason too. you can always add more later if you want, but you cant remove it once its in there.The directions only call for one racking after primary racking, I racked it an additional time prior to adding the clearing agents so that I was not mixing up the stuff that had already settled out. This step should be added to the directions.I did not filter or polish my batch at bottling (as recommended in the directions) because it was not needed, my batch cleared just fine on its own, quite well actually.This comes to bottling in 28 days if you follow the directions. Which I did. But i would probably let it go longer in the secondary if I did it again.Lastly, the post sweetening, they give you way too much in my opinion. So maybe try putting in a 1/4 of it or less at first, let it sit a few days and see if you like it. Again you can always add more....To be honest I will not likely get this again, they could have put less in the post sweetening mix and more in the primary must. Maybe one could just add some of the second package into the primary fermenter right off the bat? might be worth a try. you get what you pay for here, cheep wine.I make a lot of wine, usually not from kits like this, but figured for the price I should give it a try. I will say this, its hard to believe they didn't charge for shipping, and it arrived in a few days. I was impressed with the fact that it comes with its own corks, shrink caps and labels too. My future mother in law loves this stuff, so if anything I got some cheep brownie points out of the deal, 30 to be exact!