Cornucopia Fruit Wine Making Kit, White Green Apple Pinot Bianco, 17.5-Pound Box

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.

It makes a decent wine, this is made to drink when the wine is young, while the wine is just OK at a young stage, it says aging will cause it to lose the fruity taste but since it makes about 30 bottles I think there will be quite a few that will be left to age. I have made wine before and it has turned out well and tasted good after aging. This kit has the ingredients necessary to make the wine but you do need to have your own fermenting container, carboy, the air locks, bottles and things like that. It is easy to do and the price is reasonable. The quality of the wine isn't great but it is acceptable.

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.

This kit is my first for my new wine making hobby. Very good price and alot of other great reviews made me purchase this. I love sweet wine but hated the package store prices. Currently at the primary fermentation stage, directions were easy to follow thus far and the fermentation is on schedule. The labels were missing from the kit but a quick call to customer service at paklab and they are to be sent out. Will update the review as the wine progresses and I have my first taste in one month. Happy brewing and by all means take the plunge. :) update: It is now day 28 with the kit and have successfully bottled 28 bottles. The taste was not too sweet and I do prefer sweet wines. I topped mine off when needed with commercial rieslings that were too dry for my taste and I believe that is why the wine is just right. Being my first wine making venture, I followed the directions exactly and had to degas the wine 3 days, several times a day as the kit said no bubbles or foam before you could proceed. I achieved 28 instead of 30 bottles. The sulphites used to sterilze everything can be off putting if you are sensitive to it, but this is present in commercial wines to a heavier degree, you just are not handling it. Happy brewing!!!