Road Test - Island Mist Wildberry Shiraz

Island Mist's Wildberry Shiraz comes with all the ingredients and instructions needed to make a quite passable wine. Each ingredient is clearly labelled and / or numbered for their order of use.

The standard brewing equipment is used - large fermenter, long stirring spoon, hydrometer, racking cane. The difference being, you actually need 2 large fermenters as you need to rack the wine off after the first stage.

At each step, sanitising the equipment took 10 min with a further 1hr of drying time. This time has not been added to the times stated for each step.

Step 1 - combining bentonite, water, juice and yeast. A Specific Gravity ( SG ) of 1.064 was obtained, the instructions quoted  an SG of 1.048 - 1.052. ( This could be due to higher concentrate juice. ) Made 23.5L
Time: 12 minutes.

Step 2 - Check SG is under 1.010, ours read 1.000 so wine was racked off to the second fermenter.
Time: 10 minutes plus wash up of the  fermenter.

Step 3 - Adding the rest of the ingredients - the F pack or wildberry concentrate plus the metabisulphite, sorbate and the chitosan or isinglass ( Stabilising and fining agents ). This step involves a lot of stirring to drive off the CO2 contained in the wine.
Time: 20 minutes.

Step 4 - Bottling a total of 25L     9% Alcohol
Time: 40 minutes.

Total fermentation time: 35 days - 29/5/12 to 2/7/12

Hands on time: 82 minutes plus the 40 minutes sterilising, plus the 30 minutes wash up time for 2 fermenters.
Total time: 2 hours 32 minutes.

Cost: $75 for the kit, $6 for bottle of steriliser and $56 for bottles ( $1.60 a bottle for 35 bottles )

Total Cost: $137 for 35 bottles of wine ( $3.90 a bottle ).

Taste is well balanced, with the wildberry at the front followed by the shiraz, with a restrained tannin level this wine can be consumed straight after bottling, or if aged will mellow nicely.

Worth a go for a bit of fun and Ok wine.