Cellar Craft & WinExpert Wine Kits - Rule 7

The last rule is an easy one . . . well, maybe not! You've all heard the old axiom about serving no wine before its time. Well, our last rule has to do with patience.

Cellar Craft and WinExpert wine ingredient kits are ready to bottle in a short period of time but you need to allow them time to age and develop their individual characters prior to consumption.

My general rule of thumb is that I like to allow the whites to age for a minimum of six months and it is better to wait a year, the reds I like to age a minimum of a year and it is better if you can wait two.

Is this hard and fast? No! Nothing says you can't sample a bottle now and again to mark the wine's progression toward perfection.

One of my favorite stories about one of my customers is about Barb and Clarence. They were in the shop a couple of years ago. They love Gewurztraminer! They try every kind that they can find! They saw a WinExpert Gewurztraminer wine kit on the shelf and inquired about it. They did not want to make the wine themselves but they did want the wine. I agreed to make the wine for them and a couple of months later I called Barb and told her that her wine was ready. I had even filtered the wine and put it in blue bottles for an authentic look.

When Barb arrived at the store I told her that her wine needed to age and that she should take it home, put it in the basement and forget it for awhile.

Well, two weeks later I got an e-mail from Barb telling me that they had tried the wine and that it was not very good! I reminded Barb about patience and told her that I did not want to hear back from her for another 6 months or so.

About six months later I got an e-mail from Barb stating that the Gewurztraminer was good and getting better every bottle.

Clarence and Barb came in a couple of times after that and purchased both a Riesling and a Liebfraumilch for me to make for them.

When Clarence came in to pick up the last wine I had made for them I asked about the Gewurztraminer (which was now 15 months old). Clarence told me that they had only one problem--they had only ten bottles left and it was the best Gewurztraminer they had ever had!

Some kit wines will be very drinkable right away but all of them will improve if given a little bit of time!