What motivates you to make your own homemade wine? Is it for that feeling of knowing you’re participating in an ancient art that has been practiced for thousands of years? Is it so you can control the aromas and flavors of your wine and not worry about whether or not you’ll like the wine when you pop that cork? Or maybe you’re just trying to save a little money by making it yourself? Whatever your motivation, making your own homemade wine is a time-honored hobby that is beneficial on so many levels!
Here’s three reasons why you should be making your own wine. These are the reasons that seem to stand out to most people.
- First, it’s cheaper to make your own wine than to continually have to restock your wine cellar through regular visits to the wine shop. You can find inexpensive bottles of wine in the store, but their quality is hit or miss, and by making your own wine, you’ll know it’s good once you’ve got your rhythm down. On average, actually good bottles of wine in the store are going to cost you between $15 and $30. Again, you can get good wine for less than that, but it’s not as common and you really have to know your brands at that point.
If you add up the cost of the wine making ingredients for your homemade wine and divide it up by the number of wine bottles it produces, you’re paying significantly less per bottle and per sip than you are the majority of the inexpensive good bottles of wine at the store. So, you should be making your own wine from a standpoint of cost, alone.
- The second reason as to why you should be making wine, you have total control over what the finished product becomes. You have carte blanche over what your finished wine will taste like and over the style of wine it will become.
And realize, commercial wines are not immune to possessing faults, so even if you make a mistake, be comforted in the fact that it is very possible you could have just as easily purchased a bad bottle from the store. Once you get your winemaking technique down and you have all the right wine making ingredients, you can create a wine that you know you’ll enjoy every time you pop that cork.
Finally, making homemade wine can be really easy! Sure, it’s scary to think about it if you’ve never done it before, but there are many great resources available to you for free.
One great starting place is our How To Make Wine page. This page puts the whole wine making process in a nutshell. There’s also some great wine making recipes available to you. And, as if one couldn’t make it even easier, taking advantage of all the great winemaking kits out there will help making your own homemade wine a piece of cake! Currently, there are over 160 grape juice to choose from, collected from all over the world.
So as you can see there are many great reasons why you should be making wine. Not to mentions that your own homemade wine is a great thing to share with family and friends.
Do you make wine already? Share with others why you make wine in the comment section below!
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.
I make homemade wine for many reasons. The main reason is because I’m a "Maker"! I love to make stuff. I love to build stuff. I love to create. Not to mention I come from a long line of winemakers in Austria.
Every year I increase my capacity a little bit, and make more and more, and better and better wine. I just like doing it!
great to be getting tips have been trying to make wine for two years think I understand better w your tips
I started making wine several year ago for the enjoyment/as a hobby. Once I orderd a kit from E.C. Kraus I got better and my wine became a big hit with my family and friends. For about the last five years,
I have been making wine from the kit I purchased and always have something to give away for holidays, birthdays and Christmas giving.
I make my own wine because it tastes better than store bought and is not a mix for previous years. Mine contains no sulfates to blend the flavor so it tastes the same year after year.
I just started to make wine for the first time this past June. Since there’s quite a few local orchards to pick from each year, I decided to try my hand at making fruit wines when I saw there was a kit for it. The first one, a 1-gallon Strawberry, was a little scary at first, but then I did more and more research (a lot of it coming from your site) and I felt much more comfortable starting the next one, Blueberry. Both are fermenting nicely. Next will be Blackberry, Cherry, Cranberry, and I also really want to try a Honey Mead.
It seems that the more research I do, and the more recipes I come across, makes me want to keep going with it. I’m anxious to see which wine will come out the best. Just waiting now for the right time to bottle that first batch!
This yr is the first time I attempted to make my own wine from my garden grapes after buying all the equipment I did not have enough grapes for a full recipe so I looked up how to make wine in a mason jar and started there I have 3 jars fermenting and 3 different ingredients one has just grapes and sugar and water the next I put grapes and apple skins and the last I cut a whole apple with a little grape now I time for first racking I will do this over the weekend I hope to have this ready for Thanksgiving even if I get 1 glass of homemaker wine it will be all worth it and I got a good education for next yrs grapes or then over the winter I can get a kit and move on knowing I can make my own wine
My husband has been making his own beer at least 40 years ago. However, I prefer Wine. And making it myself is quite a Wow factor. I love to share it. The reduced costs gives me the chance to try different flavors I’d never buy in the store. I have been doing it myself for about 20+ years now, mostly with kits, but considering trying some from scratch next year. It would be an interesting challenge.
I live in the Red river valley of southeast Okla. I raise purple & pink tame , wild muscadines, also possum grapes.
I process my muscadines in a steam juicer. Do i still have to put the pulp in the fermenter?
Robert
Robert, if you juice the grapes in a steam juicer you do not need to add the pulp to the fermenter.
Making Wine With A Steam Juicer
https://blog.eckraus.com/making-wine-with-a-steam-juicer
I started making wine about 10 years ago. I had a few glasses of wine one night… when on e-bay and ‘happened by’ a Wine Equipment Started Kit… I laughed, placed a bid, and kinda forgot about it. The next day someone ask about a wine and I remembered – I checked the “bid” and I WON! Two days later UPS was at my door with the equipment ~ WHATS A GIRL TO DO … MAKE WINE! I have since branched out – I constructed a “brew room” in my basement – purchased “better” equipment – had wine boxes built – and created a logo for “MY” product “SHANTY CELLARS” 🙂
A bottle of wine I ‘donated’ to a nonprofit auction sold for $40.
and THIS is why “I” make win… MUCH FUN HOBBY – WITH BENEFITS!
Wine making is an art and skill that gets better the more you do. I love to take the excess fruits and make a product that can be enjoyed for years to come. I love the apple, pear, fig, peach, blueberry, blackberry, muskidine, and other locally grown fruits. They make excellent wines with full body and excellent flavors that only get better with age.
E.C. Krause has excellent recipes and supplies to help you every step of the way.
The bottles and corks are the biggest expense to making your very own signature product, (I use recycled bottles) all my friends and relatives love my wines and look forward to receiving them for special occasions, and I love the encouragement for the taste and body of my wines.
I only make 5 or 6 gallon batches so I have some to share and some to enjoy as a young wine and some to age for years to come.