About 14 months ago, a good friend of mine uncorked a bottle of wine he had made from a kit. It was wonderful! A Malbec – rich, dark and plummy. I asked him who supplied this juice and he promised me he’d pick me up a kit from his supplier. A few weeks later, I had a 16 liter juice kit from Mosti Mondiale in their “Rennaissance” line.

As things would have it, much has happened in the past year since I received my kit. Due to some “team politics,” I’ve lost the friendship of the man who first introduced me to the Rennaissance Malbec, although I remain good friends with the rest of the team.

As well in the past year, I’ve also found a love that compares to no other – and she has kept me busy! We’ve consumed wine but I’ve done very little wine making. Lots of travel, too much work, and time spent learning more about each other has taken up most of my energy and resources; my wine making has taken a back burner. Perhaps someday soon my “Pretty Colleen” and I will make wine together and we can always have a few tax free bottles on hand as we enjoy our adventures.

Ah some of those adventures! The passion, the fieriness… that needs a full bodied, dark red wine – and this evening I decided that too much time had passed since I made wine. I have several kits (as well as many plans in my head that involved fresh ingredients like dandelions, blueberries and apples) but haven’t done much at all. This evening, while thinking of the passion and all that goes with it, I eyed my Malbec kit and just knew it should be made into wine.

So my wee man (who is now 6 and who also quite likes my “Pretty Colleen”) opened the kit together. He helped me pour the juice into the primary, add the water – and then he stirred! He did a fantastic job of stirring as he commented several times on the color of the juice. And so much fun for him to learn a little bit about physics and “specific gravity.” I wonder how many six year olds get to use and read a hydrometer!

The instructions that come with the Renaissance Malbec are ok – I’ve seen better. They advise to clean your primary fermenter with a chlorine detergent – not something I’d want to do. Hot water, a good dry, and then sprayed down with a water sulphite solution, then rinsed is good enough for me.

Also, they instruct to take the specific gravity AFTER you’ve stirred in the Bentonite solution. That makes no sense as it could affect the SG reading when what you really want is the SG of the juice itself and nothing else. My SG reading was an excellent 1.092 after adding enough water to the 16 litres of juice to bring it to 5 gallons.

The yeast that comes with the kit is a standard Alvin EC-1118. I did like the Bentonite in that it came in a sort of pellet form that dissolved in cool water in about 30 minutes and didn’t require much stirring to get into a solution form. Other clearing agents to be added later include something called “Liquidgel” and “Siligel.”

The kit also came with two 30 gram packages of oak chips – the instructions recommend this be added to the carboy at the secondary stage, but I did what I always do – added them to the primary.

Surprisingly for a 16 liter kit, the instructions call for bottling the wine after only 28 days. I think I’ll bottle mine at least 40 days, and probably more like 54 days minimum.

Of course, I’ll likely open a few bottles too quickly. But I’ll put some aside to enjoy with my “Pretty Colleen,” and the deep red colour of the wine will go very well with her hair.

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