Advintage Celebration Series – Barolo

Some time ago, I don’t remember when, I picked up a red wine kit from a company based in Quebec, Canada called Advintage Distribution. The particular kit I picked up was from their “Celebration Series,”, a six week kit with juice from Barolo grapes. The retail price, $80.00, was acceptable and with 30 bottles of wine, comes in at less than 3 dollars bottle not including the bottles, cork, and labels. So, let’s look at everything that comes with this “Celebration” Series kit.

First, the instructions are “ok.” Immediately under “Step #1” in the instructions, are highlighted areas telling you how to “calibrate” your primary fermenter and then how to prepare the bentonite. If I didn’t know better, I’d be a bit confused by first reading these highlighted areas – calibrate a pail? Preparing the bentonite? That would confuse me right off the bat.

The fine print is not so hard once you read it, and as long as you followed the highlighted bentonite preparation instructions first.

“Step #2” instructions are clear enough, but then when we get to “Step #3 Degassing and Clearing,” Step 3 tells you to rack the wine, stir it to degass it, and then add Metabisulphite solution. Then, after stirring the wine, add the package of Kieselsol.. 30 mintues later or so, add the package of Chitosan.

Yet, we’ve got Packet #4, Sorbate sitting here, and there is nothing in the instructions as to when to add this, or what it is for at all. To an experienced winemaker, it might be known that sorbate may not be required, but to someone trying to make their own wine at home, it would seem that this package of sorbate, without any instruction as to it’s use, or when it should be added, could cause some confusion. For this reason, I think the instructions really could be improved.

The clearing agents that come with the kit include Bentonite, added at the beginning, and then Kieselsol at Step 3, followed by Chitosan 15 to 30 minutes later.
If this were my first ever home winekit, I’m not sure that I’d do so well. But of course, the final enjoyment of the wine may indeed far outweight my issues with the instructions.

My Personal Comments

Pros:

• Price for 16 litre of juice concentrate seems good
• 40 grams of oak included
• Kit includes all necessary ingredients, including yeast, and three clarifying agents.

Cons:

• Yeast – what the heck is BK 1? It’s a Saccharomyces Bayunus strain with what I understand a high alcohol tolerability.
• Instructions could have been written a bit more clear. If I’ve never done this before, what the heck am I supposed to do with the Sorbate?
• No labels included
• Kieselsol followed by Chitosan 30 minutes later? Just seems wrong to me.

Ok, even though the cons appear to overwhelm the pros in this review, I’ll still give it a chance as far as taste and pleasure go to make up for it the cons I’ve listed. So with that in mind…

Tasting Notes…

To follow…

Do you experience making wine from Advintage kits? If so, tell us about them and your opinion in the forum.