Cheap Wine for the Cruiser

[Freesail99]

As a winemaker by trade, you be better off making beer on board. It's much faster, more forgiving and can be ready in under a month. If you pick up one of those make your own soda machines, you could carbonate it as needed.

[davideureka]

wine can be found for 1 dollar a bottle with some lloking

[CapnHand]

Originally Posted by RAGTIMEDON

.....If we could take 20 gallons of grape juice concentrate (no alcohol, no limit!) and a package of yeast, it would sure help the budget! And we could use the entire ration for rum!

Reminds me of a friend who goes to "all inclusive" resorts and calculates the savings on what it would have cost him for the booze. He figures if he drinks enough, his trip is nearly free. I told him he should put his name on the list for a new liver now.

[byrondv]

Originally Posted by Freesail99

As a winemaker by trade, you be better off making beer on board. It's much faster, more forgiving and can be ready in under a month. If you pick up one of those make your own soda machines, you could carbonate it as needed.

I have to ask... Any chance you work for a vineyard that we might be able to purchase a bottle from?

What better to have after sailing then a wine made by another sailor?

[GGman]

some wine stores have a "bottle your own" kiosk and runs from $3.00 to $6.00 per bottle

[MacGyverRI]

I make my own wine also and found that the kits w/ concentrated juice are cheaper and better tasting.

I like the "Vino del Vida" kits, they are really good. They contain an Oak Powder you stir into the raw batch which adds an Oak barrel flavor.

I don't use the yeast they pack in the kit, I use "Red Star, Premier Cuvee" which kicks it up to 14-16% ABV IF you add at least 4 lbs. of the sugar/s of your choice to the 6 gallon batch. I also prefer blending raw cane sugars in the red wines for extra taste. You can also add some canned frozen fruit juices (no preservatives) to make it a special blending and 1 can of Cherry works well.

All that being said, a starter winemaking kit ($120 or so) and ings. for the 1st batch will run you $6 a bottle which drops to $3 after kit is paid for and that's pretty cheap for a quality wine that you will get from it.

[Valiente]

I've avoided this thread until now, because I was busy drinking decent wine.

I have home brewed beer (rather successfully, if I may say) for some 25 years. The economies of youth frequently turn into the hobbies of middle-age, I suppose, but I was never so skint that I couldn't drink good wine, and some of it I collected and am enjoying the fruits, so to speak, of decisions made many years ago.

I would say in my experience that brewing beer aboard is possible, but problematic. I would certainly prefer such an attempt to be in a temperate climate, in a windless month, in a secure and sheltered anchorage. And I would want a horde of PET bottles and several crates I could bungee into the deepest parts of the bilge.

Barring such favourable conditions (and the difficulty of having enough hot water to sterilize equipment, or the truly impressive pot required (not to mention a lot of propane) in which to brew, I would tend toward wine.

In the tropics, a nice, bracing white wine might be preferable with the (logically) bounty of fishy main courses. I would choose the Sauvignons of New Zealand and Canada for their flinty attributes and general lower price. For the reds, I would favour the Argentine Malbec blends, the Portuguese Daos, the Spanish Riojas, and the Australian Shirazes. I currently favour Rosemount and the popular Yellow Tail as reasonably priced options.

Cheap, gratifying wine can be found, and so can a skilled whore at the $40 price. But it is relatively rare, and while it is easy to pay too much for marketing and reputation in a wine, it is also easy to pay too little for swill. The peculiar conditions of sailing militate against keeping a shoreside cellar, and so if it has to be cheap, make it cheerful. If it is decent, bring it from home and drink it in the first six months, because it won't survive either the heat or the movement of the typical cruising vessel....with the well-known exceptions of Madeira and certain ports.