background and context: When I embarked on my home made wine journey I started with a Beaverdale kit - at £45 it is 7.5 litres of juice and you add 15.5 litres of water to make 23 litres - 30 bottles. The end result is a wine which is only just drinkable but lacks body because it has been so heavily diluted - so I used it for making mulled wine and cooking - it has it's uses - but not as a wine I would drink.
So I moved up to WineXpert - firstly the Reserve range - £80. Going up in price means more concentrate - 10 litres - so you are adding 13 litres. It is still a lot of water. It makes drinkable wine which beats a £6 supermarket wine - but that is it - it just isn't better than that basic standard.
I then made several Private Reserve WineXpert kits - [the red boxes] these are around £120 but you can shop around for slightly cheaper. I made Amarone, Bordeaux, Colosso and Cab Sav. These have 14 litres of juice and some reds come with grape skins. So you are adding 9 litres of water this time - the difference is very clear immediately. More fruit and more body - very drinkable. It beats a middle of the range £8 supermarket wine. But should ideally be matured for 12 months - but I have ended up drinking most after 4-5 months haha!
Finally the WineXpert Revelation - the subject of this review. This was a scary £99 for a box that made only 11 litres (15 bottles) but in this consider the ratio of water to juice. You get 10 litres of Napa Valley Cab Sav juice and you are adding only one litre of water!!!! `These kits (I bought several) are making a superb wine - I can already tell from a sneaky taste or two at bottling time. It has body and flavour and a silky texture to it. It tastes like a house wine you would be served in a high end French restaurant which sets you back circa £25. This is indeed the most expensive kit on the market at £7.50 a bottle to make - but Napa Valley Cab Sav wine sells at around £40 in the supermarket. thinking about it £7.50 is what I pay for a middle range Aldi wine so this is still a good idea!
when making it - I doubled up and bought two at a time and put them in a 23 litre bucket - £200 worth of juice - so it's a big investment! Comes with wooden spheres which was new!
I need to hold off from drinking it too early. Just because the salesman says you can drink after 2 months doesn't mean its for the best!
When buying kits don't forget to look at the ratio of water to juice - Good luck!
