Notes About Wine

Excellence Through a Commitment To Quality and Innovation

Winexpert's commitment to excellence has made it the world's largest manufacturer of premium wine kits. Their careful sourcing of supply, cutting-edge processing facilities and stringent quality control procedures set the standards in the industry, ensuring you the pinnacle of quality. As the first to offer a 15 litre premium wine kit including pure varietal juice, Winexpert has also maintained leadership in product innovation, a tradition that has been continued with such developments as the F-packTM. This has allowed for home winemaking products which deliver the intensity of aroma, the brilliance of colour, and the complexity and balance of taste that are expected of fine commercially produced wines. The preservation of these key components in the various styles of wine offered in Winexpert's portfolio, is their unique trademark.

F-Packs™, and Their Amazing Contribution to Style

Winexpert's F-packs™, or finishing packs, are additive packages added to the wine musts at stabilization, when fermentation is complete. Professionally developed after years of research and development in Winexpert's wine lab, these unique packages bring a rounded sweetness and intensity of flavour and aroma to those styles which require it. F-packs™, are formulated from a combination of varietal grape juice concentrate and selected special ingredients sourced from around the world which contribute to natural flavour and aroma. This method of sweetening, modeled on the German Süsse-Reserve method, provides a safe, accurate way for the home winemaker to achieve a finished complexity of taste and aroma which properly represents the desired style. German white wines burst with floral overtones and an agreeably balanced, sweet finish; blush wines show brilliant colour and thirst quenching flavour; desert wines display opulent bouquets and long, full flavourful finishes.

Winexpert's wines generally ferment out dry unless style dictates a measure of sweetness to be included through the addition of a F-packs™.

Dry / Sweet Codes

The sweetness of a wine is the sensory perception created during tasting, and though affected by such factors as residual sugar levels, it is not an absolute, measurable factor. However, to guide you in determining the relative sweetness for each wine variety, we've applied the following recognized numbered scale to all of our listings:

Scale Terminology 0 Dry 1 Semi-Dry 2 Medium-Dry 3 - 6 Medium-Sweet 7 - 10 Sweet

Suggestions for Maximum Enjoyment

To maximize your enjoyment of Winexpert's array of fine winemaking products, the following information on the ageing and storing of your finished wines may prove useful.

AGEING:

As with all wines, some degree of ageing in the bottle for finished wines from Winexpert's products is beneficial, allowing the full complexity and intensity of aromas and flavours to come through. Red wines become richer, as the initial fruit flavours mellow and the astringent tannins relax, contributing to the body and character. White wines showing high acid levels will soften over time, revealing wonderful textures and flavours.

Components of wines differ by variety or blend, and thus react differently to ageing. Some wines require longer ageing periods than others. For example:

More Ageing Some Ageing Little Ageing REDS Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot Bergamais Barolo Style Pinot Noir All Blush Wines Luna Rossa Valpolicella WHITES Chardonnay / Semillon Sauvignon Blanc Liebfraumilch Style Ruisseau Blanc Johannisberg Riesling Piesporter Luna Bianca

Different factors exert influence on the rate of ageing and can contribute to a better ageing potential:

So how should you treat the ageing period for different Winexpert products? The answer depends on many factors. For example, using a long high quality cork or adding some extra sulphite at bottling will extend the maximum age period. Thus, use the following as a general guideline only:

Minimum Time Maximum Time Selection Reds 3 - 6 months 3 years Selection Whites 1 - 3 months 2 years Vintners Reserve Reds 2 months 1 year Vintners Reserve Whites 1 month 1 year Vintners Passport Series Reds 2 months 1 year Vintners Passport Series Whites 1 month 1 year Island Mist Fruit Wines Immediate 1 year

STORAGE plays a big role in the ageing process and can make or break a finished wine. Generally, white wines - sweet wines and champagne above all - are more frail than reds. Grape variety can also make a difference - for example, Cabernet Sauvignon wines are generally more resilient than Pinot Noirs. However, always minimizing the risks involved in bottle storage - heat, light, lack of humidity and constant movement - is the wisest plan.