The kit is the first one I did with skins. There is an extra baggie with a sludge of grape skins to provide extra flavour and texture to the finished product.

The OG was 1.090 which is normal for a 12 - 13% ABV wine

Oak chips are added since I don't have a barrel to age this in. I believe the oak came from France.

The yeast was added officially making it wine

The chips after primary fermentation. I thought about adding them to my blackberry jam, but it wasn't far enough along to add oak.

Oak cubes are added to the secondary for more oakness. The cubes had a smokey smell to them.

The cubes are left in the wine for only about a week before the wine is siphoned off into another container. Even though wine is stored in oak barrels for long periods of time, leaving these cubes in the wine for more than a week will overwhelm the flavour and pretty much ruin the batch. I don't need any help there, so the cubes were removed.

The FG was 0.991 which gives me an ABV of 13.1%

The wine is bulk aging for a couple of months before bottling in May?

Its bottling time. Got a good haul. There is sediment in this batch like last time. I even filtered it this time. Not sure why this is happening. I might rack an additional time for the next batch.

This kit came with labels so I don't have to make them.

Tasted the wine at the 5 month mark. It is really good (I am not a huge fan of California wine). It was nice and fruity which I like.