Beginner wine makers are most likely to be making wine from juice or juice concentrate. The biggest advantage of using concentrate or juice is that it will save you a lot of time and effort when you are learning other aspects of the wine making hobby.

 

There are benefits and challenges associated with each though.

 

Making Wine from Concentrate

 

As noted, concentrate is an easy way to start the process. The other major benefit is that it is accessible. You need only to go to the local grocery store to find juice concentrate that you can use to make homemade wine. Of course, this is supposing that you want to make fruit wine or wine from concord grape concentrate. Finding Cabernet sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay, Pinot gris and other wine grape concentrates is more difficult.

 

Circling back, however, the selection is great online and otherwise because you aren't beholden to the harvesting season. If you wanted to make blueberry wine, you can make it in the summer time or in the dead of winter because the concentrate will be available year-round.

 

Unfortunately, the major defect of using concentrate is the result! Concentrates will produce good wine and bad wine. It is really a hit or miss endeavor and something that you should consider when you are making homemade wine. I recommend using juice instead because you will get more consistent results.

 

Using Juice to Make Wine

 

Compared to using the fruit itself, this is a much less labor intensive choice for two reasons. You won't need a wine press and you will be saving hours and hours picking the grapes off the vine only to turn them into juice. This is one of the easiest and most effective ways to save time making your own wine.

 

While your selection is more limited than with concentrate, you will still be able to find a variety of options throughout most of the year whether you are interested in using wine grapes or other fruit.