First, you are really wrong when you assume that Island Mist makes standard
kits. They are not. They make low alcohol (6-7%) fruit flavored wines that
I call picnic wines. They are very nice on warm days when you want to drink
more volume. They are not traditional wines. Some wine purists do not like
them. People who do not like wine, tend to love them. I have made several
of the Island Mist kits and keep some on hand for certain guests and I am
not above enjoying some myself. Hope you are not disappointed if you are
expecting a standard white.

Also, for grapes and some other fruit, color comes mainly from the skin.
Some red wine grapes can be used to make white wine. Other grapes and fruit
will get some of their color from the juice with no skin contact and will
produce blush wines from just the juice.

If you want to make a real white wine you might try a Riesling or
Gewürztraminer kit. Some of them are quite good. Or if you want to go on
the cheap, try making white wine from Welch's frozen Niagara Concentrate.
It comes out better than you would think.

Ray
"Joel Sprague" > wrote in message
news:4isFe.6203$Zt.4805@okepread05...
> Ok, this will probalby be the first(well, second, I guess) of many
> questions
> from me in here.
>
> Anyway, this saturday I started an Island Mist Exotic Fruits White
> Zinfandel
> kit. For those who don't know, this is a pretty standard 7.5L/6 gallon
> kit,
> which has two juice packets, the main packet is just supposed to be white
> zinfandel, and the second packet is, I guess, the "exotic fruits" part.
> Anyway, I've noticed that the juice from the White zinfandel packet is
> noticably red/dark. It's nothing like the Merlot kit I will be bottling
> this, but it's definiteiliy not near what a finished White Zinfandel kit
> looks like.
>
> This is the first white kit I've done(only second in general, just started
> all this the first of this month, though as usual, ahve gone overboard,
> and
> have 19 gallons in 9 different batches going right now), and I was curious
> as to whether the darkness of this juice is just due to the grapes being
> used(as obviously Zinfandel is normally used as a red), and if it'll clear
> up to the light pink color I'm used to in White Zinfandels, or whether the
> darker color is a peculiarity of this particular kit,a nd it'll jsut be a
> darker "white".
>
> And yes, I'm aware of the fact that red's gain their color not from the
> juice, but from bering fermented with the skin. Rather fond of White
> merlots.
>
> The color of course will not keep me from getting this kit again, I just
> had
> a lot of curiosity as to why the color presented this way,a nd if it would
> stay this color or lighten up.
>
> Thanks much
> Joel
>
>