So been starting to think a bit more about this party situation we will have eventually (me and my partner). We were talking more again about how exactly we will formalize it (legal or not) and also the party we will have. Definitely we don't want to spend typical amount; good food/drink, music, and laser lights (have! lol) are a must.
We're fairly DIY people and just bc of my network of people I know would likely do it at a friends' mansion (yes, incredibly some of my somewhat brokea$$ friends/colleagues live in an actual mansion?), can basically do what we want there, including food/alcohol. My partner used to homebrew mead and cider, and I've been interested in some time even before I met him to learn about homebrewing. He said we can try but he's always been hesitant towards beer since he thought it was too complicated comparitively.
THEN I learned that you could homebrew wine, and it's easy, and you can order grapes/must/juice off the internet even. Although I am also considering to get locally too- there's a place I literally pass by going to work 10 minutes away that gets supplies in every September. Another distributor is 45 minutes away close to an area we camp a lot in, and in the town my dad worked in growing up.
It seems like a cool thing to do, obviously cheaper than buying wine at a store, and we have all the supplies already except bottles, corks, and a corker (well, and grapes/yeast). My partner thinks it's a lot more doable than homebrew, and well, it's going to be a long time before we can have our celebration, so plenty of time to age it.
Now, I'm a mostly food and wine snob, I don't want to "invest" in this to make swill ie a junky tasting sweet wine. I want to make reasonably legit stuff. Like, equivalent to a good $10 wine from a wine shop would be totally amazing.
Does anyone here have experience doing this? Any recommended reads/things they use? For instance, I'm guessing that yeast makes a big difference- would it be worth it to substitute a different yeast than came with a kit? What about oaking (it looks like you can put in these cubes or slats or whatever)?