So we have the homebrew threads, but anyone ferment their own wine?

I used to make about 50 gallons a year with whatever fruit I could find and pick enough of. I learned how to do it from my family growing up and as I got older I started doing it myself with hand-me-down equipment and stuff I bought myself. I never tried adding anything like vanilla to my batches, just straight fruit, water, and sugar or honey along with the other things needed for specific fruits like tannins, citric acid and of course your yeast. Only ever tried oak aging a 3 gal batch once and didn't care for it.

My favorite batches were always red muscadine, blueberry, blackberry, muspalus (loquat), mulberry, and fig/honey.
I always tried strawberry but could never tweak my recipe right to produce a product I really liked.

A fun thing that I always enjoyed was to siphon out a few bottles of a batch before they were completely done fermenting to keep some carbonation and make it champagne-like. Blackberry champagne is so incredible.

One thing that I will say is the process is very tedious and takes a while in some cases. Most of the time I never found much of a significant difference after aging with the exception of a few different types that did get noticeably better. Make sure all of your equipment and fruit and hands are VERY CLEAN. It will definitely impart a bad taste and ruin an entire batch of wine.

Home wine making is a really enjoyable hobby that can produce surprisingly good results after some practice and trial and error. I am by no means a pro, but I've brewed many gallons over the years and I can try to help troubleshoot or answer any questions if you ever have any. If you would like any specific recipes I can look through my notes and share.
When I was just starting out on my own, I would brew a lot of 1gal batches to experiment and get the results to my liking. Once I had my recipes and ratios straight I moved on to 3 and 5gal batches.

I truly appreciate that! Yeah, some notes would be awesome. I usually do 1Gal right now. At least until I get something special going. I've made less than 10 gallons, but you're right, I love the experience!

Impressive! Where can I pick up your label?

The reason I started this thread is because I want to make a special batch of wine for my son's 1st birthday. I thought it'd be a cool thing to do and give out a few bottles to family.

I own Garagiste Meadery in Tampa, FL. We specialize in mead; but, we've been known to dabble in traditional table wines from time to time.

Our first commercial offerings should be out there this Summer. FL distro only for the time being.

Wine kits are pretty much fool proof as I mentioned earlier. Like anything else you get what you pay for. The premium kits although costing more tend to give better results. I like the RJ Spagnols kits but most are pretty good nowadays. Consider investing in a better yeast like KV-1116 or 71B as opposed to the yeast supplied in the kit.