I’ve been toying with the idea of making my own wine here.

I’ve done a bit of research here and there into buying the necessary equipment, as well as the process of making it.

For that reason, I’m not sure whether it’s actually possible here; for instance, fermenting for thirty days at a temperature of 30 degrees Celsius doesn’t seem to me to be conducive to producing a drinkable wine.

Is there anyone here who has a different opinion, particularly regarding making wine here in Thailand?

9 minutes ago, Peterphuket said:

I’ve been toying with the idea of making my own wine here.

Whatever one can produce with the possible ingredients (fruit juice, sugar, yeast) has IMHO nothing to do with wine.

How about palm wine / toddy? The taste isn't outstanding, and you can't store it as far as I recall. But 100% natural...

Headache included.

I would first check local laws if it's allowed. To bad to get busted by the enstrangled bureaucracy in Thailand as a high level goon for something so petty.

Never mind wine.

Do as the old Egypians did. Throw some Barley in a vessel and add water. Wait for a few days while fermentation takes place. What you will get is not wine but BEER. (Light Beer with less than 2% alcohol content).

The pyramids of Egypt could not have been built when the work force drank wine with an alcohol content of 12%.

I assume that the OP is not planning any major construction projects, using wine as a booster. For minor cunstruction projects I strongly recommend Egyptian "light beer".

4 hours ago, Peterphuket said:

I’ve been toying with the idea of making my own wine here.

I’ve done a bit of research here and there into buying the necessary equipment, as well as the process of making it.

For that reason, I’m not sure whether it’s actually possible here; for instance, fermenting for thirty days at a temperature of 30 degrees Celsius doesn’t seem to me to be conducive to producing a drinkable wine.

Is there anyone here who has a different opinion, particularly regarding making wine here in Thailand?

It will be indeed much too warm for wine in Thailand, the yeast will not hold such a long fermentation and even if you bring it to some result, the taste will be... gruesome is a word that comes to mind. If you want to create "true" grape juice wine, you need to have a good temperature control down to 20 degrees Celsius or even less (accounting for the fact, that inside your fermentation vessel will be even higher temperatures than in the room around it). Theoretically doable, in practice likely not worth the effort.

This does not mean, that alcohol -- even fairly good-tasting one -- cannot be produced easily.

Somebody already mentioned toddy and the Thais regularly make sato ("wine" made from sticky rice with the most simple recipe imaginable -- and of course ubiquitously available here, in contrast to barley). I personally like it when it is an early batch, with relatively little alcohol content but still quite sweet. The Thais normally ferment it a bit longer, I taste this as on the bitter side (but to each their taste!).

I have personally tried fermenting pineapple, also a very simple recipe: the sugar is in the fruit and you do not even need to worry from where to get the yeast, it is already on the rind of the fruit; cut it up, put it in a pot with enough water with a cloth to cover it, so it does not get contaminated by insects and gas can pass through. The results are surprisingly heady and drinkable and, of course, you can refine the recipe from there and make, for example, tepache. It helps that the north of Phuket is basically a large pineapple plantation, but they are easy to get anywhere in Thailand.

I have not seen it here, but surely it must be possible -- you could try to work with sugar cane juice. I am not sure how that would taste.

If you keep your utensils clean, all of this is a quick fermentation which produces good results and is sure worth the quick experiment in time and basically no cost at all. Of course, none of this tastes anything like wine, just to manage your expectations.

Edited July 10Jul 10 by jts-khorat

5 hours ago, Schoggibueb said:

Whatever one can produce with the possible ingredients (fruit juice, sugar, yeast) has IMHO nothing to do with wine.

Thank you for stating the obvious. @Peterphuket, go to your local Wine Connection or Villa Market and buy a bottle of Bordeaux or Burgundy: that's wine and it's not something you can reproduce at home.

What you need is a woman to help you stomp your grapes, before you even think about Cabernet Sauvignon.

I did a successful ginger beer. Ginger is cheap at around 80 baht a kilo as appossed to Straya at 700 baht a kilo. Through what might be called the cooler months (555) 18 litres. In one of those big clear water bottles. It was around 6/7 ABV. I tried 2nd fermentation but it wasn't sparkly enough. So a shot of vodka 2/3 ginger beer & topped with soda water. Lubbly! My pineapple turned to vinegar. Search and you can find yeast that will survive up to 30/32 degrees. I am going to bring a box back with me. Have to figure out a way to keep the brewing vessel at the right temp. Maybe a second hand wine cooler? You can buy turbo yeast online in Thailand. It all comes down to the temp control.

I buy concentrated grape juice, red or white, from Lazada @ about Bht 320 per throw. Two of these in a big glass container with 6l of clean water, no added sugar, a packet of Malvin yeast, also off Lazada, fully fermented in less than a week, racked into a second demijohn, leave for a couple of weeks, decant into clean beer bottles and crown-capped. Leave another few weeks. The red is better than the white @ 11% ABV.

This guy has some interesting videos about making a variety of alcohol at home

https://youtube.com/@rainfordsbrewlab?si=yjFKimhoBZiFDJCu

3 hours ago, Bagwain said:

I did a successful ginger beer. Ginger is cheap at around 80 baht a kilo as appossed to Straya at 700 baht a kilo. Through what might be called the cooler months (555) 18 litres. In one of those big clear water bottles. It was around 6/7 ABV. I tried 2nd fermentation but it wasn't sparkly enough. So a shot of vodka 2/3 ginger beer & topped with soda water. Lubbly! My pineapple turned to vinegar. Search and you can find yeast that will survive up to 30/32 degrees. I am going to bring a box back with me. Have to figure out a way to keep the brewing vessel at the right temp. Maybe a second hand wine cooler? You can buy turbo yeast online in Thailand. It all comes down to the temp control.

Off topic but a request for information.
How do you add photos to a reply? I have looked at all the pulldown menus and can't see how.
(I was in a discussion on this forum regarding pickling - cucumbers and ginger specifically - and wanted to show my finsihed product)
Thanks in advance.

Simply go to the reply box. Its at the bottom. Hit choose files and bobs your uncle.

Dear all, thank you for all your replies. I think I’ll just stick to buying ready-made wine and spare myself the hassle and poor quality.

I made my first gallon of wine from a souvenir kit; a packet of wine yeast and a balloon. I used a one-gallon washed out bleach bottle, cans of Welsh's Grape Juice concentrate, a few cups of sugar, and tied the balloon over the neck of the jug. A week later the balloon was ready to burst, but didn't... Three weeks later I racked the wine into a clean container and waited another month.

The wine tasted exactly like Matuse!
I got interested and bought all the jugs, fermentation locks, wine yeasts, yeast nutrients, clarifiers, etc., etc., etc.
... and never made a decent batch of good-tasting wine again despite many attempts!

5 hours ago, Bagwain said:

I did a successful ginger beer. Ginger is cheap at around 80 baht a kilo as appossed to Straya at 700 baht a kilo. Through what might be called the cooler months (555) 18 litres. In one of those big clear water bottles. It was around 6/7 ABV. I tried 2nd fermentation but it wasn't sparkly enough. So a shot of vodka 2/3 ginger beer & topped with soda water. Lubbly! My pineapple turned to vinegar. Search and you can find yeast that will survive up to 30/32 degrees. I am going to bring a box back with me. Have to figure out a way to keep the brewing vessel at the right temp. Maybe a second hand wine cooler? You can buy turbo yeast online in Thailand. It all comes down to the temp control.

My ginger beer is usually around the 6% ABV. Rather nice especially on the scorching hot days. Takes around 7 days from start to drinking. Using some brown sugar will darken the colour but I prefer just using refined white sugar.

Edited July 11Jul 11 by dinsdale

5 hours ago, wil iam not said:

I buy concentrated grape juice, red or white, from Lazada @ about Bht 320 per throw. Two of these in a big glass container with 6l of clean water, no added sugar, a packet of Malvin yeast, also off Lazada, fully fermented in less than a week, racked into a second demijohn, leave for a couple of weeks, decant into clean beer bottles and crown-capped. Leave another few weeks. The red is better than the white @ 11% ABV.

That's more or less how I made wine in Saudi Arabia for over 10 years. And I produced some pretty palatable stuff.

Stickly speaking one needs to have a permit from the excise dept to make wine at home, but if you stick to private consumption only, who the hell's going to know?

Edited July 11Jul 11 by Moonlover

3 hours ago, marin said:

Simply go to the reply box. Its at the bottom. Hit choose files and bobs your uncle.

Thank you. Blind as a bat.
It doesn't appear in the bottom of the reply box for me.
It only appears to me if I go in to "edit"the reply.
But thanks, I've found it now I know what it looks like.

Edited July 11Jul 11 by The Oracle
Further explanation.

8 hours ago, Moonlover said:

Stickly speaking one needs to have a permit from the excise dept to make wine at home, but if you stick to private consumption only, who the hell's going to know?

Yep. Homebrewing is illegal in Thailand. I really have no idea about the amount, but tens of thousands of litres a year of homebrew sato just in Issan alone wouldn't be out of the ball park. Thing is TIT. A Thai with a few hundred litres of sato on the go or a farang with 10 litres of wine bubbling away. IMHO it's not a big one.

3 hours ago, dinsdale said:

Yep. Homebrewing is illegal in Thailand. I really have no idea about the amount, but tens of thousands of litres a year of homebrew sato just in Issan alone wouldn't be out of the ball park. Thing is TIT. A Thai with a few hundred litres of sato on the go or a farang with 10 litres of wine bubbling away. IMHO it's not a big one.

Like many of the things we do, that could be 'interesting', it has to stay a personal hobby. Personal in this case means 'private'. Tell a few friends, maybe bring a bottle to a neighbors bbq, but never ever show such a setup to the local populace.

As soon as you are talk of the village with this, you can be sure to attract attention by those who would be envious or try to gain some advantage. Not a tip that only concerns Isaan, or Thailand, but village life in general all over the world.

If you want to make wine, temperature control is essential. A fermentation room is on my list, and there are several solutions on YouTube worth looking at. One simple option is to use a freezer with an external temperature controller.

When you can but a 5L box of wine for 1090 is it worth all the trouble?

6 minutes ago, henryford1958 said:

When you can but a 5L box of wine for 1090 is it worth all the trouble?

Much the same as re-creating a dish you had in a restaurant at home. You might not be like the pros at wineries are, but the accomplishment of making something decent is worthwhile.

22 hours ago, Peterphuket said:

Dear all, thank you for all your replies. I think I’ll just stick to buying ready-made wine and spare myself the hassle and poor quality.

You can allegedly make good fruit wine here.

Frozen strawberries or mulberries from Makro.

The only thing, truly required is effort.

Edited July 12Jul 12 by rocketboy2

7 hours ago, fredwiggy said:

Much the same as re-creating a dish you had in a restaurant at home. You might not be like the pros at wineries are, but the accomplishment of making something decent is worthwhile.

Trouble is, I wouldn't wash my shoes with it, takes like crap! Certain satisfaction out of making it.

3 minutes ago, Bagwain said:

Trouble is, I wouldn't wash my shoes with it, takes like crap! Certain satisfaction out of making it.

Home made wine and beer can be excellent if you follow the exact recipes the wine makers do. Grapes, clean fermentation, harvesting at the right time and aging. I've had some good and some not so good. It's an art that takes time to get right.

10 minutes ago, Bagwain said:

Trouble is, I wouldn't wash my shoes with it, takes like crap! Certain satisfaction out of making it.

I come from a wine making region (actually wine is made there since Roman times). Of couse we have the right climate and cool cellars.

In Thailand, the problem is mainly the climate. If you want to spend the money to have a constantly airconditioned room, just for this hooy, you are already good to go. Professional wine yeast you can get over the internet, clean and proper apparel just as easy.

Wine making in big volumes certainly is a craft, but it definitely is something that can be replicated in a small style fairly easy; as you will not go economically bust if a batch goes awry, actually a wine homemaker has it much easier than a commercial winery.

8 hours ago, henryford1958 said:

When you can but a 5L box of wine for 1090 is it worth all the trouble?

Some enjoy the process, learning

On 7/12/2026 at 7:43 AM, henryford1958 said:

When you can but a 5L box of wine for 1090 is it worth all the trouble?

Allegedly a 20L batch is about 30 baht a liter for 12-13% fruit wine.

Edited July 14Jul 14 by rocketboy2

I did it as a teenager. How hard can it be?

If you have the right equipment including a one way valves for the gas to escape the fermentation vessel without letting in outside air

Prisoners even do it in prison in toilets with cornflakes.

Now, is your homemade wine going to taste like a bottle of Robert Mondavi?

Highly improbable, grasshopper. 👍

Edited July 14Jul 14 by SiSePuede419
Easy

26 minutes ago, rocketboy2 said:

Allegedly a 20L batch is about 30 baht a liter for 12-13% fruit wine.

If you are down to your last 30 baht maybe you shouldn't be in Thailand.