By Magnus von Kageneck, cellar master (who he is) · Updated: September 2026
Anyone looking for a present for a home winemaker quickly ends up with a third set of airlocks or a measuring instrument that is only suitable for spirits. Both end up sitting on the shelf. Before you buy, find out two things, ideally discreetly on your next visit to the cellar: what is already there, and how many litres are started in one batch? With those two answers, almost every gift idea sorts itself out.
Two questions before you buy
Beginners usually own a demijohn, an airlock and a sachet of yeast. What is almost always missing is the measuring equipment. Without it, though, sugar and acidity remain guesses, and the only sign that fermentation has finished is the airlock, which sometimes falls silent while there is still sugar in the batch. Ready-made starter kits often bundle an airlock, bungs, pre-portioned additives and a short guide; the demijohn, the Oechsle hydrometer and the siphon, of all things, are often missing.
Experienced hobbyists have all of that and run into other limits: too few vessels for racking, no kit for measuring sulphur, a plum wine that refuses to clear. Batch size decides the vessels. For 10 litres you need a 15-litre demijohn, so that there is headspace for the foam, and a second one of 10 litres for racking. For 25 litres, it is 34 and 25 litres.
Up to 20 euros: small things that really get used
A yeast sampler set with seven strains of 5 g each is a small gift of great use: nobody works out by reading which strain suits their own juice, only by fermenting with it. The strains differ in how cool a temperature they will still ferment at, how much alcohol they tolerate and which aromas they produce. The comparison becomes revealing when only the yeast changes. Which type suits what is explained in the Yeast compass. Check the best-before date before you give it; unopened and kept cool and dry, dried yeast keeps until then.
Also under 20 euros is a fining kit of silica sol and a pea-protein fining agent, 100 ml of each. The two agents go into the wine one after the other, never mixed beforehand: first the silica sol, then the pea protein. At about 10 ml of each agent per 10 litres, the kit is enough for around 100 litres, and it contains no animal-derived ingredients. It is needed less often than many people think, because most young wines clear by themselves within one to three months when stored cool. Plum and prune-plum wines, on the other hand, often stay cloudy, and for them it is worth it. The trial test in a measuring cylinder is shown in the article Clearing wine like a cellar master.
For under 10 euros there is a vinometer, which estimates alcohol from surface tension. It is a device for a second opinion: usable only in dry, fully fermented wine, and even there up to 1 % vol off.
A hardbound notebook to use as a cellar book costs even less, and it is useful every year. In it, every batch gets a number and every measurement a date: must weight, additions with quantities, sulphur additions, temperature, racking, bottling and the winemaker's own verdict on smell and taste. Only with notes does a good vintage succeed a second time. It goes well with one of the free Maischewerk booklets, printed out and tucked in. A precision scale with 0.1 g steps from a household goods shop complements both nicely, because yeast nutrient and sulphur are weighed in grams and tenths of a gram.
20 to 50 euros: measuring instruments that last for years
The measuring instrument missing from almost every beginner's cellar is an Oechsle hydrometer with thermometer. This glass hydrometer measures must weight from 0 to 130 degrees Oechsle. One degree means: at 20 °C, one litre weighs one gram more than one litre of water. Apple juice sits at around 50 degrees Oechsle; for a table wine you raise it to about 80. The thermometer is needed for the correction: with a hydrometer calibrated to 20 °C (the reference temperature is marked on the instrument), you add one degree for every 3.5 °C above it and subtract one for every 3.5 °C below, up to a deviation of about 10 °C. A reading of 71 degrees at 27 °C thus becomes 73. With the same hydrometer you can also tell when fermentation has finished: above zero, fermentation has stopped if the hydrometer shows the same value twice, a few days apart. Wine fermented to dryness sits at around −5 degrees Oechsle; the zero mark then stays submerged for several days.
Two things go with it. The hydrometer needs a tall standing cylinder in which it floats freely, and that is not included; ask whether there is one in the cellar. And it is thin glass with lead in its base: if it drops into the cylinder and breaks in the must, shards and lead shot get in, and the whole batch has to be poured away. How to take a correct reading is explained in Measure, don't guess.
In the same price range is an acid test kit. You measure out a 10 ml sample and add the blue titrant until the colour changes; each millilitre used corresponds to 1 g/l of total acidity. If a must is below 6 g/l, it is acidified; between 6 and 9 g/l it stays as it is. For someone who already has an Oechsle hydrometer, it is the logical second step, because only must weight and acidity together give a picture of the batch.
For experienced hobbyists who sulphite their wine, a test kit for free sulphur dioxide is a good fit. Only the free portion can protect; part of the added sulphur quickly binds to substances in the wine. During storage you measure every two weeks at first, later monthly and before bottling. The iodine solution in it only lasts one season, though; an old solution reads too much sulphur, and then too little sulphur is added when re-sulphiting. So give the kit when it will be used, not as a stock for the year after next. Why sulphur is needed at all is explained in Sulphiting without fear.
50 to 100 euros: a starter kit for getting going
For someone starting from scratch, a kit is a real help. Among the starter kits there are basic sets for wine and for mead, most of them in this price range, some above it. The mead starter kit with glass demijohn comes with the fermentation vessel, and the article Making mead guides you through the first batch. If the kit lacks an Oechsle hydrometer or a siphon, add them, otherwise the recipient will be left without tools at the first racking. If a yeast for dessert wines is included, a simple table wine still calls for an all-purpose yeast.
Over 100 euros: for the one who has everything
A refractometer measures must weight from two drops, even from individual berries. It is worthwhile for someone with their own vines or an orchard who wants to follow ripeness on the vine and the tree; how the harvest works in a home garden is covered in Wine from garden grapes. Before the season it is calibrated to zero with distilled water. It does not replace the Oechsle hydrometer, though: in a fermenting batch, alcohol distorts the refraction of light, so there you keep measuring with the hydrometer.
No fixed price range: a second demijohn and a lab analysis
Almost every experienced hobbyist can use a second glass demijohn, because an empty vessel has to be ready for racking. What it costs depends mainly on its size: glass demijohns come in sizes from 5 to 50 litres. Buy the demijohn with a basket, because it should only ever be carried in it; at most a small one of 5 or 10 litres may be lifted by the neck. When rinsing and filling, glass tolerates a difference of at most 30 °C from the liquid. If a rubber cap is to go with it, measure the outer diameter of the neck beforehand, because the cap's inner dimension has to fit it exactly.
A lab analysis is more unusual. Wine laboratories in the wine-growing regions determine what no home instrument can, such as volatile acidity when a vinegary note is suspected. It can be given as a promise to pay for the analysis. Ask your nearest laboratory about the price; from October to December the labs are at their busiest.
If you are unsure: a voucher
For home winemakers, a voucher is not a cop-out. Bungs only fit the neck of their own demijohn, yeasts only suit their own fruit, and anyone who already owns an Oechsle hydrometer does not need a second one. Choose a voucher from the specialist retailer the recipient orders from anyway, and add a note saying what you had in mind, such as the second demijohn or the test kit.
What you are better off not giving
- An alcoholmeter. It looks like an Oechsle hydrometer, but is built only for sugar-free spirits and shows nothing useful in wine.
- Consumables to keep in stock. Liquid yeast cultures lose live cells over time, and yeast nutrient attracts moisture. Such things belong in the cellar fresh, in time for the season.
- Old equipment from an inherited cellar. Filter sheets and filter powder of unknown origin may contain asbestos, which has been banned in Germany since 1993 and in the EU since 2005; the same goes for old sulphur strips on an asbestos backing. Older acid test kits use phenolphthalein, which is now classed as carcinogenic. All of this belongs at a hazardous waste collection point.
- Vessels made of copper, brass, zinc or bare aluminium and buckets without a food-safe marking. Juice and wine dissolve these metals, and you can taste it.
Safety note: if a starter kit contains potassium disulphite (sulphur powder), lactic acid or pectin-splitting enzyme (pectinase), these are hazardous substances with the signal word “Danger”; the blue titrant in the acid test kit carries the signal word “Warning”. The signal word, pictogram, hazard statements (H) and precautionary statements (P) are given on the product page and the packaging. The label of the product as delivered is authoritative. Yeast nutrient and sulphur powder look the same and should be kept labelled and separate in their original packaging. The iodine solution in the sulphur test kit stains skin and fabric; rinse off splashes immediately. More in Working safely in the cellar.
Magnus von Kageneck is Maischewerk's cellar-master character. The texts in this series are written with the support of artificial intelligence and are checked by experts before publication.
Related in the shop: Gifts for Home Winemakers and Maischewerk Sets