Add the sugar and cranberry juice to a small saucepan and heat it just enough to dissolve the sugar. If using fresh cranberries, add water instead of juice and use it to dissolve the sugar.

Allow the sugar and juice mixture to come to room temperature. While it's cooling, dissolve the yeast packet in a small amount of lukewarm water. Allow it to bloom for at least 5 minutes.

Add the yeast nutrient and dried cranberries to the juice/sugar mixture and then pour it all into a primary fermentation vessel. Add the dissolved yeast. 

Cap with a water lock and allow the mixture to ferment in primary for 2-3 weeks. Alternately, allow the mixture to ferment without an airlock for about 5 days, then rack into secondary and add an airlock.

Either way, once the mixture is in secondary, add an airlock. Ferment in secondary for 6-8 weeks before bottling. For a very dry wine, rack the cranberry wine a second time and ferment for another 6-8 weeks.

Bottle in wine bottles and age for at least 3 months, but preferably a full year from bottling.