New to the list and wine making

I'm a rookie too. I opted for The Joy of Home Winemaking by Terry Garey. I thought it was very good and read a lot of good reviews of it. It's focus is on Fruit wines and not grape wines though. It covers all the basics, equipment, ingredients, recipies, and procedures.

Hope this help Hap

Home Winemaking step-by-step by Jon Iverson.

I'm also new. What type of wine are you making? This site has a lot of info on "country wines", ie: wines made from fruits and plants other than grapes.

I think you are making this much too hard. Let the yeast turn the sugar to alcohol and drink the result, that's the bottom line here.

Picking up 25 lugs of Cab and 25 lugs of Zin next week.

Steve

Thanks I'll have to check that out.

Steve Landis wrote:

Do most around here do fruit wines as opposed to grapes?

Stu Pedaso wrote:

It is a mixed bag. During the winter a lot of people do concentrates and kit wines. During summer you hear a lot about fruit wines. Just now we are coming into grapes so grape wines may dominate for a while. Some people concentrate on one type. Others make wine from anything they can get their hands on. Lately I have been getting more into meads.

Ray

Up here in Sonoma County, CA we're getting lots of Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Gewurtztraminer, Pinot Noit and Zinfandel. No Cabernet Sauvignon yet.

Some of the Zin is coming in with low sugar (22-23 deg Brix) and higher than typical TA... an article in yesterday's Santa Rosa Press Democrat said the long, cool period of summer has some of the older vines 'shutting down' (i.e. those vines think it's time to be going dormant, lowering their uptake of water, so we're getting some raisining before having enough sugar = dehydrating, especially in the dry-farmed Old Vine Zin). The younger, irrigated vines haven't been affected too much that I can tell, based on what I've tasted so far.

The PD article also said there's probably gonna be an excess of grapes this year up here, so many growers without winery contracts are gonna have a hard time selling their grapes. Bad news for those growers; could be some good prices on tasty Sonoma County grapes on the spot market this year.

BTW, I'm guessing the Lodi grapes are gonna be pretty good this harvest; just about the right temperatures there when it's too cool here.

Gene

Marty Phee wrote:

From when till when are fresh juices generally available? I'm in the chicago area.

gene wrote:

Depending on what varietal you want, now til the end of October is our likely 'window' for good wine grapes here. I don't broker grapes (I work in a winery), so I don't know who you'd hook up with here to buy your juice.

Gene

Marty Phee wrote: