Wine books

I would suggest The Home Winemaker's Companion by Gene Spaziani. First try your library. If not, it can be bought at Barnes & Noble ( snipped-for-privacy@barnesandnoble.com). Good luck!

For country wines, I would recommend C.J.J. Berry's clasic books "First Steps in Wine Making". Very readable and practical. His other books are good as well. Then there is Duncan and Acton's book "Making Wines like those You Buy" and if you get into grape wines Cox's "From Vines to Wines"

Ray

I diagree with Ray on Berry's book. "First Steps in Wine Making" is, in my opinion, is no longer well suited to beginning wine makers (particularly beginning American winemakers). It is out of date, British-oriented, and after banging in a few corks with a mallet, may turn you off to winemaking before you learn there's a better way. Definitely buy this book and read it for the historical interest and as a source of country wine ideas, but there are much better starting-out guides.

For a first book on country wine making ("fruit wines"), I recommend "The Joy of Home Winemaking" by Terry Garey. Her easy writing style and contemporary persepctive make a nice combination for a new winemaker. She starts out with a recipe from store-bought concentrate using minimal equipment, and guides through easier to more advanced recipes. For country wines, I also recommend "Step by Step Homemade Wine" by Judith Irwin -- it is also British oriented, focuses more on recipe-oriented winemaking, and tends towards outdated winemaking practices, but it is so well illustrated that I still find it inspiring to leaf through it.

If you're looking for a book to gradually move you from recipe-oriented winemaking to a more measurement-based approach, "Winemaking" by Stanley & Dorothy Anderson is a good choice. It relies pretty heavily on canned grape juice concentrates to ameliorate country wines and hybrid grape wines, but it does a great job of presenting winemaking by measurement in a recipe format.

For making wine from grapes, my favorite book is "Home Winemaking Step by Step" by Jon Iverson. The advice is well organized, accurate, and well suited to a "modern" home winemaker looking to make wine in a non-recipe approache. If you're looking to find a more scientific/technical reference from there that is still approachable by an amateur home winemaker, I recommend "Modern Winemaking" by Philip Jackisch.

I agree with Jeff Cox's "From Vines to WInes" as a great source for growing your own (especially on the east coast).

Other winemaking books in my library:

"The Art of Making Wine" by Stanley Anderson and Raymond Hull: Predates "Winemaking", and more recipe-oriented. A bit dated. "The Complete Handbook of Winemaking" by The American Wine Society : A collection of articles, some better than others. Large section on wine evaluation and tasting. A bit "stodgy." "Winemaking Month by Month" by Brian Leverett: An interesting collecton of country wine recipes, British oriented. Gives a chart that rates the country wines by primary ingredient, although no description of how these "ratings" were obtained. "Wine from the Wilds" by Steven Krause : Dated and more botany-oriented than wine-oriented, still a very interesting exploration of what might be growing in your back yard that someone, sometime has tried to make wine from. I would disregard the "recipes" for the winemaking, and instead read this just for historical interest and ideas.

Jon

I have, of course, just realized that the original poster was from the UK, so my criticisms of Berry and other authors as being "British-oriented" should be reversed for you ... the other book sources I listed are "American-oriented", and you'll have the same confusion of imperal versus US gallons, and other language confusion that Americans have reading Berry.

In "American-oriented" country wine books you'll also see less mention of certain fruits that are less popular or less available here, such as medlars, sloes, and quince.

Jon

Jon,

Not the first time someone has disagreed with me and your points are well taken. His books are dated and I love them for thier clasic nature as well as Berries practical, casual approach. The British units are a challenge, more so to some I guess. I can see where some may not care for it but I feel they are good books for any winemakers library and they do not insist that you run out and spend hundreds of dollars on equipment before you can make a decent wine to see if you like the hoby. Berry also helps us see where our hobby came from. I would credit him as a kind of father to the modern winemaking hoby. He helped bring it to respectability.

I have many books in my library but not the one you mension. I really should pick it up as I see it mensioned often.

As an aside, I thumb through Berry's "130 New Wine Recipies" about once a year to brouse for things I have not tried and to chuckle at the winemaking cartoons in it. It is worth the price just for the cartoons!

Ray

In message , Ray Calvert writes

I agree completely. As someone explained to me when I first started posting here, if one of Berry's recipes says 'sweet', you can be sure it really *is* sweet. And his recipes for Island Magic, Irish cream, and "Whisky and Ginger Ale" are buttock-clenchingly awful.

That said, the book is full of useful facts and rules-of-thumb, and the table of SG, sugar and potential alcohol I refer to every time I make a batch of wine. One of the most useful features is the calendar of what to make in each month of the year - obviously it's done from a British perspective, but it should hold roughly true.

I generally look on the book as a source of ideas, rather than a rigid collection of recipes; I'll find a recipe in it, then go and look up what Jack K recommends, and maybe try something half-way between, according to what ingredients I've got. Works for me...

cheers, robin