I really enjoyed "The Joy of Home Winemaking", by Terry Garey. It's fairly non-technical, but her joyful, open attitude really made it inviting for someone who was starting from a position of relative ignorance.
As long as you aren't too hung up on learning the chemistry behind it, I'd recommend her heartily!
She also has a website- homey and humble, like her book.
I read winemaking 101 on her site and i think i may try that recipe. I have big plans for making wine, mead, and beer. Her recipe is cheap and easy, I think this will be a good one to get my feet wet on since ive never made any of the above. I might have to buy her book
I followed the link, great site so far. Will be buying her book if I can find it. I'm on the west coast of canada. But there are alot of homebrewers everywhere I think. I should be able to find it.
I'm completely new to wine making so I don't know of any books. Would The Joy of Home Wine making be a good starter book for me or are there other books out there that might be better?
Heard a term that you don't know? Want to know what operation or process might fix a problem?
"The Winemaker's Encyclopedia" by Ben Turner & Roy Roycroft (1979 Faber & Faber, London) covers most terms specific to wine creation and general appreciation, from "abondance" to "zymase." Don't bother looking these up in your Funk & Wagnalls! T-W-E is long out-of-print, but used copies occasionally show up on Amazon or Barnes & Noble for around $30 — well worth it, IMHO. (And NO, my well-worn, highlighted, bookmarked copy is NOT for sale. )
If there is a similar but more recent text such as this, I would sure like to know about it...
Winemaking books are usually good for scratch winemakers (ie fruit, juices, etc). I find that there are a lot of comments in books that do not apply to kits, especially the modern kits.
We are in the information age.........
Long live the internet !!!!!!
I Have several Dutch books on winemaking on my shelves but they will not do you any good I presume, but I will give you some links to web-pages which have free books on them. Just go there and download them you are encouraged to do so by the authors:
The Joy of Winemaking is a very good basic beginners book. I really like Jeff Cox's From Vines to Wines as a good beginners book. I prefer it over the other but both are actually very good books.
The fun part is that I am also a hobby bookbinder
So I print them, and have them leatherbound on my shelves.
Well.........................artificial leather of course, otherwise it gets to expensive.
But it's nice to combine 2 hobbies.
We could start a new thread with links to sites with winemaking information.
I have about 60 links to webpages, podcasts etc.etc I think
But where do I get the time to read and examine it all
"The Backyard Vintner" became almost my entire education on winemaking. I'd made wine from kits before, but had no idea what any of the things I was using actually was. They had strange names like bentonite and chitosan. After reading the book, I understood more than the directions on kits, and could vary their tactics to bend them to my will!
It's an extremely easy read, and is fully illustrated, as well as logically broken up into chapters for easy reference, covering from planting vinestock to bottling. I still use it to this day for most immediate go-to questions.