Modern Home Winemaking: A Guide to Making Consistently Great Wines
This is a how-to book for aspiring and serious hobbyists wanting to take their winemaking to a whole new level. It describes the process of making flawless wine, consistently, from crush to bottle using modern techniques and the latest products. Making wine is not only about fermenting juice into wine; this book details the many other processes involved in making outstanding wine, wines that will win medals at competitions. These include how to analyze and control quality parameters, such as total acidity, pH, sulfur dioxide, how to stabilize wine so that it ages gracefully without developing flaws, and how – and why – to filter. And should something go wrong, a chapter is dedicated to help identify root causes of the most common problems, how to fix faults without compromising quality, and how to avoid them in the first place. The book contains many illustrations to highlight key processes and use of equipment, and many examples to help calculate, for example, sugar and acidity adjustments to make balanced wines. A Note from the Author: “Modern Home Winemaking” presents updated techniques bridging my experience and theory, introduces new products and equipment, and discusses wine science in much more details to help winemakers make more informed decisions in their winemaking. There is also a detailed chapter describing the most popular vinifera, Native American and hybrid grape varieties, and includes winemaking tips and recommended yeast strains for each variety. And there are many examples illustrating the many calculations in winemaking, such as when chaptalizing, or when doing acid or sulfur dioxide adjustments. The focus of this book is in making the best white, rosé and red wine.