Three chapters into it I quickly ordered several more and gave them as gifts this holiday. The author is very helpful in telling you what marks mean and how it gives you clues to what to expect when you open the bottle.

It is well written, not a all highbrow or snooty. It is understandable without being condesending and I highly recommend.
Rating: 5 / 5

Daniel’s book does an brilliant job covering home winemaking, especially for those folks making wine from grapes, while acknowledging throughout the book that winemaking is done from a variety of juice sources, including concentrates and kits. Winemakers of most levels, except the most advanced, who are probably making wine semi-professionally will find something in this book to clarify, and improve their wine making techniques.

Especially useful are Daniel’s descriptions of TA (Acid), pH and Sulphite (SO2) testing and management. Even for a novice winemaker, using kits, the descriptions of these techniques go a long way to helping the winemaker know the chemistry behind the fermentation, and why these parameters are vital. In the long run, I expect to use these testing techniques to help me know why I like particular wines, and help me replicate them in my wine making efforts.

Daniel’s book is thorough, and for a novice like myself, frequently delves into topics that are beyond my need while making kits. Daniel does conveniently provide a guide to the “basic” sections vs. the advanced sections to help the novice navigate through this, which is quite helpful.

I’d recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about winemaking, and it will serve as a excellent investment if the reader advances their technique with the depth of its coverage.

For kit winemakers, who don’t need or want the tech-heavy version, Daniel has a new book, “Kit Winemaking: The Illustrated Beginner’s Guide to Making Wine from Concentrate” which will be available soon. After browsing the Table of Contents of that book, I’m pleased I have the more technical version, but expect that either book will be valuable to the kit winemaker.

Cheers.

Rating: 5 / 5

Though it’s a fantastic book, let me say that some of what is presented in the book is not consistent with what I would consider reasonable home winemaking. Though measuring the sugars, alcohol, and acid is all fine with me, there’s a bit too much (for my taste) adding of modifiers to the wine (gum arabic and tannisol for example to alter the wine). That seems like something that’s acceptable in a product that must turn out “correctly” each time, like a McDonald hamburger, but dodgier in a product like wine that we assume will be grapes, yeast, residual sulfur, and fining agent only. I mean, the loaf of bread I buy at the grocery store has ten ingredients, but the one I make at home has five (flour, yeast, salt, sugar, and water). Mine doesn’t turn out perfectly (and reproducibly) the same each time, but that’s part of the game.
Rating: 5 / 5