The Way to Make Wine: How to Craft Superb Table Wines at Home

• #25 in Best Wine Books

17 Reviews

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This is a very solid and readable handbook on making homemade wines. Sheridan Warrick has written this book the way I think I would have written it -- in a friendly, first person, conversational style. Along the way of learning what he has to teach, you get to know the author. It's a friendly, unassuming book with great content. If you are a beginner, it will teach you to make wine. If you are an experienced vintner, it will help you sharpen your skills.

Warrick explains things so simply that I found myself taking notes on subjects I have trouble explaining so well. He gets to the essence of it, and that is what the reader needs. The anecdotal asides all have a point to convey and do so well. Numerous sidebars contain both useful facts and interesting teaching points. His chapters flow from one to another seamlessly in an organized, logical fashion, making it a very readable and useful book. I was able to thumb back through it several times most easily to find something I wanted to re-read, using only the book's organization as the measure of where to look -- it has a useful index, but I didn't need it.

The book is organized into two parts. The first is a beginner's guide to winemaking, but loaded with a wealth of knowledge and explanation. The second part is about the refining techniques that help you master the business of making good wine great. In a phrase, this means knowing what is going on and that means testing, testing, and more testing. Too many winemaking books say to test this and test that, but don't explain how to do it. Warrick does. His section on malolactic fermentation, for example, is as fine and useful a treatment of the subject as I have read, and it includes the best step-by-step tutorial on paper chromatography I have in my sizable library. Indeed, all of his treatments of testing are well-done. And this, in my estimation, is reason enough to invest in this book.

This book was published just in time for my second winemaking season and is remarkable in its helpful clarity, having the correct answers to mystifying challenges. I had one crazy challenge in my first season of winemaking which resulted in several answers being given by experts. This book correctly identified the problem, the fix, and how to prevent the problem. It somehow provides a more straightforward and simple walk through of the process, taking away any notion that wine making is a challenge. It also discusses in depth and allows consideration for those of us who would like to minimize the inclusion of sulfites. Just being aware of that as a concern of the home winemaker is a huge win. I couldn't recommend this book more - it is the perfect tome of essential information to those wanting to get going with their own winemaking. I keep saying, I wish I had started years ago. Get this book without hesitation - it will get you on your way to stunning wine produced by your own efforts. Great satisfaction is guaranteed.

I see Jack Keller's rave review above. Enuf' said. He's the Pope of homewinemakers...
I've read them all and found them mostly to be poorly written, padded out with recipes for obscure wines, and even one book directly contradicting another book's instructions. This one is reader friendly, logically organized, well written, accurate and totally comprehensive without bringing in extraneous material.
If you want to make red or white wine at home, buy this book and look no further.

This book is an in-depth look at the techniques for making wine with no information on growing grapes. If that suites you, then I highly recommend it. In addition to the basics, it goes into some of the more advanced techniques like carbonic maceration, etc. And as such, it offers a great breadth of knowledge. In fact, I only had one real problem with this book: the author is a bit verbose. I found myself falling asleep with paragraph after paragraph of information when a bullet point would have done nicely. That said, it isn't too bad getting too much information.

This book has been a wonderfull read, and has taken me from knowing almost nothing to feeling confident and excited about my first upcoming vintage. From understanding how to get grapes to feeling comfortable with testing for the total acidity of a wine, this book has been a real pleasure. I walked away from this book knowing much more than I did walking into it.

This material takes you from the unpicked grape to the finished product. The importance of sanitizing equipment, what you should have and what you can do without are all covered. The only drawback is that fruits other than grapes are not mentioned. The author believes that non-grape wines are lesser than grape wines. As is true in just about any other field two winemakers will producr three or more opinions on each aspect of the art. This book does not agree with any other wine making information source thus it is very valuable. I would recommend this book to the beginning wine maker along with the several others offered for sale at Amazon (this is not a paid advertisement) such as The art of making wine. Remember that every one has their own point of view and do that which works for you.

This book is easy to understand and should enable a novice to walk through the wine making process with ease.

This is a well-written book detailing the steps for producing quality wines at home. I have made wine for several years now and I found many helpful suggestions to make my vintage even better. It works well for the novice as well as the veteran wine-maker.

I loved reading this book, Warrick really knows his wine-making. He explains when, how, and in what order to ad this and that, temperatures to keep, tools and equipement to buy etc., after reading this book, I feel that I have enough knowledge to make a few gallons of bubbly delicious red wine. This book is very comprehensive and easy to read with more than enough information to enable you to make wine.

I've tried a bunch of books and this seems to be the best one. It's not too technical and yet it covers everything with enough detailed explanations. It's my first year making wine and the only book I'm going to use in the future.

An essential book for anyone interested in making wine at home. Very readable, concise and well organized. The instructions are easy to follow even for a complete beginner. Highly recommended. Please be advised, however, that the book does not contain any information about growing grapes.

This is a great book for wine makers, gives tons of suggestions! Love it!

This book is great for anyone wanting to home brew wine. I find myself referring to it over and over during the process. If i had one tiny gripe it would be that the book is heavily geared toward someone who is pressing their own grapes for juice. If you're (not as ambitious)like me you will opt for already pressed juice to avoid the hassel of a press and you may find yourself having to interpret and adjust given methods accordingly. Other than that i would highly recommend this book to all would be vinters it is a great resource.

Easy to read and understand but what's missing (which I had to create) was a process flow diagram showing the steps and how much of what to input at various steps (much had to be inferred from various sections of the book).

This is a very good companion book to Wines to Vines for the novice home winemaker. It is actually written in much more accessible language with a very nice flow to the information. I recommend this book for anyone embarking on home winemaking.

If you want to make home made wine and you actually want to make something decent this book is great. You shouldn't really need another book.

Excellent condition and fast delivery! Good seller.