From Vines to Wines - The Complete Guide to Growing Grapes and Making Your Own Wine Description:

From Vines to Wines : The Complete Guide to Growing Grapes and Making Your Own Wine review:
5 stars (The best introduction to growing & making wine) - I have acreage in california that I want to use for growing and making wine (I also live there, it's not a commercial venture). I have been doing research on what to grow, what to plan for etc. and this book has been, by far, the most helpful resource so far. Cox covers all aspects from site selection, planting, training, harvesting, and the wine making process itself.



This book won't answer every question you have, but it answers far more than most. Highly recommended!
5 stars (Nice book on making wine) - I like this book for my winemaking and think it has been very useful over the years. The author does a nice job of explaining the entire process of making wine here from starting with a bare plot of ground to picking the grape varieties to grow, spacing the plants, pruning, harvesting, crushing, fermenting, and finally bottling.



He also makes the point that winemaking is as much of an art as it is a science, there is more than one way to do most things and he explains some of them in this book.



I happen to use some different methods to growing the grapes than he recommends in this book though due to the climate I live in, such as using shoot thinning which he advises against. He leans more towards cluster thinning and I can't come to the task of removing grape blooms when that is the whole point in grape growing. Instead I remove the new shoots with no grape blooms and leave only those shoots that have them. I have found this to be the best way to get full crops in my climate, however with heavy bloomers his method may be more appropriate.



Also he advises to fertilize and I don't do that either as it leads to rank growth and more severe pruning later on, but as I said those are minor points I do differently.



The chapters on fermenting the grapes and producing wine are excellent as well, I would only say that my experience shows he tends to go too light on adding preservatives and I have found it is better to use a little more than he suggests as the wine tends to go cloudy with too little.



He also explains the importance of sugar content and acid and how they are related in the grape juice, also in testing before fermentation and how this is key to producing consistent fine wines. I completely agree here and that is the hard part as he mentions, one year is usually better or worse than the next, and keeping notes is important so if that year is the best you try to copy the methods again. The weather is different though so that changes things again, but as he says the key is to do your best and this book helps do that!



Finally for those that only want to make fruit wines this book would be helpful for the section on fermenting and bottling alone as I have made excellent fruit wines [mostly plum] using these methods. Just keep good notes on weights of fruit to the amount of water you add, also final sugar content, acid level and even the wine yeast you use.



I would also suggest anyone going the route of growing grapes from scratch to start with making fruit wines the first couple years as the vines mature [it can take two to three seasons to get enough grapes in some climates to make wine] so you have already made wine before pressing your first grapes. Also you may find the fruit wine as good or better in some cases.



So overall this is a great book for ideas, I recommend it highly!




5 stars (honest answers) - This is a great book for someone considering growing grapes. It puts it all in plain english and makes it easy to understand.