Creating World Class Red Wine

I highly recommend this book. I moved to a house with 30 vines and as a result had to make wine! One thing led to another and I started pruning, buying wine making equipment, etc. The first book I read was From Vines to Wines by, Jeff Cox. It was a good start and helped me make wine. From there I read cover to cover several times, Techniques in Home Winemaking - Pambianchi, Modern Home Winemaking - Pambianchi, Wine Chemistry - Waterhouse, Sacks & Jeffery and some others. But, Creating World Class Wines is a jewel. If you have made some wine and read some books, you will quickly see that the author has refined some of the best of these practices into a concise and practical guide, that is also inspiring. I have now planted 200 more vines---not because it's a smart thing to do, but because this book touched a deep spot in me and made me want to grow and make wine almost as a spiritual practice. And on page 61, is a great resource......step by step simplified wine making with page numbers for each step, in case you want to reorient yourself with that particular step. It is my go to book, unless I have some problem, at which time I go to Modern Home Winemaking or one of the many online resources.I'm trying to understand what motivated the couple of negative reviews of this book. My guess is that some of the more esoteric parts (the romantic parts of the book if you will) triggered those responses. But, if you have made any wine or grown vines, it is not logical to conclude that the author doesn't know a thing or two. So we must conclude that the responses were negative emotional sentiment and not based on facts. Again, I highly recommend it, especially if you have caught the bug for wine making!! 🙂

I,m a schooled pro winemaker. Amateur winemakers--listen up! A mystery has always baffled me. Why home brewers can make the best beers--better than micro breweries, but home made wines tend to suffer in quality--lagging far behind commercial products. Most home made wines would struggle selling in the supermarket at $5.00 Ouch. I know, but why?I visited a friend who makes his own wines--out of MY grapes. He knows what my wines taste like,but has been shy about presenting his own. Visiting him one evening , I found them to be thin, lean, and uninteresting."What did you do to these grapes?" [I'm outspoken]Eventually he brought out a pile of books. He tastes well, and knew his wines were ordinary, so responded by just buying more books. Interested, I took them all home. i had never seen any of them before. It became a kind of study--the amateur winemaking book study. I got more from the library and Amazon.The amateur authors mean well, are having fun, but the info was all similar, like they have all used each other's books for reference--for years. /some were so lame I only scanned thru.This book is by far the best I got, and really init's own league. It's describing the top side of pro techniques, but still addressing both pro's and amateurs. And it's not too technical. Readers that somehow need a lot of charts graphs and flow charts might feel neglected. I didn't.Sure, as a pro I don't agree with everything written here, but how can I? I am a little more TA oriented and he's a pH guy. Whatever. We all have our own bias. The bottom line is--this book is exactly what the title claims--how red wine is actually made in the best wineries.The viticultural chapter is straight forward--almost simplistic. Kind of an overview. But after I read it I realized--yes that's how it's done. There is not much page space devoted to unecessary topics. There is a strong emphasis on the quality of the grapes the vineyard and the soil. How can we deny that?The winemaking chapter is more complicated, but once again--this is how good wine is made.Beginners might struggle with with this book, but should definately own it and read it over and over. For them it should become a main reference.For amateurs it's a must have. Make better wine--it's not hard!Unschooled microwinery owners can make better wine.Potential winery owners.Pro's should know most of this already, but it could push some buttons (that need pushing)The author is a proponent of making age-able wines that have higher tannin profiles when young. The information on yeast and nutrients is cutting edge. Natural yeast fermentation is covered better than anywhere else I have read. There is also an in-depth chapter on oak barrels. Well Done!Mark--I read your review for Postmodern Winemaking--ditto--It would be interesting to pick Clarks brain, and I wouldn't mind sharing a glass or two and talking a little shop.Ed Wallof

Finally, some good, practical, detailed information about quality wine making. The introductions starts out in a lyrical, poetic, quirky style relating how the author caught the “wine bug”. It then flips into a more formal style describing how that led to a study of world-class wines, and how they are made. The focus of the book is exactly what the title says.The following history chapter is interesting, not the typical filler. And there's a point to it. What led us to making wine the way we do today?The grape growing chapter starts out with a taxonomy briefing, which was good for me. Now I understand the difference between European and American species, and the hybrids. There is a strong emphasis on soil quality in the vineyard.There are two short stories in the viticultural chapter. A novel approach.In one, the main character is a women who plants and develops a home vineyard. The reader follows her progress through the seasons in a brief, but succinct description of how she grows grapes with the intention to make the best wine she can.It's clear enough to use as a reference.The second fiction story plays with the artistic thought processes of a professional winemaker.The winemaking chapters are the bulk of the book, and go into detail about the practical aspects of fermentation: yeast, yeast nutrients, acid adjustments, temperatures, handling the grapes with different crushing regimens, and the most technical section; a mini treatise on cutting edge wine phenolics. Next comes malolactic fermentation, and cellaring.The chapter on oak barrels is the best I have read. Well researched. The must be over 50 references to barrel manufactures in the reference pages.The tail end of the book is a smart winemaker's quick-reference section.All in all, it is by far the best winemaking book I have read.

This is a self published book and it's not at all what it claims. From the back cover: "The focus is on quality, and was written to become a standard practical winemaking reference for the 21st century". That's a quite bold claim for a 100 pages book on growing vine and making wine. The rest of the 141 pages (the 150 pages claimed in "Product details" on amazon is simply wrong) are an incredibly boring chapter called "History", resources, bibliography etc. Given what the book actually is the claim above is utterly ridicoulous, almost fraudulent.The book is so amateurish you wonder wether the author has ever actually made any wine himself.

An editor would have been a big help. There are too many grammar mistakes. There is too much repetition for so short a book.Also, it is far too new age for me. This is an art and a science, not magic.Anyone whose been doing this for a while knows that it starts with the input - the grapes. Many amateurs do not have a reliable source of grapes and that makes it challenging.The book has too many side lines into non-essentials Do I care about organic? Natural (I'd call it roll-the-dice) fermentation? GMO yeasts? Ley lines? (Does this mean we should be growing grapes in Sedona?) (Really?) Short answer is no, I don't really care. I don't have Rockpile in my back yard. I'm not in Bordeaux. I assess the grapes I get and I need to control which yeast is favoured in the fermentation and can't leave it to chance - like most commercial winemakers. I think that the DAP/Superfood/Fermaid-K discussion is incomplete and this is a very complex subject. YAN measurement for the amateur is a challenge, especially with the current North American vineyard fashion for high brix at harvest. (The pH is perfect...)I do care that my vineyard manager is paying attention. I do care that I understand the essential process of fermentation and how to make it work. I do care that I need to make the wine that the grape expresses and not to attempt to make an Australian Shiraz with Washington grapes. Those suggestions are positive. However, it is weak on many topics and NOT cutting edge by any means. He discusses things I've been doing as an amateur for nearly 15 years. His admonitions to the amateur are insulting to put it nicely. References to some of the statements of fact would have been useful - I did search for some that were different from my understanding and didn't find all the statements of fact to be supported by actual research. The chemistry was also weak.I see his passion, but this book did not advance my knowledge in any meaningful way. I do agree with his approach to tannins and acid and feel that this is a subject that amateurs can experiment and take chances with that the commercial maker cannot. And by the way, I'd be happy to put my wines up against anything in a supermarket. I'm confident that it will a better wine.

I have been successfully making wine at home for several years with kits and the last couple years with grapes. I was really looking for something that would help take my wine making to the next level. It's a good book to build your knowledge base as a lot the topics covered I had a little experience with but needed a deeper understanding. The section on natural or wild yeast wines was interesting, something for future batches

Good book

Excellent book! Straight to the point with general and technical data, depending on how deep you want to go! I bought it in kindle and hardcover!