Home Winemaking For Dummies

Very, very informative. Did an excellent job of explaining the fermentation processes, clarification, aging, and all the additives and chemicals involved in making wine. Good explanation of the importance and procedures of sanitation. Actually had way more information than I will ever need because I will only be making one or two types. But as a result, I have my first batch of wine fermenting now.

I am about 3/4 of the way through this book, and i cant put it down! Ive been taking notes as i read, and I absolutely cant wait for my grapes to grow! For now, i can get set up with the tools i need for the job!

I have been buying kits to try my hand at wine making. This seems to have the information I was looking for to possibly purchase the ingredients and not the entire kit.

Much higher quality book than I was expecting from a "for Dummies" book that's not even printed on acid-free paper. Thank you to everyone here that submitted reviews to make this book stand out. Patterson's advice and opinions show he's studied all the issues and is very experienced in winemaking at home. The only negative is disappointment that Mr. Patterson is not around to write an intermediate-level book on things like advice on finishing for less popular grape varieties and additives. I've started going through all of his articles online to pick up as much as I can.

I was looking for shortcuts in making wine at home, this did not help at first glance. The book starts out with, do you want to make cheap wine or good wine? I wanted to do both. It then dismisses making cheap wine and focuses on the "good" wine. With that said, it only covers making wine from fresh grapes (when you look for "juice" in the appendix it says see grape and there is no listing there for grape juice). I am used to making wine from grape juice from the supermarket and I'm not buying bunches of fresh grapes to make wine (2.8 lbs per bottle). If you do buy fresh grapes get a grape press first, lol. So I guess I'm more in the cheap wine category than good wine, but the book doesn't seem to help you out there. Not a basic book, more like a college class textbook. If you need to know everything about wine-making I'm not sure this is a good book but at over 300 pages long, this is not a basic reference book for beginners. At least put a quick start in this thing, it's a whole lot of technical information. I, like another reviewer, have other home wine-making books that are more to the point. I probably will never get another of the Dummies books because I rarely read them fully as they are not that easy to understand and don't offer shortcuts.

This book has been a great help. I was a dummy but I’m not anymore

This book is great. Easy to read and understand. Super info and great reference for the home wine maker.Highly recommend.

I've purchased a few "for Dummies" books over the years, but I was really disappointed in this one. A lot of reading but not much on how to actually make wine, like recipes. This was more from the authors experience and not that informative for needed info. I can't find my other wine making book I had about 20 years ago, but it had more useful info and it was only about 60 pages. I would not recommend this book unless you are hust looking for something read.