Raise a glass of homemade burgundy and enjoy the fruits of your labor. This informative guide provides an overview of the entire home winemaking process, from the vine (or the boxed kit) to your glass. With more than 100 recipes for a wide range of delicious wines, ports, and champagnes, you're sure to find a wine to suit your taste. Clear diagrams for setting up your equipment and fail-safe instructions ensure that your home winemaking will be a success. Author Ed Halloran is a freelance writer, a radio and television commentator, and a college marketing professor. Author Gene Spaziani has been a home winemaker for over 40 years. He shares his knowledge by teaching wine courses in New Haven and Bridgeport, Connecticut. He is a charter member of the Society of Wine Educators, president of Amenti del Vino-The Wine Society, and a past president of the American Wine Society. Together with Ed Halloran, Gene has co-written the Storey book, The Home Winemaker's Companion. Their book is a complete guide for the beginning or advanced winemaker, with instructions for using concentrates, kits, juices, fruits and herbs to create a wide variety of homemade wines. In addition, Gene is a writer for New England Wine Gazette, WineMaker Magazine, and the American Wine Society Journal. At the sixth annual Connecticut Amateur Home Winemakers Competition, Gene took home the show's highest award. He won Best of Show for his 1996 Cabernet Franc, as well as gold, silver, and bronze medals for other entries. He has also won gold medals for his entries in the American Wine Society Amateur Competition, the Indiana State Fair Amateur Wine Competition, the Connecticut Amateur Wine Competition, and the Pittsburgh Amateur Wine Competition. Gene lives in Connecticut with his wife, Isabel. He has four children and five grandchildren. 1 Getting Started Our goal is to assist you in the process of making wine. We will present a simple method for attaining quality results with easy-to-understand recipes. Although experienced winemakers rarely use recipes, people who are just starting out find that if they follow instructions carefully, they will make good wines from the outset. Modern technology makes it easy to make high-quality wines, as new methods for preserving freshly crushed grape juices, either by blast-freezing or through various pasteurization processes, enable them to remain stable and usable for a long period. Wine, by the way, can be made from any number of things besides grapes, including a variety of other fruits and vegetables. Depending on where you live, many of the raw materials for winemaking may be available locally from vineyards, farms, wholesalers, and retailers. Whether you make your wine from scratch or a kit, from juices or concentrates, you'll find that making your own wine is easy and fun! Novices have produced excellent wines by using kits. These provide the necessary ingredients and instructions, and make it a simple matter for first-timers to create delightful wines. We'll explore this approach in chapter 3. Using juices or concentrates also will enable you to produce wonderful wines. Thanks to the preservation techniques we mentioned earlier, it is possible for home winemakers to make wines from all of the world's great grape regions. There are separate chapters devoted to these methods. Of course, the ultimate experience comes when you make wine from scratch. This requires more work, but the satisfaction you'll get makes it worth the effort. Don't Be Afraid! The process of making wine is simple, and we'll walk you through it one step at a time. This book is designed to meet the needs of many people - from novices to experienced winemakers eager to learn a few new techniques. Some people will discover that they already know a great deal about the process, because they've learned how to brew

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