Tim Patterson - Home Winemaking For Dummies

Praise for Home Winemaking For Dummies

A thorough, practical, and entertaining guide, this text takes tips from the pros and brings common sense and approachability to the art of winemaking. Mr. Pattersons vast experience and contagious passion for the subject make Home Winemaking For Dummies an enjoyable read while the format makes it an excellent reference and allows the reader to delve as deep into the subject matter as he or she wishes. Whether problem-solving or pursuing stylistic ideals, Mr. Patterson holds the readers hand when needed but still encourages creativity within safe boundaries. From sourcing fruit to healthy fermentation habits straight through aging, bottling, and even enjoying home-made wine, this guide has you covered at every step I even learned a few things myself! This book would be a welcome addition to any wine enthusiasts library and is equally accessible to novice and connoisseur."

Ondine Chattan, Winemaker, Geyser Peak Winery

As a 20-year amateur winemaker with an addiction to winemaking books, I now have a new go-to book for my first reference! After the excellently accurate coverage of basic winemaking, Tims tome takes the wonderful turn of emphasizing the subtle, and not-so subtle, differences that make the distinctions between the popular varietals all in one place! Home Winemaking For Dummies is now prominently on my shelf in front of all the textbooks!

Dave Lustig, President, Cellarmasters Home Wine Club Los Angeles

Tim Patterson is able to express his knowledge and passion of winemaking in a very understandable, humorous, and practical way. If you follow the advice in this book, you will be able to produce wine that will likely be better than inexpensive commercial wine, and could be as good as any wine ever made. I applaud Tims effort and wish this book was around when I started making wine.

Kent Rosenblum, Consultant Winemaker, Rosenblum Cellars, and former home winemaker

Home Winemaking For Dummies

by Tim Patterson

Home Winemaking For Dummies

Published by
John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
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Mississauga, Ontario, L5R 4J3
www.wiley.com

Copyright 2011 by John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this book, including interior design, cover design, and icons, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.

A number of the quotations from winemakers in this book originally appeared in articles by the author for Wines & Vines and WineMaker magazines, and are reprinted here by permission.

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Patterson, Tim, 1946

Home winemaking for dummies / Tim Patterson.

Includes index.

Issued also in electronic formats.

ISBN 978-0-470-67895-4

1. Wine and wine makingAmateurs manuals. I. Title.

TP548.2.P38 2010 641.872 C2010-906320-1

ISBN: 9780470681121 (ebk); 9780470681138 (ebk); 9780470681145 (ebk)

Printed in Canada

1 2 3 4 5 RRD 15 14 13 12 11

About the Author

Tim Patterson writes about adult beverages and makes some of his own in Berkeley, California. In previous lives, he wrote about national politics,television, techie stuff, and hillbilly music. He roots for glamour-free wine regions and low-profile grapes; wants to know how wine is really made; and bottles his own in his garage, just to keep himself honest.

He does the monthly Inquiring Winemaker column for the industry trade magazine Wines & Vines, digging into winemaking theories and techniques, and writes frequently for consumers in the Wine Enthusiast. More to the immediate point, he has expounded regularly about home winemaking for several years in the pages of WineMaker. Past prose has also surfaced in Diablo, the Livermore Independent, Central Coast Adventures, Vineyard & Winery Management, Sommelier Journal, and The Vine, and on various now-defunct Web sites.

He coauthored (with Jim Concannon) Concannon: The First One Hundred and Twenty-Five Years, a history of that venerable Livermore Valley winery; contributed an introduction on the history of world dessert wine styles to Mary Cech and Jennie Schachts The Wine Lovers Dessert Cookbook and a true-life tale to Thom Elkjers Adventures In Wine. He contributed to Opus Vino, a global wine encyclopedia. With veteran California winemaker and wine educator John Buechsenstein, hes working on a book about the science and often the lack of it behind the wine worlds most fascinating concept, terroir. And of course, theres a blog: Blind Muscats Cellarbook (http://blindmuscat.typepad.com).

He made his first home wine in 1997 a small batch of Carignane, hardly the noblest of grapes and when it turned out to bear a striking resemblance to real wine, he was hooked. Since then he has collected a small wall full of ribbons from amateur wine competitions and recruited a circle of friends to do most of the hard work. He leans toward Rhne reds and aromatic whites, but hes willing to try anything that grows on a vine.