John N. Peragine - The Complete Guide to Making Your Own Wine at Home: Everything You Need to Know Explained Simply

The Complete Guide to Making Your Own Wine at Home

Everything You Need to Know Explained Simply

By John N. Peragine Jr.

The Complete Guide to Making Your Own Wine at Home: Everything You Need to Know Explained Simply

Copyright 2010 Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Peragine, John N., 1970

The complete guide to making your own wine at home : everything you need to know explained simply / John N. Peragine Jr.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-1-60138-358-7 (alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 1-60138-358-4 (alk. paper)

1. Wine and wine making--Amateurs manual. I. Title.

TP548.2.P473 2010

641.872--dc22

2009051523

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A few years back we lost our beloved pet dog Bear, who was not only our best and dearest friend but also the Vice President of Sunshine here at Atlantic Publishing. He did not receive a salary but worked tirelessly 24 hours a day to please his parents.

Bear was a rescue dog who turned around and showered myself, my wife, Sherri, his grandparents Jean, Bob, and Nancy, and every person and animal he met (well, maybe not rabbits) with friendship and love. He made a lot of people smile every day.

We wanted you to know a portion of the profits of this book will be donated in Bears memory to local animal shelters, parks, conservation organizations, and other individuals and nonprofit organizations in need of assistance.

Douglas and Sherri Brown

PS: We have since adopted two more rescue dogs: first Scout, and the following year, Ginger. They were both mixed golden retrievers who needed a home.

Want to help animals and the world? Here are a dozen easy suggestions you and your family can implement today:

• Adopt and rescue a pet from a local shelter.
• Support local and no-kill animal shelters.
• Plant a tree to honor someone you love.
• Be a developer put up some birdhouses.
• Buy live, potted Christmas trees and replant them.
• Make sure you spend time with your animals each day.
• Save natural resources by recycling and buying recycled products.
• Drink tap water, or filter your own water at home.
• Whenever possible, limit your use of or do not use pesticides.
• If you eat seafood, make sustainable choices.
• Support your local farmers market.
• Get outside. Visit a park, volunteer, walk your dog, or ride your bike.

Five years ago, Atlantic Publishing signed the Green Press Initiative. These guidelines promote environmentally friendly practices, such as using recycled stock and vegetable-based inks, avoiding waste, choosing energy-efficient resources, and promoting a no-pulping policy. We now use 100-percent recycled stock on all our books. The results: in one year, switching to post-consumer recycled stock saved 24 mature trees, 5,000 gallons of water, the equivalent of the total energy used for one home in a year, and the equivalent of the greenhouse gases from one car driven for a year.

Acknowledgments

I dedicate this book to Phil, Kim, Amelia, and Ella: my dear friends and original winemaking inspiration. This also goes to my wife and my two girls, who have tolerated my out-of-control hobby.

Foreword

Making wine is a fun and fascinating pastime, regardless of how big or small you choose to start. Proximity to Californias wine country has given me and my family inspiration to try this hobby, and it has brought many hours of fun and togetherness along the way.

I am fortunate enough to live on a vineyard in Californias premier wine-growing region, Napa Valley. I suppose it was almost inevitable that with a ready supply of fruit, I would decide to try my hand at winemaking because I am an enthusiastic home chef and love to experiment with ingredients and techniques.

John Peragines book gives basic step-by-step instructions on how to create your own wine from fruits and vegetables you might never have considered. While grapes are the standard fruit used in wine; try some of his country recipes if you cant locate a supply of wine grapes right away. The making of non-grape wines has a long and illustrious history in its own right.

Peragine guides you through choosing equipment and ingredients, then takes you through the steps of creating your own wine, from the first grape harvest to the first pour. Home winemaking is what my family does year-round, and we have a history rich in the craft.

When my husband, Frank Hewitt, retired after many years as an engineer for IBM, he and his first wife purchased her mothers property in Napa Valley, which was planted as a prune orchard at the time. Frank and his then-wife, Flossie, wanted to find a retirement lifestyle. Frank began the process of converting the prune orchard to a vineyard by removing the trees and preparing the soil. Long before the time of unsecured loans, his banker insisted that he find a buyer for the yet un-planted grapes before he would grant a loan to plant and develop the property.