Best books for new wine maker

[Pinchecharlie]

As the title states iam looking for good books on wine making. My main interest is champagne but not so much historical perspective or regional history but more the literal process and since you all know more than I , if that means making and blending chardanays or Pinot noir ect than that's the help iam looking for. Thanks in advance for your replies Charlie

 

[gregbathurst]

Not so much a book for a new winemaker but a book about champagne.
"The Champagne Guide 2016-17 by Tyson Stelzer – Hardie Grant, hardback, 360 pages"
It has lots of notes about champagne house offerings and a bit of technical stuff. I haven't read it but saw a good review.

 

[pumpkinman2012]

Although I understand that you're interested in champagne, the book that I would start with is Techniques in Home winemaking by Daniel Pambianchi, any of his books are good, he is an award-winning, expert home winemaker and commercial winery operator, not to mention an accomplished author.

If you do a google search you'll find dozens of sources, the following is a quick and easy to follow directions, click here

One of the best wine makers that I know of -Bzac came up with a method that gives you sparkling wine in 2 weeks, as long as you have a base wine, this is by far the easiest way to make it, Click Here
I've made sparkling wine several times using this method, I'll make a small batch at a time around the holidays.

I hope that this helps

 

[Pinchecharlie]

Thanks for the replies I really apreciate your time. I have a bad habit of wanting to make the things in life I love and more often than not those things have taken people or in this case cultures several hundred years to perfect. The truth is Iam having trouble finding detailed information on the primary fermentation of the cuvée. It would seem the secondary or bottled fermentation is just as vague but more approachable . I know from reading that the grapes are harvested earlier to be more acidic and that the real art is the blending of grapes and maybe more importantly the blending of what Iam assuming must be finished wines of different vintages. This bieng said it would seem to me that the base for champagne or sparkling wine must be a finished wine ie- primary fermentation is complete and aged. So the idea of just adding sugars for a secondary fermentation is just a technique for carbonation and not what the big boys are doing? So with all that bieng said, would the base wines be lower alcohol sweeter wines that would allow an addition of a higher alcohol yeast ( champagne yeast) ? Obviously getting it all right would take a bit of research and experience and or three hundred years of dedicated Frenchmen ? Hah! No really am on the right track ? and will learning to make a still wine be the most important step? Truth is Iam a beekeeper and for years everyone's bugging me about mead and well to be honest I really can't stand buttery white wine and after delving into mead there are many recipes that are more white wine like than I like and or a mish Mash of fruit and spice , good but not my taste. So now Iam taking it upon myself to make the best sparkling dry mead ever made in the world hah! Ok babies finally back to sleep time to stop asking forums the secrets of the universe. Cheers charlie

 

[gregbathurst]

Champagne is fermented dry, then after the carbonation, riddling and disgorgeing all the yeast has been removed so the wine can be backsweetened safely. It takes a couple of years to do this so you need to be sure you will have a good product, to go to all that trouble. Champagne spends a lot of time on the lees in the bottle to develop the proper flavour, you might not get the same result with mead.

 

[pumpkinman2012]

Charlie, ask as many questions as possible, we all started at the same point...the beginning, I've made several batches of a berry mead, I really do not like many straight meads, plain, nothing added, many times it tastes medicinal. Anyway, please feel free to ask any question.

 

[Pinchecharlie]

Thanks again for the resources. I had so many people interested in mead I just assumed it was some magic drink ha! I have ten one gallon experiments going now a few dry a couple semi sweet ect.. A cycser a JAOM a spicy one so we shall see. I even made several with different honeys and blends of honey . I have Allways loved champagne so doing the research has been fun but you wine makers seem to be as much scientists as artists and then throw in the agriculture and it's pretty silly to think you could copy something easily without a lot of experience and maybe a degree or two? I'll let you know how it turns out. By the way the encapsulated yeast behind the strainer idea is pretty good don't you think? Just stabilize the base first? Anyway I ordered that book snd it should help me with the basics for awhile .cheers charlie

 

[pumpkinman2012]

I've made the sparking wine using bzacs method several times, quick, easy, and good!

 

[Pinchecharlie]

pumpkinman do you use the noblesse in white sparkling wines? I was ordering all the things from brezacs posts but the morewine description is for reds. thanks charlie

 

[pumpkinman2012]

I don't use Noblesse unless I have to. Noblesse is used for reds and whites, it is a great tool to help correct a few faults.