Friday, August 6, 2010

Book Review: Traditional Country Winemaking Including Mead

Traditional Country Winemaking Including Mead was written in 1997 by Paul and Ann Turner. Instantly, I noticed that it was different than most wine making books because this book is chalked full of pictures. For instance, something as simple as reading a hydrometer has six different pictures. Racking is laid out in eight pictures. There are a series of techniques demonstrated in this book on how to extract flavor, be it boiling carrots or soaking berries, AKA, adding water. If you are a visual learner, this is the winemaking book for you.

Another thing that strikes me is how very similar it is to First Steps in Winemaking by C.J.J. Berry. I say this because Traditional Country Winemaking Including Mead also has a brief word on poisonous plants before going onto the recipes. The recipes are alphabetical buy season, which is similar to Berry’s book. Both books were published in England, so they have a lot of the same recipes. I checked to see if they were published by the same company, but they were not.

Just before the index is a wine maker card to copy and take notes on for the batch of wine you are making. It’s not the best record I’ve seen set up, but it is nice that it is included, as most books don’t include anything, and is aimed at country wines instead of fruit wines.

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