Good read, and very detailed

Very good concise method of making wine at home or is a small winery .

I bought this book hoping to get some good tips for making a high quality wine. I was not disappointed ... i think Mr. Stanley has made a very good contribution here. If you are looking for practical pointersto help you improve the quality of wine ... this book is a valuable resource. I especially liked Mr. Stanley's thoughts about treating the PRESS with tender loving care. I gave the book 4 stars because Mr. Stanley is an advocate of one process where i disagree ... adding oak chips to the wine. If you do this, you are making a shortcut in the process. Any shortcut, is also a shortcut to lower quality wine. The best approach is to age in high-quality oak barrels. This is time consuming and expensive, but if you want a world-class wine ... i believe this is essential. Do your own research - you will find that the families in Europe who maintain a tradition of high quality .. they invest in the best oak barrels. There are good reasons for this. Setting aside this one issue, I think Mr. Stanley has made a valuable contribution with this book and i recommend it!

I have to agree with Mr. Walloff. I bought this book on the advice from his review and have found it to be indispensable. I spoke to a few amature winemakers after reading it and they had no idea what I was talking about. I spoke to two professional winemakers and was able to have an intelligent conversation about technique with both. I love the kindle version because the chapter on the art of vinification begins with a step by step guide to making wine. You can point and click on any step in the process and get an in depth explanation of the science behind it. I refer back to it constantly. Can't say enough good things about this book.

Great book, takes a different approach of writing than most home wine making authors take, but keeps things interesting and makes you think about the concepts more than other authors do, this is not a recipe book at all. I would say this book is more designed to give you directions on how to approach winemaking and make better wines, opposed to books that just give you steps and guidelines. This book is worth a read.