How to Make Wines

The Basics of Making Wine

The simple methods described here are designed for beginners who do not know where to begin and for those with some experience who frequently run into difficulties and disappointments.

The making of top-quality wines is absurdly simple, yet not quite so simple that we can be careless about it. Too many people are still following Granny’s fruit mixtures to ferment of their own accord, leaving bottles of fermenting wines corked loosely (the three main causes of ruined wines), while others are still preparing their fruits and other ingredients in a manner which nine times out of ten produces cloudy, acid wines that more often than not find their way down the drain.

If your previous attempts have not been up to expectations there is a reason. This will be found with in these pages as well as the essential, yet simple, information that ensures success in making what is, surely, the finest home product on Earth.

I repeatedly make it clear that I am an advocate of simplicity. There are many highly complicated scientific and chemical aspects underlying amateur wine-making. A few home operators begin to dabble in these, so that, to them, wine-making becomes a grueling test of knowledge and skill. Expensive laboratory equipment becomes necessary as does some experience in laboratory techniques and from then on all pleasures are lost in a worrying maze of technicalities. And all for no reason at all, because their wines are no better than those turned out by the simple methods and recipes here. However, so that readers understand the reason for wines being spoiled, I have included a few chemical details so that the very beginner not only knows what to do and how to do it, but also why he is doing it in one particular way. Success is thus assured. Nevertheless, he will need no knowledge of chemistry and no more in the way of utensils than is already available in most homes.