From Vines to Wines...Grow Grapes and Make Your Own Wine at Home.
Written: Jan 12 '07 (Updated Jan 12 '07)
Product Rating:
Pros: Thorough and well referenced
Cons: Poor organization at times.
The Bottom Line: Contains much information, and is concise enough to be worth having, but is disorganized and poorly thought through in some important places.
snpmurray's Full Review: Jeff Cox - From Vines to Wines: The Complete Guide...
Home winemaking is a pretty economical way to produce an excellent bottle of wine. Some years ago I began the move to producing my own grape wine, having previously produced wines from fruit alone. My vines are still maturing, but every move I have made has been directed by the advice contained in this excellent volume. I thought I would share some of its fine qualities with you, and discuss my reservations.
The title of this book is actually an understatement. It should probably be entitled From Tines to Vines to Wines since the book begins with preparing the very ground you will plant your vines in. It carries you all the way through to beautifying your finished bottles of vino. And this book does it all with diligence.
The author is a professional writer in the wine trade, with three books to his credit. I see that this book is widely touted on the winemakers’ newsgroups (that is why I myself bought it) but the author does not discuss his own qualification to write such a book. I confess I have wondered whether this book is popular with amateurs merely because it is the only widely available paperback on the subject? Hard to say. Either Cox has a lot of personal experience, or he is rather blackguardly, and I am willing to accept he knows what he is talking about until proven otherwise!
What the author does not possess from his own experiences, he seems to borrow selectively from all the right sources. He quotes friends in the enology world during their relevant chapters in the book, putting agricultural scientists behind his words. I do not claim to have any experience in the field at all, and cannot judge if their may be disputing viewpoints amongst academics on the subject, but I was pleased to see science coming into it.
The book begins with what is both an overview of the wine production process and a synopsis of the books content. The book has been divided into three separate parts. The first concerns itself with selecting the vines. The second is concerned with growing the grapes. The third part deals with making the wine. There are frankly many better books on the subject of making the wine, although the instruction given here is undeniably accurate and informative. You would only get this book for the content of the first two sections, though. If you seek a book on actually making wine, I recommend you buy one dedicated to the subject. I have put a brief list of ones I have tried and/or still use at the bottom of this review.
Section one will give you all the information you need to make a vine selection. Detail is excellent. That goes for this section and the second, actually. The chronologically sequenced arrangement of the book evidently inspired the author to give consideration to almost every single detail of the process. In section one you will be educated as to how geography and climate can be expected to effect choice of grape. The book gives tables indicating which regions grow which grapes best, and what kind of temp range you expect in each region.
The tables in the book are well thought out and clear, and this is definitely a positive point to mention. The tables reveal, however, a potentially fatal flaw in this book for some….the data it contains are almost exclusively attentive to the West coast. If you live in the East coast, no data are given, but obviously you can grow excellent wine there….I am not sure why the book is ignoring the East coast, but it does. To be honest, grape growing on the East coast is different from the techniques this book describes, too, from what I have read. If you are on the East coast it is probably not advisable to rely on this book if you are new to viniculture.
The second section, “Growing the Grapes” is the most serious meat of this book. Here we begin with putting up trellises in readiness for your vines…how to choose them, how to arrange them and how to build the things. This section has much detail. We cover how to receive your vines (he assumes you have them shipped from a nursery), how to plant them, and then the real fun begins!
There is very extensive detail on how to train and how to prune. This is clearly something that Cox considers crucial to the success of the vines. Unfortunately, in his concern to be thorough, some clarity is lost. The section on training is very convoluted. It is not at all clear how one proceeds in ones own situation. This section is not neatly divided by geographic region as was grape selection. Indeed, what the system for arranging the information here might be is unclear. I have read it many times, realizing it is important stuff. At best, I am still guessing I have understood what I am meant to be doing. Bottom line, lots of information, poor organization, at least in this section.
As previously mentioned, while the section on turning the grapes into wine is thorough enough, I would get a specialist book for that work.
Appendices are numerous…
The book provides a reprintable record sheet for the whole process…..while this is thorough and would be useful, good luck reprinting it…this is a sturdy paperback and the record sheet spreads across two pages. We are all familiar with the “distorting mirror” effect of trying to photocopy two pages of a book with a spine that prevents flat folding. Poorly thought through.
We are also provided a list of regional contact organizations, and a limited bibliography. To his GREAT credit the author annotates his bibliography with personal opinions on the strengths of each book. This is priceless, and I wish everyone would do it!
A brief and not very inclusive list of winemaking suppliers is given. This misses some of the big names in online supply. Use the web and the newsgroups for better information.
A list of suppliers of mail order vines that Cox considers reliable is given. Here at least, he covers both coasts!
The remaining appendices will help you to troubleshoot your vines if they appear less than perfect. Cox approaches this in two ways. First, he gives you a diagnostic system based on what you see going wrong…
”See yellow stems? Then this is what your problem might be, and this is how you fix it”
Secondly he appendixes the major diseases of vines and discusses there major causes and fixes. I won’t pretend to be able to tell you whether this is a comprehensive list, but I bet it hits most of the most common diseases. Reflect what it would take to summarize every possible human disease!
The index at the end of the book is thorough and cross referenced.
In conclusion, this book contains a very great amount of information not easily accessible anywhere else, but in his wish to be comprehensive some clarity is lost at times. Worth having if you are gonna grow your own!
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