Description
Once people made country wines solely from the fruits of their gardens and local hedgerows, but today there is a wide range of fascinating ingredients available – grape juice, concentrates, grains, dried fruit, exotic fruit juices – to allow winemakers to pursue their crafts all year round, independent of fruiting seasons.
Now in its third edition, this book has already reprinted forty-one times and has sold over 500,000 copies. It contains (in alphabetical order from Almond Wine to Yarrow Wine) 130 tried and reliable recipes for country wines and real ales, many of which are unique to this publication and which supplement those found in the author’s primer First Steps in Winemaking.
The book is illustrated by the well-known winemaking cartoonist Rex Royle.
Contents: Welcome to Winemaking; Cleanliness; What Wine Is; Yeast; Nutrient; Acid and Tannin; Fermentation; Winemaking Summarised; Dos and Don’ts; Wine Recipes; Wines from Concentrated Fruit Juices; Elderberry Variations; Sherry; Beers and Stouts; Christmas Drinks.
Cyril John James Berry was one of Britain’s leading amateur winemakers, co-founder of the first Winemaker’s Circle, founder Chairman of the National Association of Winemakers and Brewers and Editor-Publisher of the monthly magazine The Amateur Winemaker which he ran for 27 years.
After World War II, when sugar came off rationing, Cyril co-founded the first Winemaker’s Circle in Andover, which still flourishes today. Then Cheltenham, Bournemouth, Harrow and Hertford Circles sprang to life and gradually the bubbles of wine spread all over the UK. Clubs learnt about each others’ events through a little magazine The Amateur Winemaker which Cyril and his wife Peggy produced in the upstairs bedroom of their house in Andover. This was for sale to clubs at 6 pence a copy.
Cyril had an ebullient personality and energy which not only embraced his family and social life but also gave him the courage at a mature age to give up his safe, professional life as Editor of a local Andover paper in order to concentrate on producing The Amateur Winemaker magazine on a national scale. He wrote several best-selling books on winemaking and homebrewing, upon which he was an acknowledged expert for forty years, appearing frequently on television and always in demand as a lecturer and wine judge.
He lived in Andover, Hampshire, England and in Malaga, Spain where he died in 2002.
Originally published in 1963 by Amateur Winemaker Publications
Third Revised Edition published in 1981 by Argus Books
Special Interest Model Books edition published in 2002
Specification:
210 x 148mm; 126 pages
53 black and white cartoons
Paperback
