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Progressive Winemaking – Book Review

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  • Progressive Winemaking – Book Review

    Progressive Winemaking – Book Review
    Peter Duncan, Bryan Acton
    ISBN:0-900841-23-0 (18th Impression, 1991)



    Recently, Bob recommended this book to me, and I decided to go ahead and get it. I will be honest, I was a bit skeptical about buying yet another winemaking book, since I had the forum and the knowledge of more experienced winemakers. However, I can say that this book has pleasantly surprised me, and would recommend this book to both those new in the winemaking hobby and those who have been doing this for many years.

    This book, originally written in 1967, has all the essentials an amateur winemaker needs to understand good winemaking techniques. Just some topics covered include TA, pH, general winemaking tips, oaking, and recipes.

    I believe these authors wrote this book to appeal to both novice and advanced winemakers. The book gives you a “no-nonsense” approach to many aspects of winemaking that many other books have left out. The books tell you the reasoning behind all the actions you could do with your wine (pH, TA, racking, hydrometer, filtering, etc), what other books often lack.

    Although readers might find the authors’ writing style a bit stuffy (when comparing to other books), it is written as text- and reference book. One quickly realises that the authors take winemaking and it’s science very seriously – just what a serious home winemaker needs. There is nothing cute, nothing superfluous, and nothing left to the “powers that be.”

    Looking at the table of contents and thinking of a general wine recipe and the chronology of making wine, you can easily see that this book is written by carefully examining all parts of the winemaking process. The blend of chemistry, biology, and the art of winemaking is a perfect one. One does not feel that there is too much theory when reading this book. In fact, one may start remembering his/her own chemistry class, and thinking, “Oh yes, I remember that!” Starting with the equipment you need to maturing and blending your wines, this book has been organised chronologically to follow the actual steps you perform in winemaking.

    This is helpful in more ways than one: Firstly, the reader can thumb through the book easily, not necessarily having to look up in the table of contents or extensive indices, as many other books that deal with home winemaking require. Secondly, the reader learns the proper steps in the methodology of making good wine.

    There are, however, some things I would like to mention that I find could be improved upon: The tables. Although they are very helpful, I would wish of an appendix of tables at the end of the book for quick reference. Although the book is well-organised, finding the actual table within a section can be somewhat frustrating (“I know it’s in there somewhere!”). Although this book was last published in 1991 (16 years ago – imagine that!), newer editions should also have newer photographs, showing things that are available to the winemaker today. Although all this equipment can still be used today, I think that most amateur winemakers have a more efficient arsenal of tools available to them today.

    Lastly, and probably only because I am really struggling with the TA/pH issue, I find the section on pH is a bit frustrating. They state, ”The winemaker will doubtless have rightly concluded by now that the concept of pH has only limited applications in amateur winemaking. Experienced winemakers may find it useful to record the pH values of their musts and wines for reference purposes, especially when preparing experimental wines, but on the whole no harm will be done if this subject is ignored altogether….” Eek!

    All in all, I would highly recommend this book. I would wish for a newer version, with some changes, but the book should remain, on a whole, basically the same. It is well-written, concise, but explanatory, and a great addition to your winemaking arsenal. I do not know how I survived the first years of winemaking without it, because this is my go-to book if I have an issue I need to read up upon.


    I welcome comments, critique, and challenges to what I have written. Have I missed something?
    Virtual Wine Circle & Competition Co-Founder
    Twitter: VirtualWineO
    Facebook: Virtual Wine Circle

  • #2
    I also wish there was a newer version that the 1999 edition that I own (the last version in print) I'm sure that it would have been updated, to take into account the newer pieces of kit available to the modern winemaker, Personally I'm not keen on the recipe section of the book, but think that the sections covering the methodology are fantastic reading.

    thank you so much for the review


    A shame the book is out of print, but hey guys, look out for it on eBay and amazon 2nd hand, its a great read.
    Last edited by lockwood1956; 05-11-2007, 09:13 PM.
    N.G.W.B.J.
    Member of 5 Towns Wine and Beer Makers Society (Yorkshire's newest)
    Wine, mead and beer maker

    Comment


    • #3
      Nice to read these old books and glean what you can from them. This book dates back around the time of my first attempt at this home wine thing. It was not successful and as a result left it for a number of years. However, this is 2007 much more technically advanced. If today's wineries were run like that it just would not work. The labs in the wineries now-a-days are modern with all the up to date lab equipment and qualified people to manage every part of the wine making process. We at home in our little wine operations can develop some of the minor skills and our wine quality improves immeasurably. I have attached a brief part of a University paper - this is the importance of the pH and acid testing now in the modern age. I think that I much prefer to go by this method. Cheers DAW


      INTRODUCTION:
      A comprehensive program for grape and wine analysis includes several critical metrics. Being able to discern the pH and titratable acidity are essential skills. These factors come in to play at every stage of wine production from harvest, as juice or must, after primary fermentation, during problem solving, prior to and during aging and finishing and especially prior to bottling.

      For the enologist to safely and to effectively produce accurate results, they must be familiar with the equipment and the tests.

      With regard to pH, this factor must be known to control wine quality, to avoid spoilage and to strategically use chemicals and acids to protect the final product.

      With regard to titratable acidity, “(1.) Fruit, including grapes, contain different types of acids. Too much acid renders a wine undrinkable. On the other hand, if wine does not have enough acidity, the result is flat or insipid tasting wine. That’s why it is important to check the acid levels and adjust if necessary.”

      “(2.) There are two ways to measure an acid. They are by titration for total titratable acid and by measuring pH. One of the hardest things to understand is that they do not measure the same thing and do not correlate with one another. In my mind if they both measure acid, one should be able to convert one to the other but it just doesn’t work that way.”

      “(2.)Acids are molecules and they must be made up of at least two atoms. At least one of those atoms must be hydrogen. This hydrogen ion is the magic part of acid, has a positive charge and is written [H+].” Titration measures the total [H+] ion concentration, the ones floating around in solution, plus the ones still holding on to their constituents. The pH measures only the ones that are dissociated and floating around in the solution. Titration measures how many could react. The pH measures how many are ready to react.”

      “(3.) Like a lot of other things in life, pH is what you make of it. It is easy to learn to use pH, and you don’t really need to understand it. Most of us don’t understand the cars we drive or the TV sets we so blithely manipulate. Start by recognizing pH as a very important number that can help you make better wines.”
      Total titratable acidity is not a measure of total acid, but of the acid that is available to react with

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