Opinions of a Wolf

Summary:
A recipe book for making your own wine at home. Geared toward those who already have winemaking skills.

Review:
I requested this via Netgalley um *coughs* last year when I had the dream of making my own wine.  People in my family have done this for years, so I thought I might.  Well….the start-up and learning curve are a bit more than I anticipated or had time for, so I wasn’t able to make any of the recipes.  I did, however, still want to provide a review, particularly since I sent my dad a few of the recipes. (He has his own winemaking set-up).  So, let me put on my librarian uniform and get to it!

Given that making your own wine is kind of a down-home skill, the tone of this book is perfect.  Berry takes on an older relative giving you the low-down on secret family recipes tone to his writing, and it works beautifully.

The wine recipes are primarily organized alphabetically, although a few that are similar (elderberry wines, for instance) are clumped together that way.  It sounds odd, but it makes sense when reading through the book.  The book ends with some holiday punch recipes (including wassail) and, oddly, some beer brewing ones.

The recipes themselves are easy to understand, but I would suggest in the future that Berry either numbers the steps, bullet points, or splits up into a few paragraphs.  They are basically one huge paragraph, which can be less easy to use.  Another suggestion I would make is that the wines for the most part don’t say if they are red or white, and I’m sure that is something the reader would like to know before getting going in the making.

Overall, this is a nice collection of wine making recipes.  It feels as if your uncle handed you a book of secret family recipes, just the alcohol variety.  A working knowledge of winemaking is assumed, so this is recommended to those who already have a wine making setup and want to try out some new, unique recipes.

4 out of 5 stars

Source: Netgalley

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