wild winemaking at our home. There are many new recipes like banana wine , dark chocolate plum wine..........

I’m not a wine maker, definitely a taster though. I’ve often wondered how easy (or complicated) it would be to make your own wine. While I feel confident I could perhaps make wine, you really need to decide if you’re going to be vested in this as a hobby or more. Even though you’re lead to believe it doesn’t tak much to get stated, it’s costly to buy everything you will need. There are some very unexpected flavors and pairings which makes me even more intrigued to try these recipes.

#NetGalley

Creative and innovative! The book is a 101 homemade winemaking guide which includes the basic techniques and excellent tips to create marvelous drinks with classic and unthinkable ingredients.

The recipes in this unique cookbook offer interesting and inventive flavor combinations. Even readers who are unlikely to gather their own flowers and herbs will be intrigued and entertained by the concoctions offered.

This is a great book on making wine with common, and not so common produce and herbs. The instructions were very clear and easy to understand. Anyone with a passion to make wine and use up extra produce will enjoy this book!

I was able to read a temporary digital copy of this book through Net Galley and it's one of my favorite books I've ever read through them. There is so much I like about this book:

-- It includes oodles of recipes for making wine from ingredients like fruits, greens and flowers. Since our family forages for all kinds of wild fruits and other wild foods, this automatically appealed to me.

-- The author doesn't use additives like campden tablets (sulfites), making a more natural, healthier wine.

-- The instructions are simple. I have experience making wines and hard cider, but even if I didn't I think I would feel comfortable trying these recipes.

-- The recipes are creative. There are standard ones and also ones that use spice and even marijuana.

-- It's colorful, pretty and just makes me happy reading it.

I liked this book so much that I am planning to purchase my own copy. I am cheap so this is saying a lot. ;)

I think that I could successfully follow these instructions! My family will probably be amused to see yet another "bubbling potion" on the countertop in the kitchen (in addition to sourdough, yogurt, kefir, and kombucha)!

I received a free e-copy of Wild Winemaking by Richard W. Bender from NetGalley for my honest review.

I love the beautiful colors of all the fruits, vegetables and bottles in this book. Wonderful and inviting! This was a very interesting read and a nice starter for someone who is interested in trying to make their own wine and keeping it as simple as possible with expenses. This book breaks down the exact supplies you need, ingredients and cleaners. I enjoyed the sugar breakdown on what to use depending on the type of wine you are interested in making. It even tells you how you should store your wines to keep them at their best. Then the best for last is the recipes for wines from fruit and vegetable wines, apple champagne (yumm), blackberry wine, blackberry-peach, black currant peach, blueberry apple, and these are just a few of the recipes in this bright beautiful Wine making book.

I like this book! As a lover of fruit wines, I had the bright idea of learning to make my own. This book is full of wonderful pictures that describe in detail what we need to wine and exactly how to do it. The advice and step-by-step directions are informative and easy to understand. Even the cannabis wine sounds interesting! I highly recommend this book for those looking to make wine making their new hobby, or just interested in learning to make your own wine.

I am always looking for new recipes for food or drinks and this book is like no other drink book I've ever read. The cover does not do justice to all the amazing photos inside. They are bright and colorful and make even the oddest sounding wine look tasty. We have dabbled in homebrewing n the past so lucky for me we already have all the equipment needed to make wine. I haven't tried any of the recipes in the book yet but only because I couldn't decide which one to start with.



The book is split up by the types of ingredients used to make the wine. The first section contains all the fruit and vegetable based wines. I was not very interested in a few of these but the apple champagne and the cherry-chocolate-almond ones sounded the best. Then you have the flower and herb wines which all sounded delicious. Last but not least are the hot pepper wines and the cannabis wines. I am sure you can imagine how cool those recipes are....like Mary Jane's Grapes...I'm just saying.



Overall, I really enjoyed this book and feel like my Spring and Summer months are about to get a whole lot livelier!

Well written, excellent photographs and I learned a lot to boot! Recipes as written are ideal for the brewer who wants to make fruit/berry wines and to avoid additives and sulfites to 14% or more alcohol by volume.
(My personal brewing has been mead rather than wine, but I’ve been reading a variety of fermentation books to get more background on how and why fermentation works.)

The first part covers the background of winemaking, including discussion of additives. Even as someone who has fermented alcohol in the past, there were things to learn, and it is well and clearly written, very easy to understand.

The second part is recipes galore! A huge number of fruit wines, followed by herb and flower based wines, hot pepper wines, and a selection of cannabis wines (for those who can brew them according to local laws). The recipe times given are assuming that the brewer is not using sulfites to stop fermentation, and give ranges for leaving your wine to age in carboy before bottling to avoid exploding bottles or popped corks.

All in all, a great book for anyone interesting in brewing wine-like beverages without grapes. Although as a hint for anyone starting out: stick with sterilizing your equipment. I suspect the author has managed to cultivate beneficial yeasts in his winemaking environment through years of brewing, to the point where he mentions using only hot water to clean his equipment and soap if hot peppers have been used.

Nicely photographed and easy to follow recipes for making homemade wine for the beginner. Includes fruit, vegetable, flower, herb and cannabis wine recipes! Measurements are imperial and I feel that a conversion chart would have increased its global appeal. Fun book.

This book is beautifully presented and very informative. The information is easy to understand and the recipes look fabulous. I love the Hot pepper wine section and the herb wines look like they can made with the ingredients from the garden.. I will certainly be having a try at some of the recipes. These are the sort of wines I remember my parents and friends making when I was a child (stamping on grapes and all), they were delicious, and I have never tasted anything to match them - maybe I can

This book is perfect for anyone wanting to start to make their own alcohol. A step by step guide that is clear and precise.

I enjoyed this novel. Not a whole lot more to say other than this novel is more precise and easier to follow than many others I have read. This is the kind of book that you should read before getting any equipment.

As an aspiring home-winemaker, this is a beautiful book to have! I received a galley on NetGalley in exchange for a review, but this will be a must purchase for me. The recipes are simple to follow and the process is broken down into manageable chunks. I appreciate the simplicity of the language in the book--as some winemakers can get unnecessarily technical due to their love of the craft.

Wild Winemaking, due out 06 Mar, 2018 from author Richard W. Bender and Storey Publishing is an interesting addition to the recent surge of niche winecrafting books. Beautifully photographed, it shows the fruits, vegetables, herbs, vegetables (?!) and other ingredients used to make these very unusual wines as well as appealing pics of the finished products.

The book doesn't presuppose any knowledge on the part of the would-be winemaker and begins at the very beginning, with an introduction of supplies, equipment, sterilization and basic techniques.

Chapter two goes through the author's own techniques and tips for getting from ingredients to finished wines. The introductory chapters cover the basics and take up about 20% of the total content. The author has a chatty and informal writing style which lends a calm and friendly vibe.

By far the lion's share of the content is given over to the recipes, and boy, howdy, are they wild and interesting. The recipes start out with relatively tame and simple recipes, apple, apricot, banana, plum, and so forth. It's not long until the recipes start pulling in flowers (the staid elderberry cordial is joined by jasmine, jonquil, lavender, lilac and others) and herbs. There are nearly 150 recipes with scope for almost infinite blending and combinations. Additionally, and uniquely in my experience, the author also includes wines which include citrus in combination with hot peppers (pink grapefruit - kung pao and others) and cannabis wines (the legalities and information regarding cannabis are covered in the book, basically make sure that you can legally acquire the ingredients, and please don't travel with the resultant wine).

I've not yet tried any of the recipes, though I fully intend to, since I have dried and fresh pesticide free herbs and fruit. I'm looking forward to trying the chocolate mint wine and basil wine. After those, cherry, plum and apple wines seem quite tame.

Four stars

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to review this book. I am a novice winemaker and was looking for up todate ideas to try. This fulfilled all I wanted.. Who knew you could add chocolate to wine! it actually works.

We have fruit trees and spinach in our garden, now I see them as wine. The process is quite simple, equipment easy to find and the waiting time not too long. Making in small batches is easy, and you soon learn which will become favourites. Neighbours will love to try them too and even give you herbs, fruit, vegetables they have an excess off. Since reading the book I now look at wine making in a fresher way, have tried quite unusual things together but have yet to try many. Plum champagne is wonderful, we are even considering buying a plum tree, just for wine making.

I am really delighted to have discovered a new approach, do consider reading it.

Wine making as described by Bender is actually a much more simplified process than I was expecting. I liked the easy techniques and tools that Bender uses to make this accessible for a variety of skill levels. I was very surprised to see cannabis appear in wine making but I have to admit I am very intrigued as well. :)

Being a winemaking hobbyist, I was looking forward to reading Wild Winemaking by Richard W. Bender. The book’s cover indicated that it contained fruit and herbal wine making recipes. I found those in the book as well as several unexpected recipes like the ones for cannabis wines. The author is brave as the latter will surely land him on some government list.

The book is logically laid out starting with the basics of winemaking. It then goes on to include a listing of the equipment and supplies needed. Although the author makes an initial point that you don’t need a lot of equipment to make local produce wines, his long listing of equipment, its use, and why it is useful seems to contradict this. Although I already have all of the equipment and supplies listed, I would have found this list a little frightening if I were new to the hobby.

One thing that I noted is that fruit winemaking is not as complicated as I thought. The recipes provided can be shortened to four ingredients, fruit, sugar, water, and yeast. Some of the recipes also call for a pectic enzyme to break down the fruit pulp. You start by mashing or squeezing the fruit, then you add the remaining ingredients, and let the yeast do its magic. Fruit pulp and dead yeast cells will settle after a few days, according to Bender, at which time you rack the wine, a winemaking term meaning that you transfer the wine off the sediment, into a clean container and continue to let it ferment. Bender doesn’t add sulfites to his wines but allows them to clarify slowly in a carboy with a fermentation lock attached to protect it against oxygenation. This allows the wine ingredients to further settle and naturally degas before bottling.

There is a chapter at the end of the book on pairing wines with food. While you can find pairing suggestions in many wine appreciation websites, Bender also provided wine party ideas in this chapter. I intend to use one of them for a new year’s party at the end of this year.

While the layout of the book looks like it may have been written for young adults, the subject matter is definitely at a majority drinking age level. I think that the format was probably chosen as a means to demystify winemaking.

The book was interesting to me since I never made fruit wines and have a growing interest in doing so. The recipes given can easily be adapted to any locally available produce. While not a defining book, Wild Winemaking is enjoyable and will give the reader who has an interest in winemaking from local produce the guidance he or she needs to get started in the hobby.