From Vines to Wines: The Complete Guide to Growing Grapes and Making Your Own Wine

From breaking ground to savoring the finished product, Jeff Cox's From Vines to Wines is the most complete and up-to-date guide to growing flawless grapes and making extraordinary wine.

Wine connoisseurs, gardeners, and home winemakers will find the latest techniques in this fully revised and updated edition. With thorough, illustrated instructions, you'll learn how to:

-- Choose and prepare a vineyard site

-- Construct sturdy and effective trellising systems

-- Plant, prune, and harvest the perfect grapes for your climate

-- Press, ferment, age and bottle your own wine

-- Judge wine for clarity, color, aroma, body, and taste

The intro has a glossary of terms and a basic overview of winemaking which is very helpful for those new to the fun. Tables list which kinds of grapes work best for different regions, so those who are planting vines have a best-case scenario laid out for them. Clear instructions tell how to plant the vines, how to prune them, what a trellis looks like, and even harvest details.

That's just to start. Now the books goes into the winemaking process, and it shines here as well. The conversational tone makes it easy to follow discussions of pH and brix and pomace. The book offers various normal situations winemakers find themselves in, and solutions to fix them. There is even information on barrel usage and aging techniques.

The back appendix section offers places to buy wine supplies, wine societies, common vine pests and treatment, and much more.

In all, this is a fantastic resource for the home vine grower and winemaker. Grab a copy if you're either one!


Excellent survey of all aspects of winemaking   April 11, 2001
M. Ragen (Seattle, WA USA)
53 out of 53 found this review helpful

This is an excellent introduction to the topics of growing grapes or winemaker hobbyist. Cox does an admirable job of providing enough information and tips for the backyard grapegrower or basement/garage winemaker. Other books may go into more detail but this is a comprehensive overview that encompasses each aspect of growing and winemaking.

As a wine enthusiast, I have given thought (more than once) to learning more about the complete wine-making process. Reading this book has given me just enough confidence to try this as a backyard/basement hobbyist. It's not that I believe I can grow and make world-class wine -- rather, I expect to be able to appreciate the effort that goes into making a world-class wine. And, with any luck, I'll be able to make something worth drinking. The sections of the book on choosing grapes appropriate to your region, growing and training tips, fermentation, aging, bottling are all clearly written. The supply sources listed in the back are comprehensive enough to be able to find the basics. All in all, a very solid effort.


The best of the best   May 17, 1999
Marcel Fleurie (Canada)
21 out of 21 found this review helpful

Of all the books I have read on growing grapes and making wine, and I have read a few this is the most comprehensive and useful. Jeff Cox is a master at making even the most difficult aspects of viticulture easy to understand. I recomend this book to anyone looking for an all in one guide to turning vines into wines.


Excellent book period.   August 17, 2000
Glaze (American Fork, Utah USA)
16 out of 16 found this review helpful

This is an excellent book. It completely explains the whole wine making process from the best grape variety for your area, proper growing techniques and care of the plants to making excellent wine with the fruit. I could not find a more complete A to Z book of the whole wine making process than this one.

Unfortunately I live in an area which is too cold to grow the wine grape variety Cabernet Sauvignon. That is the variety I wanted to grow the most, but this book pointed out that this variety will not do very well through the short growing season in my state and will have allot of difficulty through the very cold winters here. Excellent information which will save you future dissapointment and point you in the right direction. Since reading this book I've done extensive research for a red wine grape variety which will do extremely well in U.S. states with short growing seasons and harsh cold winters. A good choice not covered.. I searched the net for several days to find this information, so I thought I would share it.