Home Winemaking Chem 101

Rating:
Summary: Great information, but rough around the edges.
Review: I really did enjoy reading this book, and I commend it very much because it did accomplish its mission: I learned a great deal about wine, and got a glimpse of the complex chemistry behind it. On that level, this is a great success for the layman-- if you took some college biology or had chemistry in high school, there's a very good chance that you'll find this text perfectly approachable. If you didn't pay enough attention, there's a section in the beginning that will help you out... sort of. There begins the trouble.

There were a few problems I had with this book, and the most notable was that the editing was very problematic; examples included misspellings, very awkward language, and most troubling many leaps without solid explanation. The author often contientiously discussed such passings, explaining that the chemistry involved was complicated, but at many junctures the leaps simply happened.

This is a book that also seems to have difficulty determining it's audience at times. For example, there's "ye old lecture on atomic structure", but no guide to reading chemical formulae. A reader capable of reading the notation probably doesn't need a reminder about the difference between protons and neutrons. A reader requiring such probably isn't going to be ready to understand more complicated reactions.

I am in the end happy that I bought this book, and really do want to stress that. I also think that there's a better book somewhere inside of this one, and that's the one that you should purchase unless you don't mind a rough sort of text.