Gretchen Neuman

Gretchen Neuman
VinoVerve Editor

Yes, that object from Wednesday was a champagne sabre.  I have seen a bottle opened this way once in the past.  Yet, I felt that I needed to give it a try.  When my friend Arlynn Lieber Presser told me about her blogging project to meet and learn from all her Facebook friends, I knew that this was the time to go ahead.  I purchased the sabre (you can spell it with an -er if you wish.  I am going all Buffalo Sabre-y on you) and waited for it to arrive.

It is magnificent. Has good heft and according to Kevin and the girls, the ability to put someone’s eye out.  Indeed, Champagne Rory indicated a concern that he would be blinded by flying glass.  This was not to be.  Everything went flying along its trajectory at such a rate of speed that I am not sure it is even possible to get glass blowback.  And wine foaming from the bottle removes the possiblity of shards travelling down your throat and lodging in your lung.  I like the looks of this sabre.  Kevin and I bought a Laguiole sabre for a friend a couple of years back and I was disappointed to see that it looked like a machete.  A deadly weapon as well to be sure, but it was missing the elegance of a sabre.

So, I took the sabre to Arlynn’s and I showed her how it worked.  But she was still concerned about trying it herself.  Watch for yourself.  I talked her into it.  You can read her post about our evening here.  I even got my Dad and Sophie to try using the sabre (Though in Sophie’s case, it was more like trying to keep her from it.)

I KNOW that I will never open a bottle of bubbly another way again.  This was way too cool.

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Gretchen Neuman
VinoVerve Editor

As I get ready to start exploring Michigan (still trying to get Marguerite to come with me for some of these….), I ran into the problem of trying to figure out which to do first. After giving it some thought, I decided to go in order of their creation. Which means that Fennville. This viticulture area was designated October 19, 1981 and contains 75,000 acreas of coastal Lake Michigan between the Kalamazoo and Black Rivers. The soils are sandy and glacial and temperatures are moderated by the deep waters of Lake Michigan. The vineyards in the area are capable of producing both Vitis vinifera and Vitis labrusca grapes. Oh, and did I mention that this wines from this area is a great locapour option for those of you living around the Great Lakes? It is true.

The problem that I am having with this AVA is determining is whether there are any wineries producing wine with the Fennville Appellation AVA. Per an article in 2007 at Appellation America indicated that only one winery existed in the viticulture area, Fenn Valley Vineyards. However, when I checked the website for Fenn Valley, I found that the wine pictured at their site was labelled under the Lake Michigan Shore appellation in which Fennville is completely contained. So, am I confused? yes. I will let you know if I have answers soon.

In the meantime, I have prepared the map for the possibly useless AVA.

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Gretchen Neuman
VinoVerve Editor

When push comes to shove, I am as much a foodie as I am a wino. A couple of weeks ago Kevin and I had a perfectly fine dinner out at McCormick & Schmick. It was a really crazy night there and we felt a bit neglected by the staff initially. Eventually we got appetizers and our dinner… Even some wine.

We enjoyed dinner. I thought that the wine list was a bit of a throw away, but we cherry picked it… and ended up with particularly excellent appetizers…

A de-constructed oysters Rockefeller… and the Lomi-Lomi salmon that was put together at our table. The advantage of this? Well, obviously, I get the recipe.

So, after Kevin and I had a disasterous experience cooking fish last weekened? (check my Twitter feed to see how bad it was) We decided that we needed to get back on the horse so to speak. I decided to reproduce (hopefully) the Lomi-Lomi salmon.

First I diced some lovely fresh salmon that I picked up from my favorite fishmonger, Bill Dugan of The Fish Guy. If you live in Chicago and haven’t been there? Shame on you. This salmon was from the Faroe Islands which I will admit that I thought were Scottish, but in reality are Danish (not that I think that the fish care). The fish was beautiful bright color with pronounced layer of fat in the musculature. Beautiful. Of course, I am dicing it, along with a smallish yellow onion, chopped scallions, three of those beautifully ripe vine tomatoes also diced, salt, pepper, the juice of two limes, the zest of one, a tablespoon of soy sauce (I only had a dribble due to my sweet filles love of salty condiments, so I substituted a combination of fish sauce and Worcestershire sauce. Sometimes cooking is about imagination) finely chopped green chiles (I used serrano’s because they have an herbal brightness) and a drizzle of sesame oil. Toss these ingredients together.. let them marinate a couple of minutes and serve on crackers (or just go ahead and eat the stuff from spoons. Why? because it is perfect in this form in every single way). When we ordered this at the restaurant they gave us to small a portion of this. Last night? We might have gone a bit overboard as we indulged in two whole filets.. which means that this is all we ate.

Oh, the flavor was amazing.

But what to drink with it? Well, that evening at McCormick & Schmick we drank the Sokol Blosser Evolution 9. It was an amazingly complex blend of 9 varietals which beautifully matched the spicy asian flavors, though to me were a bit sweet.

This time? Domaine Chandon Brut. The crispness of the sparkling wine was absolutely perfect. In fact even better than the sweet touches from the Sokol Blosser.

This recipe? Well, it will be on high rotation as it was light, simple and ridiculously good. Maybe I will consider drinking something other than sparkling wine with it… but no time soon, that is for certain.

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Gretchen Neuman
VinoVerve Editor

I’ve been a bad, bad girl.

I’ve been careless with a wine blog

~ Gretchen with much assistance from Fiona Apple

Yes,  I played blog hookie today.  Ok, technically not since I am catching up tonight… still.  You get the point.

I went kayaking today, having just taken possession of my new kayak late last week.

Today I used it and got something that doubted was possible.

An October sunburn.

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Gretchen Neuman
VinoVerve Editor

Yes, I have a lot of material from places that I have already been, but I have a little ADD. I sometimes, just need to move on to a new topic and this is one that I am pleased to get to… as it is about local wine. It is my home state of Illinois’ neighbor to the east, Michigan.

Why Michigan? Well, a lot of their wines are within 100 miles of my house making them very locapour…

Michigan has been producing wine from local wine grapes since the late 1600s. Yes, 1600s.

Currently the 2,000 acres of wine grapes planted in Michigan are a mixture of American (vitis labrusca), Eurasian (vitis vinifera) and hybrid varietals. Michigan is home to over 100 wineries and four viticulture areas: Fennville, Lake Michigan Shore, Leelanau Peninsula and Old Mission Peninsula. Michigan is famous for its fruit wines, ice wines and also for their sparkling wines that have made the wine lists of some of the best restaurants (Charlie Trotter, The Girl and the Goat to name a few).

So let’s begin our exploration of Michigan wine! As always, if you have a favorite, please let me know (and Marguerite too).

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Gretchen Neuman
VinoVerve Editor

Maybe it is because I was always forced to title my papers in college and it often stretched my already exhausted and strained creativity, but when I make wine, I always feel it needs a name. That might not make any sense to anyone else out there, but it does to me. Heck, I want to name our house, though I have been forbidden to by Kevin and the girls (fun-suckers, I say).

So, I have been thinking very carefully about the name for this vintage (did you smell the burning?). Finally, I have arrived at a name and a label to go along with it.

I kinda like it alot.

Thoughts?

And yes, I know I still have a carmenere out there unnamed. I am still thinking on that one. I told you my creativity is limited.

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Gretchen Neuman
VinoVerve Editor

So, we squeezed some grapes, an amusing, slightly insane and definitely messy job. Next day when the juice came up to room temperature, I stirred in the yeast. Also known as the only yeast that Caputo’s carried that I had to go to customer service to find after I asked around at the really crowded market. Luckily, the yeast was from Lanvin an known producer (at least to me and seemed to be a somewhat generic bordeaux type. So, red wine. Yeah. Just what I have, so this works.

What are differences between using just juice (must) (though I mean not grapes skins) and must with skins. One of the things that changes when the skins are in play is the volume of the mix. It turns out that before fermentation juice and skins just kind of hang out together in mixture.. kind of like a soup… but after fermentation? Oy! Those skins rise to the top forming a thick layer that has to be broken through to get a good mixture.

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Gretchen Neuman
VinoVerve Editor

Whenever I plan a cross country trip, I get a list of places that my folks think that I should. When I told them I was heading to Walla Walla, they immediately started forming the list. Wall Drug. Devil’s Tower. Mt. Rushmore. Deadwood. Deadwood was especially high on my folks list as they were lovers of the HBO series, ironic given my mother’s basic prudish nature and sheer volume profane language leaving Al Swearengen (Ian McShane)’s mouth. Nevertheless, I readily assented to that stop.

And why? Well, there is more than just gold in them there hills. There happens to be wine too.

Now, now, now… I know what you are saying… WIne in South Dakota? Well, yes. There was even a winery near the Laura Ingalls Wilder homesite, wine that I didn’t get to…. this time anyway.

Anywho, I was discussing Deadwood. So, I was gleeful as I reached the Black Hills. Wall Drug was stupid and a tourist trap that makes no sense to me. In all truth, I didn’t even stop. I know myself enough to understand that crowds and crap don’t attract me, but if that is how the town gets by? Go with God. You will get no complaints from me. Just don’t ask me to visit.

As it turns out there are five wineries in the Hills and two along my route. Stone Faces Winery, which had only been opened for a couple of months and the winery that I was originally heading for in the region, Prairie Berry. Stone Faces was so new that it had no offical signage. Not that this stops me.

I pulled into the new winery and walked in. The room was largely taken up by the large tasting bar, currently empty. But it was a Tuesday. It seems unlikely that this early in the summer that there would be a full room and during the Sturgis Rally? Well, forget about it. The place was probably packed. The winery is owned by the Nygaard Family of Valiant Winery, South Dakota’s first. In fact, Eldon Nygaard wrote South Dakota’s Farm Winery Act.

Having the winery pretty much to myself, I looked over the list and decided to try four options (my limit when I am on the road)

First up was the up was the Dakota’s Best Chardonnay. This wine had a light oaky flavor, but was generally too bland for me. I find that small wineries often have a harder time producing a full bodied dry white and this was true at Stone Faces. More impressive was the Canyon Lake White. This wine is semi-sweet and more like a Gewurztraminer though it is a predominantly Seyval blend. Still, a nice choice for spicy food or fresh caught Walleye or Catfish as is recommended by the winery.

Next up was the Sturgis Merlot. This wine had the proper body and juice but fell a bit flat at the end for me as there a smokiness that I wasn’t expecting.

The final wine that I tried was also related to Sturgis. The Full Throttle Wine is the Black Hills answer to Port. It is a fortified wine made exclusively for the Full Throttle Saloon. This was the best wine I had at the winery. I brought home a bottle for my Dad which we shared later.

So, yes. There is wine in the Hills. So get out there and start prospecting.

Stone Faces Winery
12670 Robins Roost Road
Hill City, South Dakota, 57745
Phone:605-574-3600
Fax:605-574-9555
Email: wine@stonefaceswinery.com

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Gretchen Neuman
VinoVerve Editor

Do you remember the Superfriends? The ones that hung out in the Hall of Justice? Well, in my world, me and mine hang out in the Hall of Fermentation.

This particular fermentation hall is at Wollersheim Winery as I continue my tour.

Enjoy!

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Gretchen Neuman
VinoVerve Editor

Boy, that sounds ominous, doesn’t it? Never fear, I am not hanging out with mobsters or any nationality… I am drinking wine from Don Sebastiani & Sons. This winery, an independent offshot of the Sebastiani Vineyards and Winery is terroir driven. The wine was poured by Greg Kitchen, the winemaker and Jack Meyer from their marketing department.

The wine poured was from their Crusher line of wines which are grower’s selections. We tasted the 2008 Petite Sirah from Clarksburg.

Don Sebastiani & Sons
P.O. Box 1248
Sonoma, CA 95476
(707) 933-1704

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