hobo

By Gretchen Neuman
VinoVerve Editor

A pretty light golden color… A pleasant acidic, fruity taste. Perfect for dinner.. even when we were having Kevin’s gigantic home made meatloaf!

I picked this wine up from Trader Joe’s before Thanksgiving. Yes, Maggie, I can keep wine in my house that long, but maybe not much longer… And like all the wine that I get at Trader Joe’s, it cost under $6.00. Why? Because that is how I roll, and we are in hobo mode right now…

I did discover that the wine was made by Bronco Wines, which is the creator of Charles Shaw (2 buck chuck) and many of the other wines sold at Trader Joe’s. The guy behind Bronco wines is Fred Franzia who along with his brother and cousin control 35,000 square acres in the California’s Central Valley. If the name Franzia seems familiar, it is because he is related to Ernest Gallo through his wife Amelia Franzia Gallo. When the Franzia Winery was sold to Coca Cola in 1973, Fred worked to start Bronco. Bronco’s marketing philosophy is to offer lower cost wines to introduce new wine drinkers to the market.

I wouldn’t exactly call myself a “new” wine drinker but a decent, inexpensive bottle of wine is right up my alley. So enjoy Black Mountain Vineyard Pinot Grigio.

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Yeah, I know that I made a bunch of them… but they are all beautiful to me..

For all the times that I have taken a photo of a wine label and posted it here to VinoVerve, I never anticipated how it would feel to do it to my own wine…

And I am pleased to report, that the “product” actually tastes like wine. Really YOUNG wine, but wine, nonetheless… So over all I think this has been successful.

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By Gretchen Neuman
VinoVerve Editor

That is hobo talk for shut up, but since I am the only person speaking (metaphorically speaking) and am unlikely to quiet down for the foreseeable future, I guess the hobos will have to deal with it.

I am winding down my tale of the making of the Rebel Gold. There isn’t much left to do. But at least one of those tasks is darn important. And that is inserting the cork.

Like everything else in my house, this process was not without its ups and downs. See, Kevin and I bought the “cheap” corker. How cheap you say? Well, it is hobo wine… so it was free. Two free pieces of red plastic that allegedly inserts the cork into the bottle.

Seems simple enough, right? Well sure. Except at this point, neither Kevin, nor I can find the instructions for the wine kit… I think they wandered off… So now? We are winging it. No problem, Kevin and I are both highly educated people. This should be a breeze. So we insert the cork into the red-thingy, set it over the bottle and push. Nothing. Ooops. Kevin suggests that we soak the cork.

I discounted this, as cork is used due to its ability to RESIST water. Oh, silly, silly me…

It turns out that while I am correct.. BUT, according to my friend Matt, who initially found the answer for me, and Wikipedia, cork needs to be heated and moisturized in order for it to being transformed from hard and dry to moist and elastic. And elastic is what I needed the cork to be to jam the cork (which seemed slightly oversized for the bottle) into said bottle.

So I threw on a pot of water to boil and then when it got going really good, threw in some corks (15 or so) turned off the heat and put on the lid. Five minutes later, I put a damp, warm cork into the red-thingy placed it over the bottle gave a push.. and whoosh! The cork magically slid into the bottle.

It turned out to be so easy even Imelda, my 12 year old gave it a try.

So there you go… the hard part of the wine making is done. Unless the labels I bought for the bottles turn out to be a nightmare…

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Gretchen Neuman
VinoVerve Editor

Yes, I know that title is some strange cross between I Dream of Jeannie and Dirty Dancing. It is hard out here for a hobo. Or at least that is what Kevin and I keep telling Aunt Maggie and whoever else out there is reading about our foray into home winemaking. Maybe someday I will have the revenuers knocking at my door. But they will never take me alive, I tell you! Yee Ha! or what ever it is that hobos say when they are bottling their wine.

Can you believe that I haven’t even had any of it today? Well tough. I didn’t.

What I did have was our clean sterile bottles and corks… we had the clean sterile tubing and the wine siphon. Oh. And we had three empty bags from boxes of Angel Juice Pinot Grigio. Yes, in true hobo form, we are bottling our wine in bags… I learned how to do it here at Instructables (contrary to their opinion not ALL bags from boxed wine are suitable for re-use. Yes, there was some experimentation involved. And you people don’t think that we suffer for our art!).

The hope is that we can serve it from a carafe like semi-civilized people… Or, if the evening is late enough we can dribble the remnants of the bag into our mouths from the spigot.

This process was pretty simple once we figured out how to clamp the spigots back onto the bags… and got Kevin to watch what he was doing as he was filling the bottles… Let’s just say that there was some spillage involved.

Next up? Corking. Easy enough for a 12 year old to accomplish…

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Gretchen Neuman
VinoVerve Editor

Yup… we are one more step along the path for the Rebel Girl Gold! I decided that because I am planning on adding a stabilizer, I figured that I needed to move the wine from the carboy into the bottling bucket.

That way I can mix in the Potassium Metabisulfite without stirring up the gunk settled at the bottom of the carboy… because that would be NASTY.

So, stay tuned! Watch the bottling coming up soon.

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Another day? Another task with the Rebel Girl.

Today?

Stabilizing and clarifying. I mixed in the stabilizing chemicals.. and then the isinglass mixture. I am not quite sure, but I think that makes me feel about a surrey with a fringe on top!

I thought isinglass was a type of mica that was used as windows, but obviously I must be confused.

Ooops. no I am not! At least not entirely! Isinglass can refer to gelatin made from the bladders of fish like sturgeon.

Well! Slap my ass and call me Sally! I am entirely shocked to learn that I wasn’t completely confused. And apparently Mrs. Swanson, my elementary school music teacher didn’t screw me over in the knowledge department!

So apparently, my Rebel Girl is not a vegan wine. I am surprised that my wine wasn’t vegan, but then I have never made any before and I was aware that egg shells and egg whites were used for clarification. I have used those items when clarifying soup stock.

But wine? Well it seemed quintessentially vegetarian.. indeed, vegan! No way, it appears!

Ah, just another way that my Rebel Girl takes me by surprise.

As it should.

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Not a lot of bubbling action here… but the stuff is beginning to clarify itself… although I will have some more clarification to do on Sunday! In the meantime, I think it is looking clearer…

I took one picture earlier this week and got this:

Then today, I notice three different distinct levels within the carboy!

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Seems like it would be simple but really, I can complicate any matter if I start thinking to much. And because this wasn’t just wine for me, but for an internetz project, I felt that my hobo wine should have a name.

I even threw a couple of names out there with the hopes that the 10 of you that read this might comment one way or another or make another suggestions. This did not happen. So, I decided to jump in with both feet. Didn’t even consult Kevin. And named the wine Rebel Girl. Yeah. it has girl in the name, but I couldn’t find any history of great hobo couples… so Kevin will just have to deal.

So now, I unveil for you the label for Rebel Girl Gold!

(ooops… why does that label look blue here and not gold? Oh the problems with Photoshop continue!)

Yeah! I fixed it!

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Has it been 10 days already? Wow! How time flies when you are fermenting in a bucket. At least we think we had been fermenting. How to check? Well, we floated the hydrometer into the now opened bucket and checked the level. According to the directions it was supposed to read 1.o or less… and so it was.

Now of course we must ferment the Hobo Wine secondarily. And to do this we needed to transfer it to the carboy. This was easy enough to accomplish except that we needed to hoist the primary fermenter up onto the breakfast bar on a stack of books in order to get both containers to the correct height.

After this, the process was simple just turning on the spigot and draining the cloudy wine(ish) into the carboy.

Easy Peasy, right? Ok… we closed the carboy with the bung and the airlock and then voila! Kevin hauled it over to the corner where an additional 10 days of fermenting will take place.

FUN!

In the meantime, I am looking for an appropriate name for my creation.

Something hobo-y but with an edge.

I am considering naming it after Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, who was called Rebel Girl by the hobos as she tried to get them to become itinerent members of the Industrial Workers of the World and was also a founding member of the ACLU. The name Rebel Girl came to her from a song written by Joe Hill, noted Wobbly and hobo songwriter. She died while touring the Soviet Union and was awarded a state funeral by the Soviet government but afterward, as she had requested, she was interred in Waldheim Cemetery in Chicago beside the Haymarket Martyrs.

The other option is after Alice Mabel Gray. She was a recluse who lived in an abandoned shack in the Indiana Dunes. She was graduate of the University of Chicago with a degree in mathematics (which has destroyed many a sane mind through the years) and went to work at the U.S. Naval Observatory. In 1915, inspired sby Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage by George Gordon, Lord Byron, she left civilization to seek the seclusion of the dunes and to live off the land. Known to the locals as “Diana of the Dunes” she can still be seen on moonlight nights skinny dipping in Lake Michigan.

Feel free to let me know what you think… or if you have any other suggestions! In the meantime, I wait.

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