Gretchen Neuman

VinoVerve Editor

Well it is Spring here in the Neuman household (at least that is what they keep telling us) and I have exhausted my supply of the most local wine source available to me, The Rebel Girl Chardonnay.   So naturally it is time to think about what wine I will be drinking in the summer.  I am a sucker for a dry rose in the heat of the summer so that seemed my best bet.  The kit that I found said Spanish Rose with Tempranillo.  This seems all around a good choice to me.  And so it begins!

The juice mix came in two separate packets.  The first was quite rose looking already and what kind of blend it was was not clear.  The second, smaller container, was red wine, clearly the tempranillo. 

Previously, I had stated that second born, Sophie would be responsible for naming this wine.  However as time ticks away, I may resort to Rose Ole!

I hope that the color of the wine resembles a sunset in Cabo San Lucas.  Cross your fingers!

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Marguerite Barrett
Contributing Writer

Well, not completely unexpected; I had threatened bodily harm to Gretchen if I wasn’t gifted with a bottle of the fruits of her first foray into home winemaking. But I was still surprised…

I came home from a really long day at work about 10 days ago to discover a large box on my front porch. I didn’t remember ordering anything, and couldn’t imagine why anyone would be sending me something in mid-February – so you can guess my delight when I saw the return label said “Gretchen Neuman.” I knew – just knew – it was a bottle of the first Neuman vintage – Rebel Girl.

But actually it was even better – it was TWO bottles of Rebel Girl and a very large bottle of Cider of Eden – along with several jars of lovely home-made sauces and jams. Yum!

A few days later, I opened my first bottle of Rebel Girl. A pale yellow, almost straw color, it has a very delicate nose. There are notes of citrus, but they are very subtle. The wine is delicate, light,and has notes of grapefruit; all in all it’s a very nice sipping wine.

No oak – not surprising given Gretchen’s preference for low-oak whites. I later learned that “to oak or not to oak” was a matter of great debate in the wine-making process. Gretchen ultimately won that argument, and I think it was a wise choice. This wine is a bit too light to handle much oak, which would very likely have overpowered the wine.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I wasn’t expecting much – I’ve tried other home-made wines – but was very pleasantly surprised. It’s a charming wine.

So, I have a second bottle in the wine rack for another day – as well as the Cider to look forward to. Christmas will extend well into the spring!

And I understand there are two new wines in the offing… Congrats, Gretchen!

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I may not be able to drink the wine for the next 5 weeks but that doesn’t mean that I can’t think about it constantly, right?

That being said, I have gone ahead and purchased supplies to vint (is that even a word?) some more wine.

I have purchased two additional kits from The Home Brewery in Ozark, Missouri. The first is a Spanish Rose. Yes, I am making pink wine. You have an issue with that? You can take it up with someone else. This is a blend of Tempranillo and some sort of white. I love French Roses from Provence and had some amazing roses at the ENYE wine tasting last week, which I will be writing about in the near future. So this is a perfect choice for me. Sophie will be naming this wine. Or it will be named Sophie Bear in her honor.

The second wine I will be making will be Chilean Carmenere. I have had this type of wine before and loved the story of a wine called, Ooops! Carmenere is the lost Grape of Bordeaux. It turns out that in Chile the grapes that were traditionally viewed as Merlot were really Carmenere… or essentially.. a Bordeaux grape that all but disappeared after phylloxera ravaged France. Anywho! The point is that is wine number two that I will be making. And it will be named by Celia. She is, naturally, thrilled to tears at the honor that I am bestowing on her.

Now I just need the materials to arrive.

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By Gretchen NeumanVinoVerve EditorA 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. Save This Page

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Congratulations, Gretchen!  Save This Page

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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. Save This Page

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By Gretchen NeumanVinoVerve EditorThat 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… Save This Page

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Gretchen NeumanVinoVerve EditorYes, 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… Save This Page

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Gretchen NeumanVinoVerve EditorYup… 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. Save This Page

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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. Save This Page

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