Here Are Some Basic Steps To Get You Started On How To Brew Your Own Wine

Step 1- PLAN and PREPARE. Plan on where you want your setup to be (Possibly your Kitchen, or a corner in your basement, or garage). Then prepare with what you are going to need, that way you don’t end up missing something in the middle of your project.

Step 2- What are you going to need? Things like corks, bottles, corker, siphon tubing, chemicals, primary and secondary fermentation vessels (milk jugs or a sanitized food grade storage container).

Step 3- Yeast. Over time wine makers have designed different strains and varieties of yeast. They are designed to extract exactly what we want from the fruit juices you are going to use. You can use regular bakers yeast and it works but not as well.

Step 4- Juices. If you are going to buy fruit juices at the store you need to read the label to make sure there are NO PRESERVATIVES! Preservatives are specifically there for kill off the yeast in the product.

Step 5- The Mixture. Your fruit juice must have a high enough sugar content so that the yest can feed off of it. Yeast eating sugar creates fermentation. If the juice doesn’t have a high enough sugar content, heat some water on your stove, dissolve in some sugar, then poor in fruit juice. The mixture should be sweet but not to overpowering. Now if there is to much sugar, add in some water and give it a good stir.

Ad 1 crushed campden tablet per gallon of your mixture. Put a paper towel over the gallon with a rubber band. You want air to get in and out but not little bugs that may be flying around it.

Let the Mixture sit over night. Within 24 hours fermentation will start to occur.

It may be hard to believe but this is our first bargain wine from South Africa, one very major wine country. The Nederburg winery was founded in 1791 near Paarl not far from the Cape of Good Hope. This wine is part of their series, the Winemaker’s Reserve. This wine is marketed by Stellenbosch Farmers Winery which is not your little farmer’s winery. Stellenbosch markets about one third of all South African wines with a value of over one third of a billion dollars. I don’t think that I have to tell you about the Cabernet Sauvignon grape, one popular red grape in Bordeaux France, California, and many other locales as well. Let’s see if we can get a bargain. It seems like a fairly long time.

OUR WINE REVIEW POLICY All wines that we taste and review are purchased at the full retail price.

Wine Reviewed Nederburg Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 12.5 % alcohol about $ 9

Let’s start with the marketing materials. Tasting Note: Medium – deep red/purple; aromas of game, sweet cherry, cassis, earth, liquorice and cedar tones; dry, medium-full bodied, red currant and spice flavors with soft tannins to finish. Serving Suggestion: Grilled or roasted meats, white meats, pizza or pasta or old cheese. And now for my review.

I started by sipping this wine alone. It was oaky with tobacco, long, and presented round tannins. But seemed a bit too acidic. The first meal included a commercially barbecued chicken and potato salad. The Cab displayed plummy and earthy notes. It was more forceful with the chicken than it was with the potato salad.

The second meal centered around slow-cooked beef ribs with potatoes accompanied by a lime and garlic tomato salsa. The wine was powerful, mouth filling, and long. I got tobacco and dark fruit. This Cab was chewy. With the somewhat spicy salsa the wine became peppery and didn’t lose its force.

The final meal consisted of a packaged baked Ziti Siciliano with eggplant covered with grated Parmesan cheese. There was a fine balance of acidity, tannins, and fruit with a faint bit of tobacco.

I finished the tasting with two cheeses. The first cheese was a Yellow Cheddar. This wine was round, oaky, and it displayed good fruit. The second pairing was with a Swiss (Emmenthal). Things worked out about the same but the wine was more acidic.

Final verdict. I would definitely buy this wine again. This really struck me as somewhat of a bargain. If you’re a big fan of Cabernet Sauvignon, you might take it up a notch with Nederburg’s Manor House line. I prefer staying in their bargain price range but trying another grape.