Bottling Up Success: The Ingenuity behind Wisconsin Wine
Abby Wucherer

Bill and LaVerne Vetrano’s first venture into cranberry wine left them picking stray pieces of fruit from their hair and off the walls. The hard, dry little fruits resisted efforts to crush them using a traditional grape press and de-stemmer, instead ricocheting out of the machine in all directions, like freshly popped popcorn.

After some trial and error, Bill Vetrano said he realized the only way to get the cranberries to behave was to freeze them.

“You got to freeze them first and then it gets a little mushier, a little easier to deal with,” he explained.

Winemaking in Wisconsin requires a certain kind of ingenuity and the drive to explore beyond traditional grape wines like those produced in states where the growing conditions are more favorable to the age-old art. In America’s dairyland, the products are sweeter, the hunt for local fruit more elusive and the process more reliant on the creativity of the winemaker.

Fruit wines set Wisconsin’s wine market slightly apart from the rest of the country. The Vetranos have developed 15 different recipes, many of them fruit wines made from Wisconsin ingredients. With strawberries from Hubbleton, cherries from Fort Atkinson, cranberries from Warren and blackberries from Black River Falls, Vetrano has found a way to bottle many of Wisconsin’s most distinctive flavors. LaVerne Vetrano also observed the current trend in the California wine market that combines grapes, blending them to create new and different flavors. At Vetro Winery, the Vetranos only brew single fruit wine, with the exception of their award-winning Sprit Hill, a combination of cranberries and strawberries blended with grapes.

“I think that’s a huge difference,” Bill Vetrano said. “It’s strange, and a lot of people will come in and we’ll give them a little taste of strawberry and they’ll say, ‘Wow! You can taste strawberries.’ And I’ll say, ‘Yeah, I thought that was the point.’”

Despite their many other fruit wines, the Vetranos also make grape wines, often with grapes literally grown in their backyard. The tiny vineyard isn’t easy to maintain, though. When Bill Vetrano planted an acre and a half of his land with Concord and Niagara grapes four years ago, he said he didn’t realize how much time and energy he would have to spend maintaining the fragile vines.

“I thought it would be like planting corn,” Vetrano said. “You know, you plant it and harvest it in the fall. It’s a lot more difficult. There’s pruning and tying, spraying, all that. It’s just constant.”

In addition to needing continual attention, the vines are also in danger from local predators: the deer that prowl the fields and woodlands near the Vetrano's home. Ignoring the grapes themselves, Vetrano said that they go straight for the tender young plants, “chomping them down to nothing.”

“I had to tell the neighbors, quit looking for the deer with the big horns, just shoot them all,” he joked. “They’ve been leaving [the grape plants] alone now the last couple of years.”

The Vetranos harvest their grapes once a year, usually during the second or third week in September. About 180 of the original 200 plants remain, and once each plant produces at full potential, LaVerne Vetrano estimated that the acre and a half will produce five tons of grapes or 20 to 25 pounds per plant.

Certain grapes simply can’t be found in the state. Vetrano orders his merlot, chardonnay and zinfandel from California. Kyle Gomon, owner and winemaker of Mason Creek Winery in Pewaukee, imports most of his grapes from California and New York. Even so, Gomon has begun to forge relationships with local wineries. He said he has teamed up with two local vineyards to make ice wine, a sweet dessert wine made from grapes frozen on the vine, and port, another sweet dessert wine with origins in Portugal.

Those sweet wines come in demand. Gomon said that when he opened his winery in 2000, he carried more dry wines but has since begun to make more sweet wine. Among the most popular wines that Gomon brews are Gomon’s Gold, a semi-dry white wine, and Cranberry Wine, a sweet red with a tart finish.

“Most people don’t like the real earthy wines that come in,” Gomon said.

Bill Vetrano added, “I’ve noticed in California they always say, all they make is fruit wine out in Wisconsin. But that’s what people seem to like. People seem to like it sweeter, too, whereas out in California, it’s drier.”

A wine’s flavor is a complex combination of scent, acidity, sweetness and bitters. Over 1,500 different kinds of grapes can be used in winemaking, Gomon said. In addition, hundreds of different yeasts are used to ferment those grapes, or other fruits, into wine. Consequently, creating a new wine involves limitless choices.

Gomon researches the characteristics of the yeasts he considers based on what he wants the final flavor to be. Some yeasts bring out the wine’s fruity undertones, while others create a drier spiciness. Different yeasts are also more or less aggressive. They ferment at different rates and different temperatures. Because the fermenting yeast turn the fruit’s natural sugars into alcohol, the final alcohol content also depends on the yeast and how long it was allowed to ferment.

“With a sweeter wine there’s less alcohol than in a dry wine because the fermentation doesn’t go all the way through,” he said.

As a new wine develops, Gomon measures the levels of the acids and sugars that occur naturally in fruits. He has instruments that measure the levels for him, but he also relies on his own taste.

“Probably about 50 percent of it is taste,” he said.

Although sweet flavors can be more obvious, acidity also plays an important part in creating a balance to the wine’s overall taste.

“It’s this feeling you get on the back of your tongue, that’s the acidity,” Gomon said. “If there’s not enough acidity, that can be bad, too, because the wine will have a sticky sweet feeling when you're done tasting it.”

Gomon’s only blended grape wine, an original recipe made from merlot, cabernet and zinfandel called “'47 pickup," has a biting sharpness to its finish.

“The acidity … is higher than I would like it to be and hence it has more of a sharpness to it,” he said. “I’m going to try to get some grapes from a different location this year.”

Gomon's ’47 Pickup also demonstrates an experiment in blending flavors.

“I wanted a dry that wasn’t real bitey or earthy and was kind of soft,” Gomon said. “So I used more merlot to kind of bring out the fruit, and then I like a little spiciness in the wine too, so I added a little zinfandel in there. Zinfandel is kind of peppery.”

Taste, however, varies for each drinker. While some flavors are unmistakable to the knowledgeable palate, different wines can suggest different flavors depending on the person.

“It’s really based on what you’re used to eating as a child growing up and so you’ll taste different things,” Gomon said.

Other outside factors can affect the flavor of a wine as well. For example, Bill Vetrano recommends finishing a wine a week, at most, after it has been opened. As soon as the bottle is opened, an oxidation process begins that changes the aroma and flavor of the wine.

“We learned the hard way, pouring for people,” he said. “They’d be making funny faces … so then I tried and oh, OK, no wonder. Since then we’ve put dates on there so that we know exactly when to stop putting it out for testing.”

“The smells are different [after the wine oxidizes],” LaVerne Vetrano said. “I don’t even have to drink our wine; all I have to do is pour it all day.”

That oxidation process explains why people often drink red wines from larger bowled glasses. Because the flavors of a dry wine are subtler, allowing the wine to splash into a larger glass aerates it and unlocks hints of varied tastes. The larger glass also allows the drinker to smell the wine, and as 85 percent of taste is in the sense of smell, that enhances the experience.

Wine is nothing if not an experience. Bill Vetrano’s first encounters with wine came at weekly Sunday spaghetti dinners throughout his childhood. His grandfather, Michael Vetrano, and father, Joseph Vetrano, both made wine for friends and family, sharing it at holidays and family gatherings. As an adult, he continued the family tradition, making wine as a hobby, never dreaming it would become something more. All that changed when the monsignor at the Vetranos’ church convinced them they had something special.

“We always gave him wine at our church,” LaVerne Vetrano said. “He said, bring it to the turkey dinner, you know, the annual turkey dinner. And people were buying it that we didn’t know. He said, ‘OK, now what are you guys going to plan on doing? Why don’t you venture out and go into business?’”

Vetro Winery has been open for five years, a testament to the Vetrano's love of wine and sharing it with others. Opening their store took time, LaVerne Vetrano said, because government permits take nine to ten months to process. They’ve purchased bigger equipment as well—vertical fermenting tanks direct from Italy. Bill Vetrano still works full time at Quad/Graphics while LaVerne Vetrano mans the store. Even though the winery is becoming successful, the Vetranos maintain the love of wine and community in which their wine is rooted. When a new recipe needs to be tested or a bottle of tasting wine finished off, it goes to the neighbors.

Gomon followed a similar route. He made wine in his home for eight years before best in show awards at amateur competitions made him consider selling it to the public.

“I convinced my wife I wasn’t half crazy for wanting to do this for a living,” he said.

Gomon, whose has a background in engineering, was drawn to winemaking while working full time as a teacher. A co-worker’s beer-making hobby appealed to him, so he decided to try his hand at wine.

“I got a winemaking kit and just kind of fell in love with the whole process,” he said.

Mason Creek Winery, which began in the Gomon's sunroom in 2000, quickly sold every bottle it had to restaurants and area grocery stores. With increased demand, the business moved out of the couple’s home and into a location in the town of Delafield. In May 2006, the Gomons relocated yet again to Lyndale Farms, a small group of shops in Pewaukee. The winery now produces about 30,000 bottles of wine annually.

Despite its challenges, the Wisconsin wine market is far from cutthroat. Bill Vetrano said many times wineries from different parts of the state will recommend Vetro Winery to groups of travelers, and he and his wife will do the same.

“That’s what’s nice about Wisconsin winery people,” he said. “We’re not in competition.”

“Everybody has their own individual way and tastes,” LaVerne Vetrano agreed.

That variety is what distinguishes Wisconsin from California and other wine centers. The flavors, sweeter and diverse, represent a different philosophy: one based in ingenuity and elbow grease. The struggles that small Midwestern wineries undergo in order to practice and perfect their art create a distinct flavor.

“Good wine is a wine you enjoy,” Gomon said. “Some people take wine a little too seriously. It’s just meant to be enjoyed, and it’s a drink to share with your family and friends.”