THE LAKE GAZETTE - Wednesday, June 5, 2019 9

Community
History
Newmarket; Known for famous wines.
“A beautiful home site for famous homemade Rhubarb and Norton Grape wines with
a dinner of schweinhaxen and sauerkraut: Newmarket, Marion County, Missouri”
Taking a step back together in history, let’s splice and explore the com- en vats. The hill was too far to go
around, equaling a mile and a half
mercial wine making enterprise within NewMarket. The hillsides and areas
and too steep for horses or wheel-
surrounding NewMarket were known to have approximately 50 small indi-
barrows to climb.
vidual vineyards, along with five to ten rhubarb plots.
Eberle became famous for his
During the mid to late 1800’s, NewMarket was known for its famous tast-
special rhubarb wine. No one
ing wines. There was a distillery and wine vats located in the area where made
seems to recall a lot about his
peach brandy and whiskey were made. The wine vats produced blackberry,
grape wines, but when you said
elderberry and rhubarb wines. Outside vineyards grew grapes for fresh fruit
rhubarb that could only mean it
and homemade wines. The excess grapes were sold to the distillery.
was Eberle’s. The rhubarb wine
In a town which has disappeared, there has not been any information found
was made in large oak barrels in
on how these grapes and fruits were made into wine. Therefore, it leads to
the basement of Eberle’s home.
falling back on memories of how homemade wine was made dating back to
Eberle lived in a home located
the Civil War era.
on the south side of the road, just
Porter Moss’s great grandfather Sickles was with Colonel Porter CSA in
south of the Olson house and south Land Plots recorded in an early
NewMarket and met the local families, mostly of German decent, who were
of block number 10. The home was Marion Co. Atlas.
making wines and cooking pork dinners. After the war was over, Grandfather
one log room and one room of clap
Sickles taught all his kids to make wine and to cook pork dinners.
boards on the east. Inside, Eberle had a trap door with ropes used similar like
Going back a few years, approximately 50 years to be exact, a person could
a dumbwaiter elevator. The ropes pulled up a wooden platform with bottles of
still find old original home settlement sites where the log cabins have rotted
wine for his customers to select their bottle or jug of rhubarb wine.
down. A walk through the woods today shows evidence of old grape vines and
Eberle had a wooden trough built from large oak trees, which stretched
rhubarb patches, surrounded by brush and home to a lot of snakes. The older
from the top of the hill’s vineyard to the bottom of the steep hill equaling ap-
grape vines are now referred to as wild grapes. These grapes from the New-
proximately 100 feet. The trough built 3-4 inches thick and in 10-12 feet sec-
Market era, used for eating and homemade wine, are known as the Catawba,
tions, which were nailed and connected together equaling 100 feet in length.
Concord and the best overall was the Norton grapes. Blending the grapes was
After the six acres of de-stemmed grapes were loaded into a wheelbarrow,
a practice well known, with the most popular blend being two quarts of Norton
the grapes then, were dumped into the top of the wooden trough. The trough,
grapes and one quart of Concord grapes.
which was a nearly straight slope, allowed the grapes to tumble down to the
A man named, Frederick
bottom filling wooden oak wine vats. The grapes ended their journey in the
Carl Eberle, came to the Unit-
oak wine vats inside the caves.
ed States, from Wurttemberg,
After the grapes were harvested and delivered down the hill, Eberle would start
Germany, in 1850, settling in
his famous process of creating wine. The process started with clear spring water,
NewMarket. Eberle was 21
which was brought in by teams of horses, pulling barrels of the spring water on
years old when he traveled
sleds. Although there is no recorded recipe for Eberle’s famous tasting wines, there
to and arrived in the United
is information of where the wooden wine vats were stored to make the wine. Caves
States alone. He had two
were dug and carved into the hillside where the vats were placed during the wine
wives, the first being Katha-
making process.
rine (Lanz) Eberle from 1822-
Eberle, stood approximately six feet four inches, had a slim build and was a very
1883, and then Rosene Eberle
industrious man. People traveled miles to drink Eberle’s wine, making NewMarket
from 1841-1903. Eberle was
an attraction to travelers. Not only did he make popular wine, but Eberle devel-
in charge of the distillery in
oped and grew some of the largest and most beautiful flowers in NewMarket. He
NewMarket and became fa-
grew very high and large spiked hyacinths, tulips and peonies. His entire home was
mous for his homemade wine.
surrounded by beautiful flowers almost year-round. Eberle’s house was the floral
The grapes were grown
showcase in NewMarket for years. The flowers Eberle grew were sold for others
North of NewMarket, on top
for personal use and for funerals.
of a hill, above the old stage
Eberle lived to be 86 years old, passing away in 1915, and is buried in the New-

Schweinhoxen (Ham Hocks) and Sauerkraut

coach line road. There was a
Market Cemetery, also known as the Mitchell Cemetery. Eberle only had one child,
Frederick Carl Eberle steep hill used to transport the
a daughter named Emma M. Eberle Lear born in 1860, with his first wife.
grapes downhill to the wood-
Today, Eberle leaves the unsolved mystery of how his rhubarb wine was pro-
cessed to be so potent and what he
did to grow such large and beau-
tiful flowers in the little town of

-4-large, (3-4 pounds) meaty fresh ham hocks, leave skin on and score 1 inch with sharp knife 1-cup of Stone Hill Norton Red Wine
NewMarket.

-4 teaspoons of Kosher Sea Salt 1-teaspoon caraway seed

-4 teaspoon of baking soda 1 ½ teaspoon fine grain with sugar
-2 teaspoons of black peppercorns ¼ teaspoon medium ground black pepper
-1 teaspoon of whole allspice 1 teaspoon cumin
-1 teaspoon of cumin
-2 teaspoons of Rosemary In a separate 9”x13”x2 pan add SauerKraut, wash SauerKraut twice before
-1 cup of apple cider vinegar adding to pan, place in oven with hocks for 30 minutes at 325 degrees, brown
-2 baking pans, 9”x13”x2”
Serve:
and turn four times, both pans will fit in a standard oven.

Heat oven to 170 degrees – 200 degrees, spray olive oil into a 9”x13”x2” If cold outside, warm plates. Place one hock in center of each plate sur-
baking pan, place pan of hocks on center shelf and bake for 2 hours with 30 rounded with 6 ounces of hot kraut. Pour yourself a big Northeast Missouri
minutes basting as needed with pan juices, after two hours, take out of oven, farmer water glass of Stone Hill Norton Red Wine, Smile and it doesn’t get any
check internal temperature, need the inside of hock to be 150 degrees, pour half better than this.
cup of apple cider vinegar over the hocks, turn oven up to 225 degrees for one
more hour, check hocks for internal temperature of 170 degrees, take out and
In the mean time, take care, be good and God Bless.
-Porter

Grandma Sickles Homemade Wine Recipe

set to cool

3-16 ounce cans of quality kraut

Porter remembers as a kid growing up, being
inducted into all the aspects of helping his Grand-
ma around the farm. Remember, if deciding to fol-
low this recipe, it has been recorded by memory
only, making no promises of the success of the
final product.
Porter shares the making of two different types
of wine, the first Norton grape wine, blended with
the Concord and the second, rhubarb wine. The
Norton Grape Wine is a semi-dry red table wine
and the Rhubarb Wine is a semi-sweet, white-
blush wine, with a slight after taste bite. Following
-Add stomped/mashed grapes to a 5-gallon pot-
tery crock
-Stir with wooden spoon to blend
-Fill crock with filtered water up to five or six
inches below full
-Cover with clean cheese cloth
**make sure your crock is in a safe, cool, dark
place where it will sit for three months
-The fermentation will cause bubbles and fizz-
ing. Check every few weeks to make sure all is
well. When the fermentation has completely
stopped, dip out of crock and strain through three
Overall, it will take about 5-6 months for the
wine to be ready. On the fifth month, pull a cork
on one bottle, tasting to see if and when the wine
will be ready.
The wine should be very fine homemade wine.
From time to time, Grandma would lose a few bot-
tles, but overall, as time and practical experience
evolved, all without electric or modern items, she
became a wonderful wine maker. Porter’s Grand-
ma was named
Alma Virginia Sick-
les, born in 1882,

Homemade Wine Recipe:

this recipe is recommended to be done outside or layers of cheesecloth into another crock. died at the age of 97.
in a place a mess would be welcomed. -Then locate and sterilize bottles. With a dipper She was pure Dutch,
and funnel fill each bottle to 1 inch below top. Dutch and Dutch.

-7 pounds Norton Grapes

-Next, try to find and seal, using corks only.

-3 pounds Concord Grapes

Grandma always used small popcorn cobs, as this

-7 pounds sugar
was all she had.

-2 gallons extra clear/clean water

-Set the bottles in racks
-If making rhubarb wine, use the same recipe
above except do not blend, all 10 pounds will go in
-Wash and clean grapes with clean clear filtered the crock, using only large ripe red/pink stalks and
water cut into ¼ to ½ disks.
-Mix sugar with enough water to dissolve the -After the wine has been bottled and sealed, it
sugar will now need to set another three months