YAY! Bottling is almost over for the fall and Chris couldn't be more excited! (Clearly!)
The boys have spent several grueling days on the bottling line. They have been gluing boxes, stacking boxes, emptying boxes, refilling the same boxes...Let's just say they are probably sick of boxes, as well as bottles by now.
If any one has been to visit us this week, you probably noticed the big white semi truck in our parking lot (See above). Bacchanalia Bottling backed their truck up to the winery Wednesday and has been stuck with us ever since.
The Basics of Bottling are:
1. Open case of empty bottles and dump on the bottling line.
2. Conveyor of bottling line pushes bottles down the line into single-file fashion.
3. Bottles are then flipped, turned, pushed and prodded! Poor bottles! (See below)
4. Bottles are then filled, corked, capped and labeled.
5. Finally, the bottles are placed BACK into boxes, which get glued shut.
6. Then we get to drink them! Hooray!
This doesn't seem SO bad until you have to do it a million times like the boys have done the last few days and will have to do again next week, as well (Shh! Don't remind them.) This go-round we bottled a MILLION cases, according to Tyler (It was really only 1700).
Thanks to all our volunteers, staff, Bacchanalia Bottling and Cellar Rat Wine Tours for your hard work these past few days. They bottled some 500 Block Merlot, Syrah Rosé, Hunter and Trebbianno Toscano. Keep a lookout for these to be released in the near future.
Also, keep a lookout for our next blog post, coming to a computer near you next week!