Bottling

On St Patrick’s Day, March 17, 2007, we bottled our first wines – the 2006 Riesling. The wine analysis for relevant physical qualities was perfect and the individual barrels were tasting just great. Besides, we needed about 3 weeks in the bottle to get past bottle shock in order to be ready for the Wine and Farm Festival on April 28. Chris Hamilton loaned us his bottle filler (reverse milking machine Bob Westlake christened it) and with the help of Kathryn and Nathan we bottled 70 cases. Actually we ran out of bottles and will need to finish the rest later, not to mention the remaining bulk wine will give me an excuse to try sparking some Riesling. It turns out to be a very repetitious task, made easier by loud music and the company of friends and family. It is also fairly backbreaking and I was stiff for more than a week. But for the lack of a pile of cash I would buy a bottling line – hook up the wine, stick the bottles in on one end and out pop labeled, filled, corked bottles on the other.