Winemaker Update 2017 #3

It’s that time of year when the bottling season is upon us.

We have completed bottling all of our 2016 white wines, and are now bottling the 2015 red wines. Seen here, we are currently bottling our 2015 Petit Verdot.

Step 1:

The bottles are first sparged with nitrogen on a sparging wheel. This serves two purposes – to displace any packaging cardboard dust, as well as to remove oxygen from the bottle.

Step 2:

Then the wine flows into the bottle from the upstairs tank via the 16-spout filler seen here.

Step 3:

The bottle then continues on the conveyor belt to the corker. The corker pulls a vacuum in the headspace of the bottle to displace the air, allowing the cork to enter the neck of the bottle without pressure.

Step 4:

As it enters the foiler, a foil is placed on the bottle and crimped tightly to the neck of the bottle.

Step 5:

The bottle then continues on to the labeler, where both a front and back pressure-sensitive label is applied.

Step 6:

Finally, each bottle will be checked for fill level height, any glass, label or foil imperfections, and then placed in a 12-bottle case box.

We bottle approximately 1,000 – 1,200 cases per day, or 12,000 – 14,400 bottles depending on the bottle shape, and stack the cases on a pallet of 56 cases per pallet. The wine then gets delivered to our cellar where it will age until the release date. At which point, it may find its way to your very own glass…