2018 Bottling

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Published: Monday, 12 August 2019 10:31

Written by David DeCiero

As I got ready for the new grapes to arrive, I decided to bottle the 2018 Cabernet Franc and Merlot. Since I had a bit more Merlot than CF, I decided to do a 50/50 blend for the majority of it and then just bottle the remainder of the Merlot by itself. I got out my Enolmatic, sanitized it and was on my way. I’ve become pretty efficient at bottling. The night before, I sanitize all of the bottles I need with One Step and put them on the bottle tree to drain. The next day, I have the Enolmatic set up so that it takes the same amount of time to fill a bottle that it takes me to turn around, cork it, put it in the case and drop another cork in the corker. I then just grab another bottle and the previous bottle is almost full. Doing it this way allows me to do it by myself and 75 bottles only takes about 1 hour. The biggest issue (as with all winemaking) is the cleanup.  After everything is done, I rinse out all the carboys and then sanitize with One Step.  I do the same for all the hoses and the Enolmatic. I ended up with 85 bottles of wine. I waited a couple days to put the labels on. I do this so I can immediately place them in the racks once done. I have never had a problem with leaking corks (at least not more than the occasional one), so I always let them be upright for a couple days before going horizontal.