2012 Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon Bottling
- Details
- Published: Sunday, 01 September 2013 12:00
- Written by David DeCiero
I just bottled my 2012 Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon. The grapes were a bit underripe (had to add some sugar to get to 23 Brix) and has turned me off of getting fresh grapes from Chile. I got them from M&M down in Hartford, CT. It seems to taste OK, but after 1.5 years of bulk aging, it is time to bottle.
As soon as I had the idea to bottle this wine, I had to check if I had all of the requisite equipment. I had plenty of bottles and I thought I had plenty of corks, but apparently I only had 20 left from last year. So, I had to make a trip to the local supplier to pick up some DIAM II corks since I had such bad luck with the natural overruns. After returning, I got ready to bottle. The first step is to make the One Step sanitizer as it takes about 20 minutes to dissolve. I prefer One Step as it doesn’t have that acrid odor of SO2 and it has never given me a problem. I then rinsed all of the bottles that I will need with the One Step and let them drain overnight. This allows almost all of the One Step to either drip out or dry out. The next day, I set up the Enolmatic (after making some new One Step). This process equates to simply tightening the clamp on the table where I want it. I then ran some One Step through it, filling a couple practice bottles. I then rinsed everything with water. Now, it was time to bottle. I just turned on the Enolmatic, put the tube in the carboy, and put the bottle in place. As the bottle filled, I put a cork in the corker. Once empty, I pulled out the old bottle, put a new one in and corked the filled bottle. I deliberately have the Enolmatic on a slow fill speed as it keeps bubbles down and allows me time to cork the filled bottle and put it away. After repeating this process 50 times, I was done bottling the 2012 Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon. Cleanup is fairly easy with the Enolmatic, but the carboys are always a pain. I ran through a few bottles of One Step to clean out all the lines and rinsed and dried everything on the machine. The carboys are just heavier and require a little bit of elbow grease. I rinsed them out with water to get most of the remaining wine out, then added One Step, swished them around, and dumped it out. I then rinsed and added One Step again just to make sure. I then put them upside down so they can drain. All in all, 50 bottles takes me about 45 minutes to fill by myself and the cleanup takes an additional 1 hour. Not too bad, and I owe it all to the Enolmatic.