Today was a bottling day in Vinoland. In an effort to tie up some odds and ends before our harvest begins, Vinomaker and I bottled a barrel (24 cases) of Syrah by ourselves. The 2014 Syrah, from a small vineyard on Vichy Avenue (hence the title of this post, titter, titter), was all spicy-dark-berry-plum on the palate, and displayed a softer tannic profile than is usual for this varietal. I think the Vichyites will enjoy it.
With loud music for motivation, the bottling event went rather speedily. Vinomaker had done a lot of prep work yesterday, so things moved along at a brisk pace. I think
I may have worked even quicker if I had had the musical accompaniment of The Ramones. But, instead, I acquiesced to Vinomaker's choice of music, Lynyrd Skynyrd, as he is the winemaker after all; I am just chief cook and (almost literally) bottle-washer.
4 comments:
How do you fill the bottles?
I mean, do you use a small bottle filler or do you do it the hard way?
Tomasso: We have a six bottle filler which is fantastic, so fast and efficient - the first bottle is full almost as the sixth bottle begins to fill. It's great, but needs two corkers to keep up. Love it.
VG:
Is it one of those steel fillers with spouts (like a milking tube) that fit into a bottleneck and a plunger-like shut off as wine comes in from the tank? I used one like that--a four-bottle filler. I used to shoot CO2 into it, close the cover, let the CO2 blanket the fill, then go to work.
Tomasso: Yes, auto shut off with fill. We gas individual bottles with argon before filling. With white wine we also gas the reservoir.
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