Bottling Day

Bottling day is always an adventure. This bottling went well, and by late afternoon we were enjoying a glass of wine with friends while cleaning the cellar and tanks. After weeks and months of quietly gestating in barrels, the act of moving the wine into bottles requires a large crew, a mad scramble, earplugs, and logistical timing.

We use a mobile bottling unit, an amazing piece of machinery housed in a trailer which is always delivered to the site by a semi the evening before bottling. Once the truck is scheduled, wines are carefully racked out of their barrels into portable tanks and lined up in the order they will be processed, so hoses can be swiftly moved from one tank to the next without losing pressure. Weeks in advance, we have ordered pallets of bottles, corks, and foils. Labels have been created, printed, proofed and delivered. Most of the time everything is delivered on time and to the correct address.

The line operators arrive at 6:30 am and begin sterilizing the bottling line. Workers arrive at 7 a.m. Dan has already sterilized our pump and hoses and we are ready to go.

Standing on a small platform at the back of the truck, workers open cases of empty bottles and dump them with a clatter onto a belt entering the body of the truck. A large wheel (right) picks up the bottles and feeds them at regularly spaced intervals back onto the belt inside the truck. The bottles are sparged with nitrogen to ensure that they are clean and dust-free. They are then mechanically filled and corked. Workers place capsules over the bottle necks (a feat of dexterity and timing that I have never mastered) and the capsules are heat-rolled tightly onto the bottle. By this time, the bottles have reached the front of the truck, where they roll through several wheels that apply the labels. They then return down the other side of the truck where the quality control person (usually me) checks the bottles for low fill levels, mangled or scarred capsules, and torn or buckled labels.

The line operators are in constant movement, hanging off the equipment like monkeys, holding spare parts in their teeth, sliding through tight spaces like wraiths.

Occasionally we have minor disasters. Once the corker slipped by just a hair, less than a millimeter probably, but the force of the corker began smashing the bottles, and glass flew everywhere until we got the whole line stopped. More than once, the line operators put a roll of labels on the spindle upside down. That’s always interesting. And there was the time the head line operator, who had apparently just broken up with his fiancee, burst into tears, jumped off the truck and just walked away, unable to deal with the pressure. Fortunately, the owner of the line showed up within the hour to finish the run.

When the bottles return to the small platform at the back of the truck, workers gather the bottles and drop them into their original cartons, and the boxes slide down a ramp where they are labeled and stacked onto waiting pallets.

In the meantime, a crew of two or three people are also in constant movement around the cellar. Dan wheels around in the forklift delivering pallets of glass to the back of the truck, and taking full pallets away. As one tank empties, a series of valves must be closed at just the right time, and the hoses unclamped and moved to the next tank. Inventory is counted as it comes off the line, and someone is in charge of supplying the appropriate labels, capsules and foils to the line crew with every switch.

Finally, it’s all done. The clanking stops, the line is cleaned again, and Dan and I rinse the tanks and clean up the cellar. This is the moment when we can finally hold our product in our hands. It’s a feeling of completion, fulfillment, and satisfaction—a glow that lasts through dinner and several toasts with friends.

Then we wake up in the morning and realize we have to sell it all.