By the beginning of summer, the home winery is a bit crowded. The white wines were blended and filtered earlier in the Spring and are waiting to be bottled. Some early red wines are also waiting for their turn to be bottled or spending time in barrels. The most important thing to remember is that all barrels must stay filled at all times. Outside of that, finished wines are ready to be bottled for aging and future enjoyment.
So, knowing that viognier, pinot gris, albariño and sauvignon blanc grapes (we hope) are coming our way in this September’s harvest means that July and August are times to bottle.
We fill one bottle at a time in the one-man winery. That means two or three days consumed by selecting bottles, washing bottles, filling and corking each bottle by hand. Labeling happens later and then storing to age and being ready in the year or two ahead or longer if the wine shows strong potential to improve over time.
Interestingly enough, all this work at the front end seems to have faded away by the time a bottle or two are pulled and shared. Curious how that happens.
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