THE PROCESS: BOTTLING THE BATCH

BOTTLING THE BATCH

Bottling is very easy. There is a broad selection of bottle styles and sizes to match the wine of your choice. For each five-gallon batch, you will need the equivalent of 26 standard 26-ounce (750 ml) bottles. Take your carboy of wine and place it on your work table. You should splurge the few extra dollars for a bottling attachment that is placed at the pliant end of the siphon hose. This hard plastic device has a simple flow valve that simplifies filling each bottle to the level desired (optimally, one-half inch below the bottom of the cork, once placed in the bottle).

Sanitize your bottles. Place the hard plastic end of the siphon tube into the carboy (not the end with the flow valve attachment - the other end). Have a few bottles ready and a helper, if possible. Siphon the wine as you did before, during the racking tasks. After you fill the bottles, cork them. Confer with your merchant regarding the need to 'prep' your corks (some corks require a cursory soaking in hot water to make them easier to place in the bottle). Your retailer can doubtless lend you a good floor corker, the easiest type to use.

For our wines, I would suggest Burgundy-style bottles for both dry wines and colorless, Alsace-style fluted bottles in the 375 ml size for the late-harvest wine. After corking, allow all bottles to stand upright for one week to ten days to allow the corks a chance to completely stopper the bottles. Lay down all bottles after this time. Re-cork any bottles you may find leaking (leakers usually show themselves after a day or two). I have also found it useful to bottle, from each batch, one "index" bottle: a colorless bottle from which I monitor the progress of the wine.

Wine Bottles and Other Items