Bottling at Salado Winery

 

On Saturday, August 27, 2011 the Black Rock Vineyard association bottled their 2010 Sangiovese. 

First, they made sure everything was clean and ready for bottling.  Everything was rinsed and sprayed with SO2.  Then a solution was made up to run through the bottling line.  Here at Salado Winery Company, it is typical that we blend about 1/4 cup of 14% Meta (was created by blending 208.2 g in 1.5 L of distilled water in glass bottle) with a tablespoon of citric acid in about 4-5 gallons of water.  So that solution was pumped through the lines, the filters, up into the holding tank, down into the bottler and through the spigots.  Then the lines were emptied and the wine was pumped through and filled the bottles.

The pump is pictured above.  The in line cartridge filters have a .35 micron filter and a 1 micron filter inside of them.  The wine was pre-filtered on August 18, which is 10 days prior to this event with a 5 micron filter and a 1 micron filter.  We typically use commercial filters (see picture).  We buy the 1 & 5 micron filters from our local hardware store and the .35 micron filters from Vintner’s Vault.  The filters are inexpensive, so we dispose of them when we’re finished with them. 

The picture of the lab table reminds me that BRV tested SO2 levels just prior to bottling.  On August 18 just before filtering, they measured only 5 ppm free SO2, so they added 40 ppm.  On the day of bottling (August 27) they measure 12ppm SO2 so they added 15 ppm to bring it up to 25 ppm.

One thing that the folks from BRV did that surprised me is that they dunked the corks in distilled water before bottling.  They said that this was to make it easier to squish the cork and slide it into the bottle.  Also, one can see in the pictures that they rinsed the bottles.  The solution they used was the same as was used to rinse the equipment (a slosh of 14% Meta, approx. 1 tablespoon citric to 5 gallons water). 

The bottles are sparged as they are filled with wine.  It is not obvious from the picture, but if you click on the picture of the hand at the bottler, you might notice clear plastic lines running to the spigots.  The gas tank is visible in the overview picture.  Also, I took a picture of the line cavitating because when I used the bottler, I couldn’t get it tight enough and I had leaking there!

Stay tuned for the release of this fantastic wine!