Put it in a Bottle and Cork it.

That’s generally how I feel about bottling. I think it was a wise and eloquent farmer who, with similar sentiments once said, “Git er done.”

The bottling line has teams—A and B. On team A you will find industry veterans with 30+ years of experience (and their wives, with 30+ years of experience by association) and those up to the physical challenge (swift, strong, and with endurance). On the B team you will have unsuspecting volunteers (customers who think “that sounds fun!”) and people prone to spills and attention deficits (me).

There are six jobs on the line. One pulls cases off the palate, two dumps the bottles, three puts the bottles onto the machine to fill, four corks and takes them off, five puts them back into the box, and (if we’re lucky) another puts them back on the palate. Usually it’s One, and usually it’s Curt, because he likes to dance while he works so there (and because he's A team, and one of the 30+ consitutency) he gets to—back and forth to Elvis’ music and especially to the 60s stuff—while everyone else stays put.


Bottling: not a new concept

The sixth job is that of conductor—and that position is only filled by the conductor himself: Matt, Wine Maker, controller of pace, flow, and wine pump pressure (cork refiller, crisis response team, and morale sustainer), all in one. Like John Wayne would, he does it with a coffee in his hand. (Like a badass.)

Bottling is not for the weak or weary. Hundreds of gallons of wine must be pumped into boxes on boxes of wine bottles without breaking the pressure of the pump. This is a marathon of multiple hours of repetitive motion, standing and moving, also repetitively. (Did I repeat myself?) Wear comfortable clothes, tuck your shirt in, tie your hair back, because you don’t need distractions, kinda deal.

Two things make bottling awesome. First, delicious wine that most everyone on that line has in some way put stock into is going to bottle. Second, spending hours six inches from people you work with every day, or see sometimes in the afternoon, or have never met at all, inevitably makes for varied, often curious conversation. The best kind.



Vintage TMW Riesling bottling shot

As I’m writing this, I can’t even recall the gamut of topics we’ve covered—but trust me when I say we’ve hit it all. Last bottling round (2013 Rosé—224 cases thereof) the unrealized dream of a Two Mountain house band was seriously considered (wine barrel percussion feels genius two hours into a bottling run). The greatness of one band over another, the ranking of taco stands (freshness, presentation, variety, discussed in detail), and sometimes wine related things (what distinguishes rosé from blush, or HOW MANY MORE CASES??).

 

Like everything we do around here—grow grapes, make wine, and put it to bottle—we do it seriously, but have a hell of a good time meanwhile. If you are ever around during a bottling opportunity, I encourage you to take up on it—for the company and the test of fortitude, and the bottles of wine the boys usually send you home with. But be weary, because like everyone else, you’ll be starting on the B Team …with me.

Recent Rosé bottlings from Facebook

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Kelly: “I’m writing a post about bottling called ‘Put it in Bottle and Cork it’” [laughs heartily]
Pat: “You always think your jokes are a lot funnier than everyone else does…”