10 September 2007
[Epi 14] TintoTV - crash a bottling party with us
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Wow, 2 weeks feels like a long time ago, but with our new update schedule/frequency, here we are! We’re excited to break out of our norm in this episode and let the blackberry, strawberry, and Welch’s concord wines take a rest from the show as they age in their carboys (don’t worry, they’ll be back on the next show).
The retail store which we have recently frequented for our winemaking supplies, Fine Vine Wines, The Winemaker’s Toy Store (www.finevinewines.com) sent out an invitation to join them for a bottling party where 8 or more carboys of wine would need to be filtered and then bottled. Stephany and I thought this would be a great opportunity to learn about this part of the home winemaking process that we have not attempted yet, and we thought we’d bring you along! Our clips are short, but they give you an idea of the general arrangement of the bottling party assembly line and a focus into some of the special equipment and methods for bottling. The general assembly line included:
- Wine going from carboy through filter into another carboy
- Filtered wine then went from carboy to bottle through either a gravity filler or electric filler
- Filled bottles were then corked with floor corkers (some bottles may have escaped for tasting/educational purposes)
- Now filled and corked bottles were then labeled and organized into boxes
Our understanding is that some of these bottles will be submitted to competitions! This was the first time Stephany and I tasted “homemade” wine, and I must say that we were very impressed with the results! We can’t wait to bottle and age ours, and eventually sneak them into some blind tastings!
After attending this bottling party, we are certainly more confident for bottling our own batches (very soon) and we are very grateful for the opportunity to have met other area home winemakers! We definitely encourage you to involve yourself with local winemaking communities to share and learn and drink more great wine!
One last thing for the skeptics out there, Stephany and I “TintoTV” are not affiliated with Fine Vine Wines, The Winemaker’s Toy Store, we simply enjoy shopping from their store and wanted to share what we’ve been doing with this addictive winemaking hobby. They do have a referral program though, so if you shop at their site, be sure to tell them that Nico and Stephany Sanchez of TintoTV sent you over!!!
Stay tuned for more… in a couple weeks for our next show, we start the first of a 2-part showdown that we think you’ll enjoy (that’s all we’ll say for now!). Please be sure to COMMENT below, say hi, share your experiences, email us, send us your videos, your clips; we love to see what you’re up to and we’ll gladly share what you’ve shared with us! One of our viewers sent us a blog! Join Heinz in a journey into the art of making Wine and Mead – “Wine making tips gathered from around the world” can be found at http://fermentedfruits.blogspot.com/
Thanks for visiting!
This was a fun episode. I enjoyed it. Help, George looks like me. However, he knows what he’s doing.:)
— harry hebert Sep 10 #
Saw the Article in Winemaker Magazine and love the idea of the weekly show!
I will continue to watch so keep up the good work!
— Patrick Sep 13 #
Good show… great experience for the both of you. Every bit of experience or event you go to like what you just did will help you in the long run as you go through many obstacles in the wine industry. nice show
— mike Sep 17 #
Looks like it was a fun event. What is your label going to look like?
— Juan Carlos Oct 3 #