Bottling Our Wines at Jonathan Edwards Winery---Part 2

On Monday, I wrote about Bottling Our Wines at Jonathan Edwards Winery---Part 1. Day 2 of bottling began with filtering the rest of our 2020 Chenin Blanc and ended up with the filtration of our small lot of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. In the afternoon, we began our first bottling. Here is what the bottling line looks like.

For our bottling, we thought that having both 750 mL bottles and half bottles (375 mL) was a good idea. So, on the first afternoon of bottling, we bottled both our 2019 Auxerrois and our 2020 Auxerrois ending up with a total of 50 cases of 750 mL bottles and approximately 25 cases of 375 mL bottles. We were pretty happy about that but the rest of the bottling loomed so we asked our friend, Barry if he could come to help us on Wednesday afternoon. On Wednesday morning, we bottled 29-1/2 cases of our 2020 Chardonnay which ended up being all 750 mL bottles. Barry came promptly at 1 p.m. and helped us to bottle all of our 2019 Chenin Blanc which ended up being 90 cases of 750 mL and 42 cases of 375 mL bottles!
Not only was Barry a great help, but he brought music with him and the beat kept us moving. After the bottling there was even time for a little sampling of the 2019 Chenin Blanc and some laughs!

On Thursday and Friday, Jonathan Edwards enlisted one of his people to be the Barry-equivalent, even providing us with music! We were able to bottle the rest of our wine which included our 2020 Chenin Blanc (196 cases of 750 mL bottles, 119 cases of 375 mL bottles) and 2019 Cab Franc (8 cases 750 mL bottes, 2 cases + 8 bottles 375 mL bottles) and 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon (6 cases 750 mL + 6 cases 375 mL bottles).
I learned that there is a specific way of arranging the two bottles sizes on the pallet. For the 750 mL bottles, a pallet can hold 84 cases, 14 cases on each level and 6 levels. Here is an interesting fact. For a pallet with 84 cases of wine bottled at 750 mL, that translates into 200 gallons of wine. For the 375 mL bottles, a pallet can hold 17 cases on each level. I'm not really sure how many levels would make a typical pallet.

At the end of the bottling, we were all feeling a little robotic. My husband, who was in charge of sparging the bottles with nitrogen and putting the bottles on the filler came home and put our two glasses of water on our dispenser at the same time, filling one glass with cold water and the other glass with hot water!
We thank Jonathan Edwards, Barry, Jay and Dan for all of the help they gave us for an entire week! Words cannot express our gratitude.

Bottling Our Wines at Jonathan Edwards Winery---Part 1

Last week, we spent from Monday to Friday at Jonathan Edwards Winery preparing to bottle and then bottling our wines. Compared to what Jonathan Edwards does, we have very small volumes so that presented somewhat of a logistical challenge. The first order of business on Monday was to get all of us on the same page with respect to moving the wine from our small vessels into one vessel in order to filter the wines as efficiently as possible, according to vintage and variety. Once we were all on the same page, we began executing the plan.
There was a lot of cleaning and sanitizing to do before the wines could be moved.

The wines that were racked into the larger containers were then filtered through a 1 micron filter and put into a santized vessel.

On Monday, we were able to get about 90% of our wines through this procedure. Since we had two vintages to process, the order in which we did the first filtration was: 2019 Auxerrois, 2020 Auxerrois, and 2020 Chardonnay, 2019 Chenin Blanc and half of our 2020 Chenin Blanc.
Time flies and also the filter becomes a little sluggish, so at the end of the day, we still had half of our 2020 Chenin Blanc to filter and our 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon and 2019 Cabernet Franc to filter.
Sticking to the plan allowed us to maximize the time on Monday. We left the winery feeling exhuasted but excited about what tomorrow would bring.

Time to Check on Some Preharvest Numbers

We feel that our vines are about a week behind their usual harvest date. On Sunday, September 19, we took in a representative sample from the Auxerrois, usually the first variety that we harvest and our Chardonnay, the second variety that we harvest.

The numbers that we got were the following:

Variety	Weight	Volume of Juice	Brix	pH	TA
Auxerrois	129 g	50 mL	18.0	3.36	9.9 g/L
Chardonnay	139 g	65 mL	18.6	3.04	8.0 g/L

We typically do not see such a high pH for the Auxerrois at this stage so that is something to keep in mind as we plan for our harvest date.

The Best Cork Puller

Way back in May, we went to a party where the host pulled out a 1964 Barolo. The label attested to the fact that the the wine was very aged. Our host began to pull out the cork and then realized that the cork was not in the best shape but never fear, he brought out this nifty device that combined the Ah-So with the waiter's screwpull.

My husband was put in charge of using this device for the first time in his life, entrusted with pulling out a cork that was 57 years old. My husband has very steady hands and the Durand is probably the best old cork puller in existence. Aside from the initial slight crumblage (made up word), the cork came out cleanly and the Barolo was enjoyed by all.
When we were driving home that day, my husband remarked on the possibility of purchasing a Durand. Since our host told him that the Durand may be about $50.00 my husband was right on it until he found out that it was really $145.00.
Recently, we had dinner with our friends where my husband brought out a 1996 Chateau Montelena. I did share this photo in a previous blog, but just to drive home the point here it is again:

Without the proper tool, you can see what can happen to an aged cork. You can also see in the above photo that my husband tried to mimic the Durand with an Ah-So and a screwpull.
Last night, my husband brought out this 1995 Dunn Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain. He wasn't taking any chances this time and used the Durand, which he purchased after the Chateau Montelena incident, to pull the cork out.

The wine was excellent and still very youthful tasting with an upfront flavor of blackberries and smooth tannins. We had it with friends and marinated hangar steak a la Ina Garten.