Day Thirty Three, Bottling Day!

There are many things that people accomplish in their lives, almost all of which can never be taken away from them. Becoming an Eagle Scout, receiving a college degree and soloing an airplane are three such accomplishments that I can boast. Well, now I have one more, I am a wine maker!

Tonight, I, along with the help of several friends, bottled my first batch of wine. It was not the smoothest of processes, but when all was said and done, I had twenty four bottles of newly fermented wine. It's been 14 days since I last worked with the juice, when I stabilized and cleared the juice. I had to take a small sample of the wine tonight to make sure that it was clear. I did this by using a siphon and holding the juice up to the light. The wine was clear (meaning that I could easily see through it and it did not appear cloudy) and I decided to press forward with bottling.

I lifted the fermentor to the counter top and sanitized all of my equipment, to include all of the bottles. Initially, I thought that I could bottle by myself. Almost immediately I realized that it was going to take more than one person, so I called Matt Deming and Dave Keller to come and help me. Dave sanitized the bottles while Matt and I used the siphon to bottle the juice. At one point, we had too much pressure build in one of the hoses. The result was catastrophic to probably two or three bottles of wine, as that amount of juice sprayed all over the kitchen floor.

We were unable to get all of the juice bottled due to the dead yeast particles at the bottom of the fermentor. That, coupled with the lost juice, was the reason that I was only able to produce 24 of the predicted 30 bottles. Once the juice was in the bottle, I used a corking device to shove the corks in the bottles. I tasted a small amount of the wine and also tested the specific gravity. The wine tasted decent, though I hoped that it would taste better. Hopefully it will taste better as it ages. Unfortunately, the specific gravity was rather low, meaning that the alcohol content was below a typical wine. I still need to figure out what went wrong, and hopefully re-test later on.

I'm a little disappointed with the way that this first batch turned out. Thought I keep telling myself that it was only my first try. Thing will get better as I continue to experiment. Even though I'm disappointed, I'm still extremely excited and proud to have finished my first bottles. Look for a post later this week on labeling the bottles as well as one in the near future on "lessons learned" and exciting plans for the future. I am officially a wine maker!

 

Zschoche Cellars first glass and bottle. 4 April 2011

 

Zschoche Cellars first glass. 4 April 2011

 The first two cases of Zschoche Cellars wine.