Bottling the 2009 Vintage

Bottling wine is one of those profoundly satisfying tasks. You've spent months slaving over a wine vintage and now it's time to bottle the fruits of those labors. When you're done, you'll have a few dozen attractive bottle of delicious wine that you made from scratch.

This year I made 6 gallons of California Barbera, Sangiovese and Sauvignon Blanc. The Barbera and Sangiovese are clear, stable and ready to be bottled. The Sauvignon Blanc was still a little cloudy and needed another racking. With white wine, it's very important to bottle only when completely clear. Red wine should also be brilliantly clear for proper presentation, but a very small amount of sediment in a red wine bottle won't detract from a red wine like it will with a white. So the Sauvignon Blanc will need to wait for another day.

Bottling is one of the easiest parts of the wine making process. Corkers can be purchased for $30 but a floor standing corker for $100 is well worth the money if you'll be bottling a lot of wine. Bottles can be reused (bring home all the empty bottles from weddings and parties!) but you must purchase new corks. Wash the bottles in a one-step sanitizer wash.

You'll also want to add a few crushed camden tablets to the wine before you bottle it. Camden tablets not only make any lingering yeast go dormant, they also prevent oxidation. This is a real threat when you are jostling wine in a siphon tube.

Then simply siphon the wine into the bottles up to about 1/4" below the bottom of the cork. If you're bottling a lot of wine you'll want to buy one of the cork filling gizmos on the market. This will really make your life easier! But a small siphoning tube is also easy to control and gets the job done.

Then cork the wine and start designing your wine labels!