February Bottling

We started bottling Monday with the 'sticky wines', the 2007 Late Harvest Gewurztraminer, 2007 Riesling and 2007 Rose.  As of today we have finished up the 2006 Weinbau Vineyard Cabernet Franc, 2006 Minnick Hills Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon and have started on the 2006 Merlot.  We use a mobile bottling company, Signature Bottling, as do most Walla Walla wineries.  Below are a few pictures from the bottling line.

Derek is at the start of the line dumping empty glass onto the conveyor belt.

The empty bottles are filled, labeled and corked by machine.  Then our volunteers put capsules on the bottles.

The bottles are checked to make sure everything is where it should be and placed into case boxes manually. The box runs through a machine to tape them closed. It then comes down the ramp where winemaker Holly Turner and a volunteer are putting labels on the outside of the boxes. Assistant winemaker, Andy Slusarenko, stacks the finished product on a pallet nearby.