Wine Tasting Group August 2006 Bottling Event

AUGUST 2006 WINE BOTTLING EVENT

18 August 2006

HOSTED BY OWNERS AND NEWCOMERS JANET HALE, CALVIN HALE, AND DEBBIE GREENAWALT

OVERVIEW

Inside the barn, Calvin Hale, one of our hosts, on the left walking towards the camera. The process starts on the far right with the two wood barrels holding 55 gallons of 1) Norton (100%) and 2) Norton (80%) with Cabernet Sauvignon (20%). The bottling process will end in the center with the stacking of the completed cased wines. Not everyone worked on the bottling line at one time but all worked at two or more stations during the four-hour event.

BOTTLE SULFITE STATION

Empty 750 ml bottles were removed from boxes, passed to sulfite folks on the right, rinsed in the solution, placed on the stem rack until air dry, then passed to the filling station. Tracey Mason on the far right at the sulfite station; John McKenna at far left at the pump control station; Denise and Ken Gorsky at the filling station; and, Connie and Ross Schmoll are at the corking station.

PUMP CONTROL STATION

Cleaned bottles, at lower right, at picked up and placed under any one of four filling nozzles. John McKenna at far left controls the float level of the wine coming into the filling reservoir via a tube at center. The pump in just below John's right arm with John's hand resting on the on/off switch. Denise and Ken Gorsky are filling bottles. Ron Perkins at far right facing camera is at the bottle sulfite station.

BOTTLE FILLING STATION

This view from behind the line shows the bottle filling apparatus. A bottle will stop filling automatically when full. In this photo, Denise Gorsky has just removed a full bottle from the far left nozzle. She will pass the bottle to the corking station on her right. Mike Mills stands in the center background removing bottles and passing them to Ron Perkins for sulfite treatment. Note the large plastic bag on the floor behind the Schmolls. This contains corks.

CORKING STATION

Two line personnel are required to operate the corking station. Connie Schmoll has a small tray in front of her on the table. It contains a sulfite solution and corks. She keeps the tray full of corks from the bag in the previous photo. Connie has two other important jobs, here: 1) place a full bottle of wine onto the corking machine and, 2) place a cork into the top of the corking machine. Ross Schmoll pulls the lever and the wine is corked.

CAPSULE STATION

Ed Gorlin stands at the corner of the bottling line. He wears a protective glove because the capsules are dipped into a hot water bath to shrink-wrap them to the top of the bottle. This protects the cork. To his left stands Linda Textor who takes the corked bottles and places capsules on the neck of the bottle. In the background, you can see the one of the wine barrels and the bottle sulfite rack where we started.

BOTTLE DRYING STATION

Jan Perkins (left) and Aline McKenna (right) dry the bottles after caps have been heat shrunk. This step is necessary so that labels can be applied in the next step. Jan White is providing Aline with a "refreshment".

BOTTLE LABELING STATION

Cathy Broach (left), Nancy Mills (center), and Gloria Gorlin (right, seated) are placing labels on the wine bottles. Bottles are passed to Jane Dunlap (just visible next to Cathy) who loads up the 12-bottle case.

ANOTHER OVERVIEW OF THE PROCESS

Two of the owners who are also Newcomers are present in this photo. For reference, note Jan Perkins in the purple seated at the drying station. Just above here leaning over in the baseball cap in Calvin Hale. Standing in the same general area between Calvin on the left and John McKenna in the hat is Debbie Greenawalt, a co-owner and also a Newcomer. I apologize for not having included a photo of Janet Hale.