On Tuesday, February 24, 2015, we bottled over a thousand cases of the 2012 Elodian Cabernet Sauvignon. From the moment the grapes were picked in the fall of 2012, until the day of bottling, the wine was meticulously cared for while barrel aging for two and a half years. This makes the bottling process an intense but essential climax to the winemaking process; it is the moment when the winemaker cuts the umbilical cord to the baby, thereby releasing it to the waiting public. It’s like watching your child go off to college, hoping and praying you did everything in your power to make them the best they can be. A dramatic analogy, I know, but it demonstrates that everything must be perfectly aligned on bottling day in order for the consumer to enjoy the wine as the winemaker originally intended.
Bottling Day…
Cows bellow in the distance as the sun rises over the green rolling hills adjacent to the Eddy’s Calistoga ranch. Steam rises
from the concrete crush pad of the winery as the Signature Mobile Bottling truck finishes sanitizing the bottling line. Two tanks full of 2012 Elodian Cab (exactly 1003 cases) sit idle, waiting to fill the antique green, claret-style bottles. Bags of corks and boxes of capsules standby, ready to put the finishing touches and seal the wine until it is time to be consumed.
The 48 foot long bottling trailer is a marvel of modern engineering. Thousands of moving parts, made of stainless steel, rubber and plastic move seamlessly in unison to fill the bottles with wine, pushing the corks into the necks of the bottles, sealing the top with a capsule and slapping on a front and back label at a rate of 180 bottles per minute. Whew, that’s really cranking! A crew of workers hums around the truck, like honey bees, ensuring each bottle is ready to be filled. Each capsule is perfectly placed and each case is rapidly packaged and gently loaded on to empty pallets. This is a well-oiled machine of human labor and mechanical prowess working in near perfect coordination to ensure a clean and efficient day of bottling!
This was our first-ever bottling at the new Tom Eddy Winery. Thanks to our friends and Signature and Vinpack, it could not have gone any better. It takes a small army and many great vendors to get our precious wine into the bottle and to your door, and for that we are thankful.
Well, our baby is graduated and off to be consumed…we hope you enjoy drinking it as much as we enjoyed making it!
Cheers, Jason Gerard.