Bad WWWW Reader!

I’m sorry that I’m missing another W4 entry this week.  Last week we were so intense with bottling and getting ready for the Memorial Day holiday weekend, that I didn’t devote any time to wine reading.  I’ll get back at it this week and have a new roundup of articles for you next week.

I do have a photo to share with you today though.  While the bottling last week went well for the most part, we did have a few problems to contend with.  One small issue occurred when we started to bottle the Courtois on Wednesday.  Last week was a hot one for us and the wine protested was affected by the heat as much as the humans were!  Once the cold wine from the cellar got into the warmer bottling line temperatures, the gasses started to expand and come out of the wine, making for a LOT of foam.  Here’s a photo of our first try at bottling Courtois:

Now in a hand-bottling situation this foaminess is not an issue.  But with the electronic equipment, all that foam triggered the machine to stop filling the bottle before the bottle was actually filled with enough liquid.  We certainly don’t want to short anyone their wine!

So, we  changed to a different wine and allowed the Courtois to warm up a bit before going back to it later in the day.  The second try worked like a charm and we were able to bottle 200 gallons of Courtois in just over an hour!

So there’s at least a little Wednesday news for you.  I’ll be back soon with a few more photos from around the winery.  Cheers!