I haven't written in awhile, so I've got some catchin' up to do....
Music
Sunday, I got a call from Joe, the bass player. Chris, the other guitarist in the Electric Fun Band, couldn't make it to the dress rehearsal that was scheduled for Tuesday night. My bottling was scheduled for the following day. EFB was booked to play on Sunday, the 26th, at a bar in Cotati. The drummer was to return from the UK on Monday night, and Tuesday night was the only night that we could rehearse. Reluctantly, we called the bar and canceled - no way were we ready without one time thru with the whole band. That was a back-breaker, but in no way physically comparable to Bottling Day.
Kids
Sunday afternoon, my "week-on" began with my four kids, Patrick - 16, Liana - 12 Christopher - 10, and Olivia - also 10 (fraternal twins). We all had dinner with my folks at Applebee's in Petaluma, and then settled in to get ready for school the next morning.
School-day mornings, I get the kids up, make their lunches, and we leave for school by 8. By 8:30, the kids are all at school, and I can start my workday. At the end of the day, I generally pick up Liana, Christopher and Olivia at after-school care by 5:30, and go on to pick up Patrick at Cathy's house. Back at home, I cook dinner and make sure that homework gets done. That's my routine every other week. That is THIS week - Bottling Week. It hasn't been a typical week...
Bottling 2007 wines
I went to the winery on Monday and hand-bottled two cases of usulfited tank samples, one case each of the 2007 Pinot and the 2007 Syrah. I use these to compare with the main bottling to determine when the main bottling is ready for release. After I pulled the samples, we added aqueous sulfite to bring the wines' free sulfite level up to 40ppm.
Tuesday I returned and hand-bottled 4 cases of 1.5L magnums of the Pinot and Syrah. I get a lot of requests for donations of "either a case or a large format bottle." People don't realize that not every winery is a huge affair with hundreds of thousands in case production. A case is a significant amount of wine for tiny wineries like mine. So I figured that magnums were the way to go. Anyway, I bottled up 3 cases of Syrah magnums and 1 case of Pinot.
Bottling Day
Wednesday morning, Galo and I grabbed the few supplies that we had on hand, along with an empty cooler, and headed off to the winery. On the way, we stopped at a grocery store and picked up some sodas and ice. From there, we pulled into downtown Graton and spot-hired 4 guys to help on the bottling line.
When we arrived at the winery, I had two more workers waiting. The mobile bottling line was in place and ready to roll. Two guys started pulling cases of empty bottles, placing the bottles on the line. The bottles began moving, first to the sterilizer/sparger, then on to the filler. From the filler, they proceeded to the corker, which sealed the bottle with a vacuum of nitrogen. The capsules were placed, and the foil spun tightly to the bottle. After the labeling machine, the conveyor carried the filled and finished bottles back to the open end of the trailer, where three people placed the bottles into cases and slid the cases down rollers to the box sealer. Near the very end, an inkjet printer sprayed the pertinent case information on the case, and the boxes rolled on out to be manually stacked on pallets. One case was coming out every 9 seconds or so.
Three people, including myself, lifted the 42-pound boxes off of the rollers, flipped the boxes upside-down, and stacked them 11 to a row, 4 rows high, 44 to a pallet. When a pallet was done, Steve would tie twine around the top layer, wrap the whole thing in stretch wrap, and forklift it into the warehouse. Steve and his son, Steve, were the other two guys stacking with me. Little Steve was also operating the forklift on the other side of the line, keeping the first two supplied with empty bottles. So there were times when I was the only one pulling cases off!
One case was coming out every 9 seconds. The line could go faster. I felt like Lucy on the assembly line!
At one point, I was having to pull off boxes off the line and stack them on the ground because we had no pallet ready to stack. So I was having to lift twice. AAAaaargh! I cried uncle. "Could we slow down?" "No problem," came the answer. Thank God.
Filter Schmilter
The first two lots were extremely small: two 40-case lots of single-clone Pinots. Everything was working fine. The next lot was about 460 cases of the Whole Vineyard Blend of Pinot. 40 cases in, the $400 .45-micron filter needed to be replaced. After 40 more cases, we needed a third filter cartridge! This lot had already been sterile-filtered. This was looking ugly very fast. I stopped the line and ran to find Danny, the cellarmaster. He was not happy when I informed him that we needed to run a plate filter ahead of the bottling line, and we needed to do it NOW. After a minute of "@%#$&*!!", he and I set up the filter and re-routed the hoses and pump. When we finally were able to start the bottling line again, everything flowed just fine. The plate filter has a much greater surface area than the cartridge filter on the bottling line. Disaster averted. It cost me in unanticipated filtration expense, but that's the nature of life. I'm grateful that we were able to work it out in the end. Lesson learned: "Don't depend on the bottling line for filtration. It's more of a final insurance policy."
Two Hands
There were more minor glitches, but generally the rest of the job went pretty well. At the end of about 670 cases, my arms were Toast. On our way back to the Ranch, Galo and I stopped for a bite and a beer. There in the pub, I was able to hoist the chicken wings to my mouth with effort, but the beer took two hands. Good Beer!
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