Got Some Bottling Done

OK, so I hoped to get more done than was reasonable. But I did bottle 4 gallons of wine and I have piccies to prove it. so here we go. First of all I lined up the desired wines.

2 gallons of Blackberry wine, made last autumn using sauternes yeast. 1 gallon of Blueberry & Cranberry quickie. 1 gallon of Elderflower.

and a selection of bottles ready to receive them







And then I got cracking and ended up with this lot

From left to right .... Blueberry & Cranberry, Blackberry, Elderflower.

I love seeing a batch like this, in a day or two these bottles will have shrink fit necks, they'll be lying down and look much more finished - hey I may even post some piccies of that! There's some screw caps in there, those wines won't last long as the seal really isn't up to long term storage ... gonna have to drink them soon then. The Blueberry & Cranberry wine is a table wine, it's not for long term storage so they all have screw caps. The Blackberry has a couple or three screw caps ('cos I really don't mind having to drink them soon). Screw caps will be fine for at least a couple of weeks. Lucky people who share dinner with us!

You may have noticed a small plastic bottle in there, always good to have a few handy, you rarely get exactly 6 bottles from a DJ, more like around 6.5. So why waste that last little bit, I'm sitting here writing my blog with a couple of part filled plastic bottles to enjoy as I do so.

Since there's been few piccies this year, I got all gratuitous about it. Here's a close up of 3 bottles

Left to Right .... Blueberry & Cranberry, Elderflower, Blackberry.

Shame the clarity of the blackberry doesn't come through, but hey clarity isn't hard to achieve. It's usually just patience ... leave it alone for months after racking, degassing and stabilising. Only then consider intervening if it's not clear. Nice colour to the Blueberry & Cranberry.

Haha, you thought that was it? oh no, I took another piccie, just cos a different angle might show something different. I don't think it does, but I may aswell post it. This is the whole batch, bottled (apart from my sneaky plastic bottles which are already in my pockets)

I think all that comes out of this piccie is which bottles have screw caps, and which have corks. Tho you can also see 3 plastic 500ml bottles behind the clear Elderflower bottles ... ooops, they'll have to be drunk soonish then. Nothing like Elderflower wine in spring to give you impetus, momentum, and reason to get out there and do it again. Soon those wonderful sprays will be beckoning me again.