June 9th was bottling day at Piña Napa Valley.
Since we're not big enough to justify having our
own bottling line, the bottling line comes to us.
Macario on the forklift.
Inside the trailer, things are a bit tight.
This machine is putting the foils on the bottle.
This machine is "spinning" the foils on the bottle.
We don't have paper labels, or the bottling line
would be placing those on the bottles, too.
Here are the large format Mimbre bottles.
The Mimbre package design was the
first choice of 3 of the 4 brothers
(Okay, I'm warming up to it).
It's hard to visualize the size of the large format
bottles from the pictures, until you place a standard
750 ml Cahoots bottle in front of them.
Our winemaking team:
Anna Monticelli & Macario Montoya
Photos provided by John C. Piña
3 comments:
Ranndy,
Great explanation of the bottling process. The times I've been at the winery I've seen many barrels, but fewer bottles and wondered how you bottled. I've seen both your big bottles and the normal 750 ml. What percentage of your bottles do you do in the large format?
John, the pictures are great of the process.
Steve
P.S. I forgot to add that I have always liked the Pina labels for their quiet, simple elegance.
Good question, Steve.
I had to ask. Macario & brother Larry came top the rescue. For the 2009 bottling:
96% = 750 ml
2% = Magnums
1% = 3L
1% = 6L
These %s are by volume, so we have roughly twice as many 3L as 6L even though they both make up 1% of the total.
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