Labels and Bottle Filler

Bottle Filler.
The bottle filler arrived this week. It did not cost $1000, unlike almost every other piece of equipment. It is also, apart from our barrels, funnels, hoses, and demijons, our only piece of equipment not made of stainless steel or aircraft grade aluminium.
Since the winery board that met was at only half strength (Anton and I) we decided to try out the bottle filler. Michael was attending the funeral of someone who took part in a very significant piece of history and who didn't tell their story, and Marty was in a "busy", "may turn up later", "it will be late" kind of situation.
Anyway, this filler, which vacuum fills, treats the wine extremely gently as it fills bottles. It dispenses just enough wine for your size of bottle and the wine does not even foam as it goes in. We thought the fill level would differ with varying bottle sizes, but it didn't.
So we broke a 5gallon demijon of Bordeaux just as a trial run. We're always trying things for the first time otherwise so it made a change to practise first on a bucket of water, then on the Bordeaux.
It was a very civilised process. Very calming almost. And at the end the small amout of waste that was collected was just enough for a couple of glasses of wine.
I think the most impressive fact about this wine filler is that there was not a single drop of wine wasted during the bottling process!

Labels
We have agreed on the two label types we're going to be using consistently across our blends and varietals. We even have a different name for the Bordeaux. We could be at the printers by the end of June.

Molly.
Thanks for the photos. Very flattering - yeah right.
Actually there are some good ones and they're all fun.
Look out for them appearing now and again.