Back in business – bottling the 2013 Große Wanderlust

It feels a little like being back in business again. After the Wanderlust disaster we had decided to give up the Dornfelder as well as the little batch of Perle. The volatile acid was too unpleasant for our tongues and we wouldn’t want to offer any wine we don’t totally love. We’ll make it better this year. So after mourning for many dreary winter weeks we finally could bottle one we do love. The 2013 Große Wanderlust, a batch from our first harvest. This red wine had aged well in an old barrique for 16 months on the full lees and was good to go. No need to think only a second about adding sulphur – the wine is beautifully stable.

Barrel during bottling

As it was just one barrel we did it fully manually again. We have an old “washing machine” to spray water in a bottle (with a foot pump) so they’re really clean.

Cleaning the bottles

Afterwards they had to dry a little …

Drying bottles

… before the precious juice was filled in straight from the barrel. I had brought it upstairs for that purpose and lifted it – the wine has never seen a pump.

Michael bottling

Time for Melanie to open a fresh bag of DIAM10 corks and use them with the corking machine.

Putting corks in the corking machine

A push on the handle and the bottle is closed.

Freshly closed bottle

Three hours later we were done.

We and our 2013 Große Wanderlust

Time to do what a good vintner does most of his time (when he’s not in the vineyard): clean everything thoroughly. The wine will remain in a chilled, dark corner for a little while before we start making it pretty. Finally something positive to report on – time to have a drink!

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