Bottling Blackberry Wine

I took out the carboy from the refrigerator. The carboy is filled with blackberry wine. This wine is about 4 months old.  I have racked this wine 6 times and each time I have been sampling it. I really like the taste that it has developed and have chosen to bottle it dry. In the photo you can see the bottling equipment which includes wine glasses to sample the wine, sugar in case I felt like it should be sweeten before bottling (which I did not use), clean and sanitized wine bottles, and wine corker.

Other bottling equipment include the corks, potasium sorbate (is used to stop fermentation in bottle if I decide to sweeten at bottling), measuring spoon, funnel, large stirring spoon ( to be used in case I decided to add sugar to sweeten the wine), siphon hose, and large 6 gallon food grade bucket to add the wine into if I decided to sweeten the wine.

I recheck the wine before bottling for aroma, clarity, color, and taste.

 

I decided that I am satisfied with the taste, color, clarity, and aroma so I begin to bottle the wine. Since I feel that it is fine the way it is I will not have to use most of my extra bottling equipment and will siphon the blackberry wine straight into the clean and sanitized wine bottles.

I pull the siphon pump twice and let the filling up of the wine bottles begin.

I am halfway done in filling the wine bottles.

These are the type of corks I use. They are good for long term storage.

When the wine in the siphon starts slowing down in filling up the bottles, I let gravity do the work. I lower the wine bottles to a stool and the wine in the siphon will begin to flow more freely.

There is a tad bit of wine left at the bottom of the carboy that the siphon cannot reach.

But I use a funnel to pour the wine into to get every last drop of wine out of the carboy. I also use the funnel to fill up bottles that seem a little low in wine, so that the amount of wine in each bottles is a bit more uniform.

I filled up 28 bottles of wine at 750 ML in each bottle. I even have enough extra wine to fill up my wine glass, so that I can enjoy the fruits of my labor.

Here is the wine corker which is essential to bottling.

I add the wine bottle at the bottom and insert a cork at the top.

I push the lever of the wine corker down and lift the lever up again.

Here is the corked wine. At a later date I will need to add the wine label and the foil shrink wrapping that covers the cork and part of the neck of the wine bottle.