Over the past couple of months we have been busy tweaking and enhancing our label design on the majority of our wines (see previous post on ‘Label Art’ to see the end result). Now Bruce, Cameron, and Dan (our Operations Manager) are tying together all of the loose ends to prep for our first stage of bottling 2009 wines. There is a tremendous amount of work and planning that goes into bottling wine, not to mention the grueling days spent at the bottling line and physical work involved in bottling, labeling, and capsuling thousands of cases. All of the little things that go into packaging have to be sorted out before the line gets moving.
At the Santa Barbara Winery facility (downtown on Anacapa St.) we have our own bottling line, where we bottle all of the wines for both Lafond and Santa Barbara Winery. It requires a strong and hardworking labor force, who show up day after day to get the job done one case at a time.
If you come by the winery during the week in the next couple of weeks you may be able to catch a glimpse of the line in process. You will at the very least be able to hear the clanking of bottles!
White wines and Rose are typically ready to bottle first, and we will do a second round of bottling of 2009 wines in the fall of 2010, right before the next harvest begins… Starting to see how the cycle works? Gotta make room for the new grapes and juice coming in.
Joanie Hudson, Director of National and International Marketing, Santa Barbara Winery / Lafond Winery & Vineyards
Very interesting in the process of wine production. Makes you think about the winemakers job and the physical labor of the folks that bottle the wines. Every sip of wine I take, I will think of that bottlers hard work!