Harvest-Barreling and Bottling

The final stage of making wine is letting it age in barrels and then bottling. After the juice has been crushed, pressed, and fermented it will be moved to oak barrels. Our barrels are usually made from either American or French oak. From what I know, the difference between French and American oak comes down to the tighter grains in French oak and more flavor in American oak. (I will study this topic more and report back later)

Once the wine is moved to barrels it will sit there for about 18 months. During this time, some wine evaporates through the wood and the remaining wine also takes on flavors from the oak. Newer oak barrels will lend much stronger flavors to the wine, so at Brutocao we use a mix of new, younger and older barrels to maintain an even blend of flavors and aromas at the end. Also during this period, the barrels need to be topped off periodically. While this doesn’t seem like a lot of work, it takes a lot of time to get the forklift, unstack up to a hundred barrels, get the pumps sanitized, do all of the work, and restack the barrels. A simple task like this can take 2 people 4-5 hours!

Not all wine is put in barrels. Almost all of Brutocao wine is barreled, but their Bliss line is not. When wine is not barreled it is often left in the stainless steel tanks where oak sticks or chips will be added to lend an oaky characteristic to the wine.

Once the wine maker decides that the wines are ready, he and his staff will smell/taste all of the barrels and come up with a wonderful blend that gives the wine the desired color, taste, aroma, texture, structure and acidity. When this blend is achieved they will mix all of the selected barrels together and send it to the bottling line.

Once the wine arrives at the bottling line, empty glass bottles are loaded into the bottling line. A machine will blow the inside out with high-pressured air to remove any possible dust particles, then the bottle is filled with wine and a spray of nitrogen is inserted on top right before the cork is inserted. The nitrogen is placed in the bottle because it is heavier than air and will prevent the wine from coming into contact with oxygen once inside the bottle. After the cork is placed, the bottle moves over to a capper where a foil cap is placed on top and sealed tight. The final step is the label application, where in one seamless motion the bottle rolls in a circle and the front and back labels are applied. At the end, the wine bottles are put into a box and stored in our warehouse until their release date.