Making Wine, Part 4

Filtering and bottling

Here are the links to Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 in case you missed them!

Step 8: Filtering

After levels have been adjusted and the wine has been aged sufficiently (usually a few months for whites and about a year for reds), it’s time to filter the wine in preparation for bottling:

Unfiltered wine from the top carboy is passed through the filter then exits to the bottom carboy

After filtering, the wine becomes noticeably clearer:

The filtered wine then sits for a few weeks to settle before bottling.

Step 9: Bottling

We begin by sanitizing the bottles:

The top part pumps the SO2/water mix and the bottom stores bottles to dry

Wine is then siphoned from the carboy to fill the bottles:

The bottles are then corked:

And there you have it! Finished wine.

Bonus: the friend whose house we bottled at (who owns the equipment shown above) was bottling his Cab Franc and Cab Sauv from 2016. To help the wine’s ability to cellar, he was testing different blends — we arrived at 75% Cab Franc and 25% Cab Sauv!

The aftermath, including the Pyrex used to measure. Tasting wine is one of the best parts of making wine!