How to Bottle Wine

Even in France, good wine is expensive. So my host family has a neat way of saving money and recycling wine bottles: They bottle the wine themselves.

Benoit asked me yesterday if I'd be interested in helping him. Of course, I said yes.

The wine was shipped to the house in 2 enormous boxes, each holding 10 L (enough to fill 27 bottles, or over 2.5 gallons) with accompanying labels and corks.

Benoit has been saving bottles for quite some time, soaking them to get their original labels off and cleaning them to start with a fresh flavor:

Each bottle has the crest of Roi René d'Anjou imprinted on it, as the original contents were wines of the Anjou region. As an added twist, we were only using these bottles for the red wine from Anjou. Benoit really likes the symbolism involved.

After gathering all of the bottles, you begin filling them with the wine:

You fill the bottle up until there are 5 centimeters (2 inches) of space left in the neck. Next comes the fun part: inserting the cork.

The Bertrand-Rome family keeps a nifty machine on hand to make this process possible:

You place the cork in the hole at the top of the mechanism. Next, you position the bottle on an adjustable paltform beneath it, making sure to aline the lip of the bottle with the ridge indicating the position of the cork. Then pull down on the lever, which maneuvers the cork into position above the bottle while the metal rod in the middle of the lever forces the cork into the bottle. It's really very nifty. Benoit and I formed a kind of efficient assembly line: he filled the bottles while I corked them.

After all 27 bottles were filled with red wine and corked and the bag within the box was empty, it was time to apply the new labels. Believe it or not, we used milk as the adhesive. After filling a bowl with said milk, we dipped each label into it, then placed it carefuly on each bottle wipping away the excess milk with a cloth.

Benoit did the first several bottles, then we commenced to form a second assembly line: I applied the labels and set the bottles aside to dry, while Benoit ran the fresh bottles down to the cellar four at a time.

And that, ladies and gentleman, is how you bottle your own wine at home.

It's cost effective and better for the environment. Plus, it's a lot of fun!