Home Bottling

A Savoury Gamay Being Filled into Unlikely Containers...October in the Loire.
There are times when, being cash-strapped, you got to find new, inventive ways to purchase good-quality wine, especially for your daily needs, and buying wine in bulk ("vin en vrac" in french) directly at the winery is one of them. Don't pay attention to the unkempt-looking chai in the background, this winery makes wines that are both authenticly made, and have the capacity to give lots of pleasure, plus this special feel to drink and eat at the same time in a savoury manner. Not all wines can do that, and when you find one that, in addition, can be bought in bulk, you feel like winning at the lottery...
Although I already knew the wine in question, a Gamay 2006 from the Loire, the vigneron offered me to taste it again. On the very first sip, I thought, good shot, and said, well that's fine, let's fill...

I had brought the same 5-liter mineral-water containers that I use for these bulk purchases. The hand-held filler makes all these bubbles in the jar and you might think that it's bad for the wine, but I prefer to get wine directly from a vat than from a bag-in-box, because the bib-wine has already gone through all the standardisation processes like fining, filtration and sulphur addition. The wine here has still a bit of turbidity, it still holds a haze of lees and that may be why it tastes so good, it is alive and you feel it immediately. But many vignerons don't like to sell you wine directly from the vat, they feel unsecure about this "alive" thing and are afraid that you might get unexpected aromas developing after a while because of that. I'm not afraid at all of this possibility, even though I did get some bottles that veered strangely (aromaticly speaking) after several months. For me, these wines were still a pleasure, they just had developed something different.Another reason why the vignerons sometimes don't like to sell in bulk is because even though these sales are marginal and concerns mostly the local customers, they make far less money than when they sell in bottles : take a seat before you read this, I paid 11 Euro for the 10 liters, that makes 1,1 Euro a liter, and I understand that the vigneron prefers the winery name not be published here.
Whatever, the two 5-liter plastic jars are filled, put on the front of the old Citroën, time to move. After I left, I realized that the person at the winery had forgotten to give me the paper for the transportation of the wine : in France, you have to show this paper when you buy a certain quantity of wine in case of road check by the Gendarmerie, it says where you bought the wine, and the town or village of destination. This helps the law-enforcement body to check that there is no illegal alcohol commerce underway. I did come across a Gendarmerie unit that day along the road, but they didn't pull me over. I don't think I might risk something for 10 liters but they might try to force me to give up the name of the winery, which I would hate to do.All you need for your home-bottling of bulk wine is a manual corker and corks. The manual corker can be found in wine-accessories shops and even in ordinary supermarkets (in France). I have the small manual corker (lower left) for years and just bought this 100-cork pack at a Super-U supermarket for something like 8,5 Euro. I bought the cheapest corks but you can find different qualities like longer corks for wines you want to keep several years in the cellar. I don't expect to keep the wine so long, even though I still have in the cellar a few bottles that I bottled 7 years ago. Usually you have to put the corks in hot/tepid water a few minutes before use, which I did for these ones, before reading the fine print on the pack, and it said there was no need to put them in water because there was a chemical lining on the corks for easy insertion. An other chemical we don't really need, so I hope the hot water got me rid of it... I always keep a dozen bottles in advance in case I buy wine in bulk, 10 liters making a bit more than 13 bottles. The best is to always rinse a bottle immediately after finishing it, so that the cleaning and rinsing prior to bottling is easier. Thus, you don't have to fight with these dried sediments in the bottle. So, gather these already-clean-bottles near the sink, rinse each of them several times with hot water (I also prefer not to use any sanitizing chemical here) and dispose them upside-down before beginning the bottling.
Take a clean funnel and begin to fill, if possible keep the bottle tilted to limit the oxygenation. When it's time for the real thing, don't be afraid, as it looks more difficult than it actually is. The first important thing is to leave enough air at the top so that there'll be 1,5 or 2 cm left between the cork and the wine. Then, find a stable spot on the ground where you can move and work at ease, position the bottle safely on a newspaper (wine stains can mark tiles for ever), insert the new cork on the tool and position it vertically on the bottle neck. When you feel it right, put some weight on the bottle all the while pulling the handle down with a brief, strong movement. This has to be done very vertically, don't push sideways or it would throw the bottle away and break it. The bottle is now corked, the cork just bulging a bit, you just have to pressure it with the palm of your hand to push it in completely. If you never corked wine before, once the first successful try passed, you will probably never fail...
Keep the bottles standing for about a day before laying them down in you cellar.salvaging a Self-Bottled 1999 Cabernet-Franc That I Broke...This very day when I bottled the Gamay, I took out a bottle of Cabernet Franc that I bought in bulk in another Loire winery 7 years ago, to taste it and picture it. Alas, I broke the bottle neck but still managed to recover the wine with a coffee filter. I liked this wine from the start and although it developed some atypical aromas over the years, it still performs its magic and reminds me that I made a lucky purchase that day. There's a story about this wine : I went to this winery a sunday in 2000 (I know, I shouldn't disturb the vignerons like that) to buy 10 liters of wine. Nobody was there except a grandmother, the sons in charge were at a wedding. The old woman filled the 10-liter of Cabernet Franc that I had asked for, I paid and later in the day bottled the wine. When I tasted it, it was a revelation, an excellent, savoury Cabernet Franc, notably better than what I was used to buy there. Instead of coming back the same day to buy more, I came back the following week. Everybody was back at work and the man in charge, when asked about buying more of this Cabernet, hesitated and then answered that there was no more Cabernet-Franc because it had been blended with another wine, he said. I immediately understood that the old woman had sold me by error a wine that was not intended for the customers, but probably reserved for the owners. After several subsequent disappointing bottle-purchases there, I never bought wine from them again.

Comments

[Jack]

This would have been Post of the Year if you added two final paragraphs (plus photo) showing you attaching Chateau Petrus labels to each of these bottles, preferably 1947. There seems to be a continued demand for fakes from this vintage.

[Bertrand]

Hi Jack
Chateau Petrus labels on Loire-shaped bottles, it would be a hard sell....;-)

[Jack]

Ya think? I see two options: Spin it as an unauthorized Chateau rebottling. Or, "they ran low on bottles that year, still trying to recover from war shortages and about 10% of the vintage was bottled in Loire-style bottles. Don't worry, still the same juice."

[Michael Farrell]

About 10 years ago I visited a winery while bicycling through Tavel in October. I was surprised to see the sale of bulk wine as you described. One couple even brought a large container pulled on a small trailer behind their car to be filled. They must have been related to the vintner!

[Bertrand]

You don't need to be related to the vintner to buy wine in bulk. I just bought 10 liters that day but could have bought 100 liters just the same, it is perfectly legal in France. It is true that some family wineries try to make you buy their bibs instead, especially for smaller orders, but when asked for 100 liters I don't think they'll hesitate a second.

[Ruben]

Thanks for the story Bertrand. One question, why do you have to let the bottles stand a day before laying down?

[Bertrand]

I think that it is because when you forced the cork in, you trapped some pressured oxygen between the cork and the wine and if you put the bottles horizontally immediately, the oxygen will get into the wine. Keeping the bottles vertically a few hours is enough to let the pressured air go out.

[Mario]

Too funny. Brings back memories of my Dad's home made vino where he used whatever bottles or containers he could get his hands on.

[David]

How accurate, though where I live (Malapere area) most vignerons seem happy to sell en vrac, especialy if you have bought bottles there before. There is one domaine where I buy in bottle which has a rule only to sell en vrac to members of that commune but "exceptions can be made".

That said, and as you wrote, it is not the same as the bottled wine (despite what they say) so do taste before buying; it can be very good but it can have too much tannin.

[Sally Harrison]

Do you know of any wineries or other businesses in the U.S. providing what I used to call the "filling station model?" When I lived in the South of France 25 years ago you could bring your own vessel and fill-er-up, generally with locally produced table wines. I'm wondering if anyone has found a legal way to do that here. Thanks and I enjoyed reading about your adventures in purchasing en vrac.

[Rado]

You mentioned, that you prefer bottling wine from vat, and not from bag-in-box. But if I buy 10L Bag In Box wine and want to put it in bottles for later would that be a mistake?

[Bertrand]

I just think that when you fill your container directly from the vat and avoid the bag-in-box stage, you also avoid a SO2 adding which is always better (the wineries usually add some SO2 at bottling). But if the bag-in-box is the only option, why not, that's economically cheaper anyway.