I visited a winery recently because a wine I made was being transferred from a tank into bottles—and I realized once again that wine isn’t all sweetness and light.
Most people who visit wineries do so by entering a tasting room, where they’re welcomed by smiling greeters who tell them a bit about what they are to experience and hand them pristine wine glasses into which they'll poor an ounce or so of a delicate liquid.
It’s a sybaritic experience that’s ostensibly intended to provide details of how the product is crafted. But this is a sanitized version of how that liquid got into that bottle.
What visitors will never see are the black, moldy walls, the wet floors, the large hoses, the fruit flies, the cold rooms, the odd smells, and all the other trappings that must necessarily be part of the production end of making this elixir that’s intended for caviar, crystal chandeliers, high heels, and tuxedos.
Making wine is messy. And hard work. It is not for the faint of heart. It requires the movement of large barrels filled with wine, some of which are so heavy that they can be budged only by a forklift. It calls for the use of heavy metal fittings. It calls for giant, stainless tanks that must be cleaned from the inside.
It requires huge trucks, large picking bins, water hot enough to sanitize equipment, and dozens of arcane tools, all of which must be kept nearly as clean as a hospital operating room.
Which isn’t easy when you have workers wearing rubber boots and overalls and who haven’t had a shower in days.
In the northern hemisphere, the harvest of grapes for 2024 is imminent. Everything is at a fever pitch. And as wineries prepare for the first grapes to come in from vineyards, the activity is as high as it will ever be.
Many wineries are in the process of bottling last year’s wines, because they are still in giant tanks which must be emptied; they are needed for this year’s new wine. That means that bottling equipment is in constant use. Wineries don’t close down at 5 p.m.
For the next several weeks, winery workers will not use the words “sleep” or “coffee break” except as epithets. Some parents won’t see their kids for weeks.
And the one constant that will be evident at every winery for the next few months is noise. From truck engines, grape crushers, pumps, bottling lines, enormous fans, conveyor belts, and bosses’ shouted orders.
Sonoma County winemaker Adam Lee observed last week: “The worst sound at bottling time is silence. Because that means the bottling line is not running, which means that it’s probably broken.” He said he cherishes the sounds of glass bottles clanging together, the conveyor belt groaning, workers filling cardboard boxes.
“As long as the line is working. I hate silence.”
Winemakers all understand this. Transferring liquid from tanks to bottles, the last activity in the process before the wine is headed for cases and good storage in a warehouse, can never really be halted.
A broken bottling line is a nightmare.
Years ago, a winery owner told me he was interviewing one of four finalists for the head winemaker’s job. All four were excellent. The owner’s door burst open, and the foreman said, “The bottling line just quit, and the repair man isn’t available!”
The winemaker candidate said, “Let me look at it.” Twenty minutes later, the line was running again.
“I hired him on the spot,” said the owner. “That’s how important the bottling line is!”
Touring a winery tasting room displays for visitors the final product. The above scenario is one reason that visiting production areas is not an activity that most wineries encourage.
