On Monday, eight brave wine lovers volunteered to help Potomac Point bottle three new batches of wine. The day began early in the morning with a group who was wide-eyed and ready to go. Something many people may not know is that the bottling process is actually a movable assembly line that travels to us! In the back of a large semi-truck the line fills, labels, corks, and puts the capsules on each and every bottle of wine. It is truly a fascinating process to witness, but as we all know, sometimes in life we face a few “hiccups”.
The day started with our volunteers putting the capsules on our Merlot bottles by hand while the truck was being set up. Everybody worked together to create an assembly line of their own, with each bottle passing under a heat gun. Once the Merlot was finished, it was time to put the capsules on Abbinato, thankfully the truck was ready to do that part for us. As the volunteers unloaded the bottles onto the assembly line, everybody waited for them to come out the other end. When the bottles arrived, we unfortunately noticed that the labels were getting torn up. These volunteers knew what that meant, back to the heat gun and their own assembly lines. Just like fine wine, the bottling process takes time to iron out all the kinks.
Another hour, a couple slices of pizza, and a glass of wine later the truck was ready, this time to start bottling a batch of Cabernet Franc. The volunteers again climbed into the truck ready to go, as the first few empty bottles started traveling through the assembly line, everyone held their breath waiting for the finished product. Sure enough, out came a beautiful bottle and after that time flew! When the Cabernet Franc was bottled, then came the special blend created in the club blending challenge, and the day was wrapped up by bottling the new batch of Tempranillo. The day finally wrapped up; the once wide-eyed volunteers were exhausted but all felt a sense of accomplishment for preparing theses bottles of wine, ready for thirsty souls everywhere!
