Wine Word of the Week: Bottling
By Kori ~ May 8th, 2012.
This week’s Wine Word of the Week is bottling.
Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine:
Bottling is a vital wine-making operation for all wines other than those packaged in containers other than bottles and those few served straight from a cask or tank as bulk wine.
Bottling techniques vary greatly according to the size, resources, technical ability, and modernity of the winery, although since the 1960s it has been customary almost everywhere to blend all casks or vats of a given lot of wine together before bottling, and to bottle it all at once.
Layman’s terms from Kori:
Bottling is the final step in the winemaking process in which wines are transferred from their barrels, casks, or vats to bottles (at least for wines that are to be packaged in bottles). Once bottled, many wines, especially many red wines, are set aside to age in the bottle before they are sold or consumed.
Filed under: Wine Word of the Week