St. Joseph's Day 2013

We did it!  We got all the wine bottled, corked, loaded up and into our cold room.

It took a few hours of time.  But we are happy with the results.

We did the Riesling first.  25 bottles, great color, not as sweet as a riesling usually is, but not dry.   But, you can tell it is homemade.....strong and delicious.  I had two sips and I was feeling it!!

 This is me doing the corking - it is back breaking after a while.  But we have a system now and I just pop a Tylenol PM when I get home - LOL

 Of course, we wore Fedora's.  My brother couldn't help us, he had worked all night getting rid of the snow that I talked about in a previous post (he works for the town) and then worked all day at his regular job, so he slept and we left him presents!

Corking on my knees seemed to help out my back also!

Then we did two demi-johns of Chianti.  This one also came out excellent.  Thomas is very happy with the results.  We got 52 bottles of Chianti and we left my brother a 1/2 gallon of Chianti (for the use of his wine cellar and his pans, etc) and also a 1/2 of a 1/2 gallon Riesling!

 Boxing up the Chianti after it was all corked.

 After everything is done, we taste!  This was the riesling and all you need is a few sips!!!

 Cristina (my niece) is our yearly photographer.  She likes to snap as many pictures as possible.  (She was also one of the Punxsutawney photographers)

 The third box of chianti.  

(This is the almost empty demi-john; we try to get as much out of the bottom as possible.  Sometimes there is a "mother" in there, or just bottom of the barrels stuff.....We strain it out and use it all.)

We have already handed out Riesling and Chianti to friends/neighbors/family who want to try it.

As an aside - Yesterday, hubby had to go get corks.  You can only get them in specialty stores.  While he was there, he decided to ask if there were any "leftovers".  These are the containers that are already pressed but just have to be put into the barrels or demi-johns and "worked on" for a couple of months.  They had Barbera (which is his favorite!), so he got another container of Barbara!  We will be bottling again in a few months!!!!