Bottling Homemade Wine

When it comes to bottling homemade wine it can be as simple as getting some gallon glass carboys or glass jugs and filling them up with your homemade wine, tighten on a screw cap and store them in the basement. That’s it.
Or, bottling homemade wine can become as complex as: selecting the perfect wine bottle, choosing a shape and color that suites your fancy; selecting a particular wine bottle cork, its length and decorative design printed on the side all being taken into account; choosing wine bottle labels that not only have complimentary colors that “work well” with the wine bottle color, but are custom made with the family’s name a crest prominently displayed. Wow, what a mouth full!
In reality, bottling homemade wine is somewhere between glass jugs and fancy wine labels. When one makes a decision to start making wine from grapes, they needn’t be bothered with such fine details as to what the wine bottle cork has printed on it’s side, but also they shouldn’t be so relaxed as to simply put the wine in glass jugs or a wine carboy and for forget about it.
When bottling homemade wine you need to have a plan, and the plan should be based on wine making knowledge that you receive from wine making books, wine making tips, etc. For example, in neither case above was sodium metabisulfite mentioned even though it is probably the most important thing to take into account when bottling homemade wine.
For more information on bottling homemade wine you may want to take a look at the article, “An Overview Of Wine Bottling” that is listed on our website. This article goes over the issue that really matter when you are bottling homemade wine. For example, it covers the difference in wine bottle cork quality and how this can effect your wine, not what’s printed on the side. This can be a big help when to you when it come down to time to buy corks.
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.