6/30/03 - SG=1.01, 71*, still cloudy, racked

After racking, the wine was still very cloudy as fermentation completed in the carboy. Notice the airlock on the top of the carboy.

7/9/03 - SG=.995 - racked. Wine is clear and still.

Notice the sediment at the bottom. That is the remains of the yeast and other solids from the juice. The wine is starting to clear nicely.

Here is the other end of the racking tube, the clear wine is going into a clean carboy.

7/19/03 - Ready for bottling. Last look at it in the carboy. Nice and clear, good color!

7/20/03 - Final racking before bottling. Added 40ppm meta to prepare for bottling and aging.

A tip I picked up from other home winemakers was to use a bit of plastic wrap to keep the stopper in place.

7/28/03 - Getting ready to bottle. This is a bottle tree that holds the new bottles upside-down as I apply a quick sulfite rinse.

The gadget on top of the tree rinses out the bottles. The rest of the bottling tools have just been washed.

After taking over the kitchen, I used a filter (with no filter) to make it easier to pump the wine and control the filling of bottles.

Hmmm...looks good...

Filling the bottles using the filter as just a pump.

Ye olde fashioned Conlin Winery ;-)

Inserting corks using a hand corking tool.

A little left over for the wine maker...

First tasting, not bad for a rookie!

The results of bottling and corking. 30 bottles of Chardonnay!

I let the bottles stand upright for a couple of days to make sure the corks were seated properly, and prevent any leaks.

7/29/03 - Finished off the bottles by adding heat-shrink capsules to the tops, and lables that I had printed.

7/30/03 - Tucked away on their own rack in the cellar! Mission accomplished!