# Bottles



## deboardfam (Jun 21, 2010)

How do you guys get your bottles? I always find myself trying to find ways to get bottles. Buying bottles are quite expensive. Reusing and sanitizing seems to be the best but still I am barely keeping up collecting with the batches I am making. The $1 a piece bottles available locally are not great bottles.


----------



## bigabyte (Jun 21, 2010)

Talk to a restaurant to see if they can hold back their empty wine bottles for you.


----------



## arcticsid (Jun 21, 2010)

My LHBS sponsors alot of wine tastings. They save them for anyone who wants them, not a ton of wine makers here so I usually get the most of them..

As opposed to a bar or tavern, contact a fine dining restaurant. More likely to serve wine. The promise of a bottle or two of your product might get them to save them for you. Be sure you pick them up as promised. Noone is going to want to have cases of empty bottle piling up except us who make the stuff!!!


----------



## deboardfam (Jun 21, 2010)

LOL exactly. I live in a dry county. Restaurants are mainstream around here and still a ways away. Will see what I can do.


----------



## arcticsid (Jun 21, 2010)

How does that work in a dry county? ou can still have alcohol, but not by it right?

We have villages here and they are dry. And they mean it. No alcohol allowed in any shape or form.

Its not the same as what you refer to as a dry county right?


----------



## Tom (Jun 21, 2010)

I'm in a dry town. I go to some BYOB/W restaurants and pick up wine bottles. Let all your friends know you are looking for bottles you be surprised who drinks wine. Just ask for the empties.


----------



## Wade E (Jun 21, 2010)

I get mine from a recycling center(dump, transfer station) that is not eve my town but 2 towns over. I call them on Saturday Morn and ask then to save them and when I get there about 2:30 in the afternoon they usually have 130 or there abouts for me and I throw them a few bottles of my wine and they are thrilled. If there are any wineries near you that do tastings ask them as they are not allowed by law to reuse them. I grabbed 7 cases last time I went to a tasting.


----------



## deboardfam (Jun 21, 2010)

Wow wade.. good idea. There is a brand new winery in my area.
The recycling center cant recycle them or do they just save them for you instead? I would die if I got 130 bottles LOL. That would last me a bit.


----------



## deboardfam (Jun 21, 2010)

artic... no dry around here just means it cant be sold. We have to drive 20 minutes to another county or so that is "wet"


----------



## bigabyte (Jun 21, 2010)

Thanks for that idea Wade. There are a number wineries not too far from here. I never knew that before.


----------



## arcticsid (Jun 21, 2010)

Not as long as you think. A 5 gallon batch will take 2 cases. Get as many as you can whenever or whereever you can.

Someone else mentioned not long ago about getting them from a winery. They may be able to sell them to you at a good price. They get them by the truckload.

Free ones are always better though. LOL


----------



## Wade E (Jun 21, 2010)

As for the wine bottles they actually take them out of the dumpster for me.


----------



## arcticsid (Jun 21, 2010)

You must offer them some fine wine for them to do that for you buddy!!!


----------



## deboardfam (Jun 21, 2010)

Nice. My uncle is a trash man in a nicer neighborhood around here. He usually gets about 20 a week or so but my dad scoops those up LOL I get what he doesnt like out of the group.


----------



## Runningwolf (Jun 21, 2010)

I get all the bottles I want for 2.00 a case from the Wineries around here. There are some that give em away free but you only get a case or two. Its worth it for me to just go and pick up 15 20 cases at a time and pay the 2 bucks.


----------



## Wade E (Jun 21, 2010)

The Guess Who wrote a song about that called "Hand Me Down Blues"!


----------



## arcticsid (Jun 21, 2010)

I could start a whole new thread about dumpster diving. We have transferstations scattered around the borough.

It is an art and a science around here.

I am not cheap, I am poor!!! LOL


----------



## non-grapenut (Jun 21, 2010)

arcticsid said:


> I could start a whole new thread about dumpster diving. We have transferstations scattered around the borough.
> 
> It is an art and a science around here.
> 
> I am not cheap, I am poor!!! LOL



With the economy the way it is...none of us are above dumpster diving. Nothing is better than free.


----------



## arcticsid (Jun 21, 2010)

I am not talking about looking for food!! I have seen people build houses with reclaimed stuff.

I know many people who make a pretty decent living from the dumpster finds. Scrap metal alone.

My entire computer came from the dumpster as did all the other ones, including the one I found and sold the next day for 300 dollars.

Dont get me started on diving. Tools?? dont have time to list all the tools I have got from the dumpster.

LOL


----------



## Wade E (Jun 21, 2010)

Me too with transfer stations. I live in a vry rich town although I am not rich!!!! 2 blocks away the houses are mansions but mine is a decent cape. I have 2 computers that came from there, a 19" flat screen monitor. 4 bicycles, a Powermatic wood planer, a 3 phone cordless phone system, and a couple leather office chairs. Im sure there is more but cant think at the minute. There are *big tvs* there all the time and one of these days Im going to buy a power inverter to test some of these tvs.


----------



## arcticsid (Jun 21, 2010)

Exactly. Almost all of our transfer sites have a cement covered area for people to put things as well as all the 20 or 30 dupsters themselves.

WE LOVE our dumpster diving here. The rich and the poor.


----------



## deboardfam (Jun 21, 2010)

LOL look what I got started. Makes me want to go dumpster diving now. 

I have heard of people doing it in construction sites for suburbs and building additions to their houses and things.


----------



## arcticsid (Jun 21, 2010)

I have seen and help some of those people do it. I am a proud American, but this has got to be one of the most wasteful countries in the history of mankind! And the people who waste!!

A damn shame too!!!

A few months ago a friend of mine dug out some nice double pane windows out of the dump. He sold them a few days late for almost a thousand dollars!! And at the same time one of the elderly who cant even afford to buy their medicine would have loved those windows to helpkeep the cold off of their old bones.

You dont have to hug a tree or a bunny, but please dont be wasteful.


----------



## myakkagldwngr (Jun 22, 2010)

Sunday my daughter took my wife and I too Carraba's for dinner...
You know Father's day.
While we were there we asked one of the managers if he would save the wine bottles for me.
He said yes....
My SIL said he would even take a garbage can there for them to put them in...
Now I just have to make certain he does that!
You know how kids forget things...


----------



## Mcamnl (Jun 22, 2010)

Last Thursday I called up a local Apple place that is also a winery and asked about empty bottles. It turns out they already save the empties for whoever calls. So I asked them to put my name on some and ran down Friday. 2 1/2 cases were sitting there with my name on them. Very nice.


----------



## deboardfam (Jun 22, 2010)

I will definately have to call the local winery that just opened. I bet they are going through bottles like crazy because it was a big deal in our town. They got a vote passed to let them open the winery in a dry county so it is the only one even remotely near here.


----------



## arcticsid (Jun 22, 2010)

DO it right now DE, dont hesitate, you know what they say about the early bird!!


----------



## deboardfam (Jun 22, 2010)

Im at work and I keep calling on my breaks but its busy lol


----------



## Wade E (Jun 22, 2010)

Fingers are crossed for ya!


----------



## jtstar (Jun 22, 2010)

I took your advice and e-mail both the wineries close to me and one of the wineries take his to the recycleing center and the other just gives them away so I put in a request at both wineries for some bottles
Jack


----------



## Dufresne11 (Jun 22, 2010)

WIsh I had a winery around here. I bet I have 100 or so empty bottle from friends saved up for me and I know it isn't enough. I will have another 18 gallons going soon so that is around 180 I am going to need for bottling soon.


----------



## myakkagldwngr (Jun 24, 2010)

We talked with my daughter last night and she said they went to the Carraba's we had talked with and sure enough, in the garbage can my SIL took there was somewhere around 20 bottles.
That would be probably from just a day, maybe two.
I hope that is the good sign I scored big on Father's day!


----------



## PPBart (Jun 24, 2010)

Dufresne11 said:


> WIsh I had a winery around here. I bet I have 100 or so empty bottle from friends saved up for me and I know it isn't enough. I will have another 18 gallons going soon so that is around 180 I am going to need for bottling soon.



Several years ago I asked the manager at a local resturant (where I ate regularly) if I could get empties. He said sure, if I would agree to haul away all they saved. Within the next few months I had hundreds of bottles -- and that was after I culled anything other than standard 750-ml bourdeaux, chardonnay and reisling styles. I finally thanked the manager with a case of assorted wines and told him I had all I needed. Still have cases of bottles stacked up in the storeroom, just gave 6 cases to a winemaking partner for upcoming bottling of 2009 muscadine.


----------



## gibbylet (Aug 26, 2010)

Wow, here I've been trying to get enough bottles ready for when I do my first bottling by just drinking a lot! 
However I just read this, so checked cragislist in my area and somebody is giving away 10 cases of used bottles for free that maybe I am in time to snag, and another person gathers and sells them and removes labels and washes them for you so I'd just have to rewash and sanitize. 
I'd love the idea of asking restaurants and wineries but I am an introvert so I think I'll hope for this to work out first!


----------



## Tom (Aug 26, 2010)

gibbylet said:


> Wow, here I've been trying to get enough bottles ready for when I do my first bottling by just drinking a lot!
> However I just read this, so checked cragislist in my area and somebody is giving away 10 cases of used bottles for free that maybe I am in time to snag, and another person gathers and sells them and removes labels and washes them for you so I'd just have to rewash and sanitize.
> I'd love the idea of asking restaurants and wineries but I am an introvert so I think I'll hope for this to work out first!



Here is what you NEED to do...

Drink a bottle of wine...

You will NOT be a introvert after doing that..

Problem solved !


----------



## UglyBhamGuy (Aug 26, 2010)

i have a lady at my work that "moonlights" for her sister's catering service and she always has plenty of wine bottles for me any given weekend.


----------



## Wade E (Aug 26, 2010)

I just ask the guy at my local dump(transfer station) to save me as many cork type wine bottles as he can for a week and on Sat. afternoon I stop by and usually pick up about 120 bottles and in return give him 3 or 4 bootles of my wine in exchange and he is thrilled to death as am I.


----------

