# Bottling



## Flem (Jan 2, 2011)

I've got a question on labeling.
I just ordered my first kit. I'm sure the grapes were harvested and the kit was packaged in 2010. It will be bottled in 2011. What date goes on the label?



Thanks


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## Goodfella (Jan 2, 2011)

This can turn into a debate.....


I use the year that I started the wine.


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## Wade E (Jan 2, 2011)

Date I started the wine.


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## ibglowin (Jan 2, 2011)

+3

Date or year in which you pitched the yeast and started turning it into wine!


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## Runningwolf (Jan 2, 2011)

I put the date I bottled


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## Flem (Jan 2, 2011)

Thanks to all for your input. Now to see if Customer Service can change my label order from "2010" to "2011".


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## rrussell (Jan 2, 2011)

I put the date that it finishes fermenting figuring that is when it becomes wine and starts the aging process. I also put the month and year on the label so I don"t have to keep looking it up to know its age. If you just put the year it could be a month old if made last December or almost a year old if made last January.


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## Flem (Jan 3, 2011)

RRussel


Thanks for your input. I understand exactly what you are saying. I'm going to keep detailed records of when fermentaion started and when I bottled the wine. I'm just looking for a date to put on the bottle's label. I believe in my case, I'll use 2011.


Flem


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## Flem (Jan 3, 2011)

They did change it---no questions asked.


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## dz-015 (Jan 4, 2011)

I am using the month and year in which most of the fermentation takes place. For instance, I started a kit on December 30, but the fermentation will occur until late January. I'll put "Fermented January 2011" on the bottle, since, when you think about it, all I'm doing is really fermenting some juice.


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## Wade E (Jan 4, 2011)

Wine becomes wine as soon as the yeast starts, until then its just must.


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## whino-wino (Jan 5, 2011)

I think I asked this very same question a long while back. Got lots of different answers too. I believe someone had answered my question stating that your typical commercial winery always uses the year that the grapes were grown, and that makes perfect sense since certain years are considered "vintage" and others are not.

In the end I probably do what most people here do and that is use the year that I fermented it. Case in point, I've got an Amarone in the carboy that's been clear and ready to bottle for almost a year now. I'll likely leave it there for another year if I can, but when I make the labels it will say 2009.


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## PeterZ (Jan 5, 2011)

I use the year the grapes were grown for the vintage, but I put a secondary label on the back containing the dates the yeast was pitched and the bottling date.


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## Flem (Jan 6, 2011)

PeterZ,


Your opinion is what I expected most of the group to say. The opinions varied. But, as Goodfella answered to my original question, "that can turn into a debate".
Thanks to everyone for their input.


Mike (Flem)


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## Danny (Feb 18, 2011)

I put a 5 digit code on the bottom of my labels with the 1) the year and 2) the batch number of that year. Keep a log that has the starting and bottling date of each batch, but guess you could say the "year" on my bottle would be the year I fermented the batch.


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## Wiz (Feb 18, 2011)

In deference to all those with more experience, even though also keep a log, I use a date of the day it went into the secondary. I bulk age the fruit wines I make for 3 months and then bottle, tasting after another 3 months. It just makes it easier for me to look at the label's date to determine if it may be ready withut running every time to my log sheets.


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## Rocky (Mar 16, 2011)

PeterZ said:


> I use the year the grapes were grown for the vintage, but I put a secondary label on the back containing the dates the yeast was pitched and the bottling date.












I realize that I am somewhat at tyro in winemaking, but I have to agree with Peter. To me, the "vintage" has always been about the quality of the grapes used in the wine and not the art of the wine maker. Great vintages result from the ideal combinations of sun, water and soil and this varies from year to year. The ability of wine maker is assumed.


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## grapeman (Mar 16, 2011)

I have to disagree somewhat with that statement Rocky. Yes the season makes a great vintage, but you can never assume the winemaker will make the best of those grapes. Like any other skill, there is a lot of variability in the abilities and capabilities of winemakers. Give the same grapes to two people, and you will get two different wines, even if they are both good at it.


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## Wade E (Mar 16, 2011)

I agree with appleman in that everybody has different ways of doing something and teases the wines when they are done differently also. You can easily take a good grape and make crappy wine out of it and many different levels in between.


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## Rocky (Mar 16, 2011)

We are talking about "apples and oranges" here. I am talking about "vintage year" as it applies to the winemaking industry in general and not the hobby. In that industry,the "vintage" refers to the year that the grapeswereharvested. 


*See:*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vintage "<?amespace prefix = o ns = "urnchemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />A *vintage wine* is one made from grapes that were all, or primarily, grown and harvested in a single specified year. Most countries allow a vintage wine to include a portion of wine that is not from the year denoted on the label. In Chile and South Africa, the requirement is 75% same-year content for vintage-dated wine. In Australia, New Zealand, and the member states of the European Union, the requirement is 85%. In the United States, the requirement is 85%, unless the wine is designated with an AVA, (American Vitcultural Area e.g., Napa Valley), in which case it is 95%. Technically, the 85% rule in the United States applies equally to imports, but there are obvious challenges in enforcing the regulation."
*See also: *http://www.frenchscout.com/wine-vintages"Basically the *vintage* refers to the *year* in which the grapes were harvested. This notion also hints at both the *weather* conditions in which the grapes grew and the *quality* of these grapes." 


In actual practice in the industry, the year of the harvest and the year of production are in virtually all cases the same, so there islittle cause for confusion. Further, regarding the talent of the winemaker, I suppose that it is possible for a commercial winery to botch an entire harvest, but this is very unlikely.


Hobbyists who want to indicate _when_ they made a particular wine as the "vintage" are free to do so. In the interest of accuracy, they should also include the month.


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## FL Steve (Mar 16, 2011)

Actually, I would say you are all right to some extent. Commercial wine grapes are harvested and processed the same year so as long as they are not blended over the limits Rocky stated, they label it with the year, the "vintage". They have to label them that way because the law says so, but it does help for reference. The issue is when home winemakers use a kit which has been preserved and the fermentation not started for a year or more, what date then? Do we refer to the year the grapes were grown so that we know if it was a good year or not? Do we use the date we make the wine, for our own records? I guess it does not really matter. As long as we let our friends know what they are getting as Peter does and we are not misrepresenting our wines, who cares. They are getting it for free so they can't complain anyway.

Wade is right, when all of the planets align and everything clicks, it is described as a "vintage year", "vintage" was a noun and "vintage year" is an adjective describing the year. 1918 and1945 in Europe were examples and it is yet to be proven if 2010 was in New York State. You can't make good wine from bad grapes but you can sure screw up a good year if you don't know what you are doing. Like appleman says, you can give a Stradivarius to a novice, that is no guarantee you will be playing at Carnegie Hall. I guess everyone is saying pretty much the same thing just a little differently.

Now you are saying, "I wish he would go back to lurking".


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## Wade E (Mar 16, 2011)

Bwaaaaaa Haaaaaaa haaaaaaaaaa!


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## Rocky (Mar 24, 2011)

Hey Guys, if you take the wine quiz under *General Wine Questions/Discussions*, you better watch out for question #12.


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