Wine bottle shortage?

[NorCal]

This your cellar, @NorCal ?

Local news.

 

[mikewatkins727]

KCRA?

 

[DavesWine]

If you're willing to put in a little manual labor there might be a way to get all the bottles you need for free.
I got to know the people at a local Italian restaurant and they were more than willing to give me the empty wine bottles they had. They go through a lot of wine, more on the weekend which is when I visited them at the end of day each week. All the bottles won't be the same but they tend to go through certain ones fairly regularly which does make for some consistency. I've found the quality of the bottles to be far better than what I would be willing to pay for.
Besides the travel to get them you do have to go through the work of washing and removing the labels, but since they are emptied that same day washing isn't difficult.
Doing this for the past few months I've managed to stock up on over 200 bottles.

 

[Jusatele]

my cellar is a few cases of bottles
i could only imagine room for 30 barrels

 

[winemaker81]

my cellar is a few cases of bottles
i could only imagine room for 30 barrels

"Barrel envy", something non-winemakers have no clue about.

All jokes aside, storage is a very serious question that all too many winemakers don't think through before doing. After purchasing my first barrel (used, it's neutral) I discussed the situation with a non-winemaker friend. The folks I purchased the first barrel from had a second 54 liter barrel, and I was debating on buying it. His reaction was, "Just buy it, it's not that much money." He was right, the purchase price was not a problem in any way.

I had room for one barrel, but not a second. I solved this by constructing a barrel rack out of 2x4's so they are stacked -- taking up the same floor space. The solution works fine, but once the barrels are full this structure ain't moving. I dropped the inside of a 3 piece airlock behind the rack -- I won't get it back until I rack the barrels this fall. [I have a LOT of airlocks, so it's not a problem, but it illustrates a point.]

He also didn't consider that in purchasing the second barrel, I committed to making 6+ mores cases of wine each year, which requires creating a second batch of at least 16 US gallons to keep that barrel full. When done, I have to store that wine.

The moral of this story is: think things all the way through before increasing production.

 

[Jusatele]

Winemaker, I get the moral.
I have to balance between space for home brew, and space for store bought. Space is a premium, if I up production, well store bought goes out the window, and we have some great Pinot Noir up here in the Pacific Northwest. Infact I just got a new Spiedel as I negotiated for a few square feet in the pantry. Yep, wives can be quite generous when you take them jewelery, got me some new fishing reels also.
I think that what she did not see coming is room for more storage means a up in production. It seems to be a viscous cycle. And new fermenter means I need a new carboy and a ............