Bottle Windfall

I have no idea how the rumor mill works. I picture it as a sort of perpetual motion machine. A complex intertwining of pulleys and levers driven by a huge sail device that turns on the winds of its own gossip. Words move around on conveyor belts, occasionally dropping off into the ears of the mill workers, who sometimes add fresh rumors to the assembly line. Like any industrial situation, there are frequently byproducts, both positive and negative. The current mill byproduct seems to be a good one, precipitated by the discovery by one of the secy’s at work that I make my own wine.

It turns out she’s a wine fan, and has a stack of bottles that she hasn’t yet thrown out. I have close to twenty five gallons of wine working away in my basement and I think recycling is a good idea. Add those two ideas together and you get a situation where I exchange a single full bottle of my apple wine for a couple copier boxes full of empty bottles. Said exchange has been in the works for a couple weeks, but may actually take place today. She’s got a box or two of bottles in her car and I’ll be working late, so she’ll be able to go out, get them, and come back before I need to leave.

After that, it’s just a matter of getting them “in process” with the remnants of the basement bottle brigade. Some of them will be discarded out of hand, of course. Rosemont Estates for example has a big cursive capital “R” embossed on their glass bottles. Very cool, but not something I really want on my wines, so out they’ll go. Others may have silkscreening, or clear plastic labels which are nearly impossible to remove, so they’ll get canned as well.

I’ve got enough bottles of my own that I can be a bit picky when sorting through a grab bag. Plus, when I think about what kind of wine to buy, I think about five basic things: flavor, texture, clarity, maturity, and how easily the labels soak off of the bottles. I’m not sure what it says about me as a wine conniseur, but it sure can help with the cleanup when I’m getting ready to bottle my own stuff.