After we moved into our new winery in 2019, there was one more piece of the operational puzzle left to complete: our own on-site bottling line.

That missing piece was solved around 18 months ago with the installation of our own winery bottling line composed of several high-end components, including a filler by Baroli, a corker by Arol, a capper by Nortan, and a labeler by C&G—all of which are Italian made.

The upside of this new bottling line was immediately felt by Winemaker Stewart Cameron. “For starters, it allows us to be fully in control of our own bottling schedule, compared to hiring a mobile bottling line and crew,” he says.

He adds, “Most important, we have total quality control. For example, we are able to more closely monitor and limit any pickup of dissolved oxygen (DO), allowing us to address any issues immediately.”

The result is a more complete assurance of wine integrity during any given bottling. “The more we can eliminate incidences of DO at bottling, the more it will allow our wines to age gracefully in the bottle, for longer periods of time,” Stewart says. “It’s just another small but incremental win for wine quality at Ancient Peaks.”