Two pieces of equipment that make like easier for the home winemaker, a bottle tree and floor corker. We bottle 200 plus bottles a year and the floor corker is worth its proverbial weight in gold. On the days we bottle it takes about three hours from the time I start getting things out until everything is cleaned and air drying or put away. It seems like a lot time, but several years later when the wine is poured into a glass and tasted, followed by the “WOW, that is really, really good,” we know it was well worth the time spent making our own wines just the way we like them.

Just finished bagging a batch of Island Mist Coconut Yuzu that my wife loves. We ended up with three 3 liter bags, two five liter bag and two 1.5 liter bottles from the kit. We always leave the bags on the floor for a couple of days to check for any leakers. We also number the bag and the valve so they always go together as we reuse them over and over.

We also measure out the wine that goes into each bag. Three 1.5 liter bottles and a 750 ml bottle marked at the half liter level work perfectly to fill the five liter bags. While these wines can be consumed as soon as they are bottled or bagged it is never a good idea to have her run out of her wines so I try to always have a year or two supply on hand. She will likely be drinking these in late 2023 or early 2024 depending on our travel schedule.

A tortilla, lean smoked turkey lunchmeat, sautéed sweet onions, quesadilla cheese and spicy mustard, all grilled to perfection. My wife is trying to use up as much food in the refrigerator as she can. It has literally been decades since we had this, but it sure won’t be that long before we have it again. Like later this week. Something tells me we won’t find this in a restaurant in Europe. But then again, we very seldom find food as good as we have when traveling overseas, when we eat at restaurants in the US. And to think, a week from today we will be in France. Can’t wait for some awesome goat cheese.