The wine making bottles you use are as much of a statement about you and your wine making, as they are ways for you to store your wine. There is a huge industry created around selling wine making bottles to either home wine makers or commercial wineries and the variety of bottles offered is pretty impressive. There is also a group of manufacturers that believe that the more wine the better and they offer a line of wine making bottles that would take a long time to fill. Whatever your preference, it is interesting to note just how many different types of wine making bottles are available to you for storing and packaging your wine.
Wine making bottles, first and foremost, need to be clean before you put your wine into them. If you plan on reusing old wine making bottles for a new batch of wine you may want to get them professionally cleaned. Old wine mixing with new wine in old wine making bottles makes for a really bad combination. So make sure your bottles are either new or professionally cleaned before you use them. After that it is just a matter of choosing which type of wine making bottles say what you want them to say about your wine. A dark slender bottle may indicate a feeling that your wine if of a higher quality. A clear bottle indicates confidence that you want everyone to see your wine before they even pour it. You could also get decorative bottles for holiday occasions or as gifts for any time. A decorative wine bottle with homemade wine can be a very interesting gift.
Then Add Some American Pizzazz
It is hard to imagine anything in this world without the good old American twist to it and making wine certainly has some of that good old American thinking behind it. Not only can you get elegant wine bottles to package and store your wine, but now you are able to purchase plastic containers specifically designed to store and distribute mass amounts of alcohol. Some enterprising American business people now offer plastic jugs that hold upwards of eight gallons of wine for your storing and packaging pleasure. The best part is that these jugs also have inserts along the side where you can tap a spout into them and use your plastic wine jug as a big old keg. Many of the people that make and market these jugs say they are better than bottles in so many practical ways. Many wine making purists think it is a joke how huge these plastic jugs are and dismiss them without a thought. I think it is just good old American ingenuity at work.
Whatever you prefer, the elegant look or the bulk approach, you have your choice when it comes to wine making bottles. You should always try and keep wine out of direct sunlight and if you do that then you can put your wine in any bottles you want. If you insist upon exposing your wine to direct sunlight then you can use beer cans or brown beer bottles for your wine. That could very well be the next great American wine innovation in the years to come, wine cans.
