Dirt to Glass: DiStefano Winery

Ah, it’s been a journey from deleafing, harvest, sorting, and now bottling. It’s such a glamorous life in the wine industry. I spent a long day bottling at DiStefano Winery a few weeks ago. Hillary Sjolund is the wine maker and she told me that bottling is not the favorite part of winemaking for the winery or the winemaker. We started our morning off bottling Petit Verdot and if you get a chance to try this you will be impressed. Most will go to the wine club list. Maybe an opportunity to sign up? All went well with this run. We then moved on to Cabernet Sauvignon and that’s when things started to change. Some of the wine jets didn’t always work or fill correctly, the cork funnel got jammed up a number of times, and then the labels were not going onto the bottle correctly. After many stops and starts we did get all of the Cabernet in the bottles. I will agree with Hillary that it’s not the most fun part of winemaking but I had a great day working with some fun people who love Woodinville wine.