Mountain Girl Winery may not have any mountain girls right now, but that doesn’t stop the winemaking process!

I sanitized, filled, and corked twenty-nine bottles which are now standing in the cellar. Tomorrow they get turned on their sides and sit for at least a month before they are ready for drinking.

Siphoning wine is not as tiresome as it sounds, though the wine doesn’t taste perfect yet. It requires some oxygenization in the bottle to be truly ready for drinking.

The bottles are not full because you need some space for the cork.

I rented this big heavy contrivance – the corker, from Fermentation Solutions, free of charge. It squashed the corks then pushed them down into the bottle. I am sure it made the job much easier. I only mangled one cork, which was lucky because I had 30, for 29 bottles.