Bottle washing and family reunion

An intense weekend. First, on saturday, my dad and i got up at 7:00, filled a thermos with hot water for mate, bought some hot "tortitas" and drove to the winery. We joined my uncle Oscar and cousin Osvaldo there, who were already washing bottles. The bottles in question are special ones; their equivalent in Norway would be the 3 liter wine boxes, except that these bottles have capacity for 5 liters instead. They look just like this one on the left, little plastic basket and all. In my translation i've called them "bottles", but they look more like jugs, don't they? Anyways, the spanish word for them is "damajuanas", which would literally translate as "ladyjanes". This isn't an english word at all, but it's more fun to say i spent saturday washing lady Janes (lady Jane's what?) than to say i spent it washing bottles.

Thing is, each time you sell a lady Jane filled with wine, you get back an empty one from the customer. That way, wineries don't need to be buying new lady Janes all the time. You simply remove the old labels, wash it inside and out, fill it with wine, stick a new label, and voilá! Lady Jane is again ready to pour.

Sounds simple, but it has its method. First you fill many vats with warm water and soak the lady Janes in them, bottoms up, so that the labels soften up and become easier to remove. You move from one vat to the next, with a scouring pad for the recalcitrant bit of paper and a penknife to get rid of the plastic capsules. You also need a special tool to remove the occasional piece of cork from lady Jane's insides.

After that, each lady Jane gets its insides washed by a special machine (operated by hand) that shoots high pressure jets of a solution of water and caustic soda. Then they go through another vat in which they are rinsed inside and out and their baskets are checked and replaced, if necessary. Finally, they go through the special machine once more, except this time they get only water, in order to make sure that all the caustic soda is completely removed. Finally you pile them up, and they are (almost) ready to be filled.

On saturday we managed to prepare thus 600 lady Janes, which we'll fill this wednesday. We'll use the special washing machine once more, this time with a solution of water and sodium metabisulphite (a sanitizer). By means of a pump, this solution will also be made to run through the pipes that will be used to transfer the wine from the tanks to the dossifier, also operated by hand. We'll cork them with another machine, put plastic capsules on top, seal them with heat, hand glue the labels, and stack them. It'll be another long day, but it's fun: everybody jokes and chats, we pause around noon, drink mate, eat some sandwiches...

Sunday was lighter, but very "familiar", too. Got together for lunch with a few uncles and cousins... Here's some pics: