I know I talk too much, but I can't resist!
Do not feel bad over spilled wine, feel proud! Think of it as a right of passage. In my circle, there has been a tradition of naming your winery after the first disaster.
Mop-N-Glow
Years back, one winemaking couple crushed their grapes and took it home. They placed the must in their cellar, on an old pool table thinking that this would be safe.
Well, nothing is safe when you have a 2 year old in the house. The kid knocked over their carboy which crash landed (glass) onto their basement tile floor. They heard the crash and came running down the stairs to find the kid (completely unharmed, thank God) on the pool table crying like no tomorrow, glass and wine all over the floor.
Thinking quickly, and having an empty carboy they planned to use for racking, they took out a sponge mop that just so happened to be brand new and still in it's wrapper. They spent the better part of 2 hours sponge mopping the must from the floor, into the carboy. In total, they only lost about a gallon. They let it settle, bought a new carboy, and racked the must before adding yeast. Word is that the wine still turned out OK.
They told me the story and henceforth they were know as the mop-n-glow winery..
Dropped Bottle
Yet another person I know went to take is carboy of must home. As he went to lift his glass carboy off of the concrete floor, he did not realize that he put his hand on a yellow jacket that was sitting on the outside of the carboy.
He got the carboy fully lifted when that little bugger stung him in the hand. Reflexes kicked in and he immediately let go of the carboy. the carboy (glass), filled with 5 gallons of must, fell 5 feet and smashed against the concrete floor with extreme prejudice. Within a matter of seconds, most of the must had found its way into the dry well.
Afterwards, he ranted about how I had trained the insect to sting him (you got to know how we kid each other).
Henceforth, he was known as the "Dropped Bottle Winery".
Then there is me
My very first batch of wine I ever made was 10 gallons of chardonnay, and 10 gallons of cabernet. I make wine from fresh grapes mostly because the kits available at the time (and unlike today) yielded something resembling pond scum in August.
All went well. I had the grapes crushed, through primary fermentation, and pressed. I had placed the 4 carboys on this laundry bench that my father-in-law had made.
The next week, we went on vacation to Mexico for 10 days.
When we got back from vacation, I was eager to check on the wine. I dropped the bags into the kitchen and noticed a very strong wine smell. I ran into the cellar only to find that the laundry bench had collapsed and 3 of the 4 carboys had smashed. the room had a dry well, so all of that wine was gone. Nothing left but dry shards of glass.
By some miracle, one of the carboys had landed on its side and was still in tact. The stopper was still in place and, even though it was laying on its side for perhaps a week, had only lost about an ounce of wine! I righted the carboy, kept it on the floor, and the wine (chardonnay) turned out just fine.
Still, I had to cry. Grapes are only ripe once a year. It was going to be a long wait until I could make wine again.
Henceforth, I was known as the "Lucky Bastard" winery.
My point in all of this is to make you feel better knowing that something like this happens to all of us. It is part of this play we are all acting in. That being said....
might I suggest.. "The Shaking Maytag" winery?????
