Bottles to Market

Yesterday was a day to label and put tax capsules on wines at Chateau BasMonts. Our neighbor's brother (and partner) is recovering from a very serious surgery and is not able to work. So other family and friends (us) pitched in for a day of work. Palmeiro has a nice set up of conveyor belts and a labelling machine that enabled us to label and box about 4,000 bottles of wine yesterday. The 2007 rose, 1998 Bordeaux, the 2005 in oak and not in oak were the wines we labeled and boxed. Work began at 8:30 am and went until 7 pm but there was a delicious 2 hour lunch (bien sur) in the middle. What I found interesting is that every bottle gets a capsule which is how the tax on the wine is paid for. In the morning Palmeiro went up to town to get his capsules for that day. Look at the photo in which they are stacked in the box, they are represent a lot of money he has paid out to the government well before the wine is actually sold. The whole process can be seen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/petillant/sets/72157618339140957/