+39 3481663798 evan@piemontemio.com

The Wine Now Arriving is the delayed 2020 from Piemonte.  We apologise for the late running of this service…

 

Platform 1 for the Primis – I was going to say ‘Express’, but that’s the last thing it’s been…!

As you may be aware, way back in the Light Ages – before Brexit bit, Covid hit and then became the story we wished had not been replaced – I bottled my first wine: Primis.  Well, as mentioned, a lot has happened since that day…

This is not a news outlet, so I will leave current affairs to the competent authorities and concentrate on more personal (and more trivial) news of my own.

Finally, having bottled Primis on 22nd January 2020, it was labelled, boxed up and shipped in February 2022. Here are some photos of Primis being labelled and packaged for your future delectation:

Labels, wax, stamps, boxes and ‘button’s – all ready for labelling Primis. Almost the whole kit & kaboodle…

…just add tissue paper!

Having taken the above paraphernalia to the cantina (winery), it was time to prepare all the boxes and put the labels on the machine:

Boxes at the ready!

Labels at the ready!

Bottles at the ready!

Once we had trialled a few bottles to get the height and spacing just so, it was all full steam ahead:

Here they come. At last!

Now, your standard labelling machine will also put your metal or plastic foil over the cork for you – very convenient. But, and here’s the rub, we wanted a wax seal over the cork. For dull operational reasons, it is easier to put the labels on first and then wax the bottles, so that is what we did, lining up the labelled bottles and then waxing them:

Now the real work begins: wax-dipping each one of these by hand…

Turns out, it’s rather time consuming: reaching and maintaining the correct temperature of the wax is paramount. I now realise.

Once dipped, the stamp was applied to the wax and the bottle was then ready to be wrapped – once the wax had cooled a bit.  As with the temperature of the wax, you find out plenty as you go: wrap the bottles immediately and the paper sticks to the wax…

I wanted the final effect to be something like this:A dummy run at home to give me the general idea.

An alternative, ‘arty’ view.

This is how they actually looked packaged up ready for you:

Less arty, but much better for shipping!

So, that was the first box done, and here it is sealed and looking rather forlorn on its pallet:

Only about 120 more to do…

It did not take long (well, not very long, anyway – it was still a slow process waxing and wrapping the bottles…) for it to be joined by some others. And then, before I knew it, two days had gone by and all was packaged:

That’s it! All done. Only took 2 days.

It was only 2 years late…

Between its bottling, of course, and getting Primis ready for shipping, I set up Byrne Vini with Ed Bates – you can read about that here – did what I could and had to, to keep going, and spent a happy, memorable year with E. Pira & Figli in Barolo with the incomparable Chiara Boschis, her brother Giorgio, occasionally Beatrice, and had many a long, interesting and therapeutic conversation with Sonia while we packaged up wines for their clients the world over.  I also spent plenty of time out in the vineyards – this was sometimes more pleasant than at others…Only because of the nature of the work (see the blog post about my back trouble, for example) or temperature, I must add: working with E. Pira & Figli was just terrific!

I also sniffed out some ready-made wines to add to Byrne Vini’s portfolio – a sort of ‘prêt-a-boire’ diffusion range, called Lazarus, to the more ‘haute-boisson’ of Primis.

These were early samples, with a ‘resurrected’ label design – hence the range is called Lazarus. In addition to the Langhe Arneis, Barbera d’Alba Superiore and Barolo shown, I have since added a Langhe Nebbiolo and a Cru Barolo, Panerole.

See? Told you I’d added a Langhe Nebbiolo.

And a Barolo Panerole!

And now, the first of Byrne Vini’s clients, having shown ocean-going patience, have received their wine!  They were stranded 5 months longer than Shackleton’s Endurance crew…I can’t thank them all enough for their patience!

Gimme! Gimme! Gimme…!

If you would like to get your hands on some of my wines, then here’s how: contact me at info@byrnevini.com

I will let you know what we have, pricing and any other information you might want (within reason – inside leg measurements will remain confidential). If you are still interested, then I’ll send you an order form and details about shipping.

Then it is onto the next wines.  I have a few ideas up my sleeves, and the flexibility to do them.  The next One Word wine is likely to be a blend of varieties, again probably a one-off like Primis, while I gear up to squash my first grapes in 2022!  The result of that will, I hope, become a regular fixture.  Though that depends upon whether you like it or not…

Then there are the others I have in mind.  But those will have to wait for a later date…

Vieni, vieni…!

Of course, you can always come here, taste the wines in person and take them home with you! As I have mentioned many a time previously, Piemonte (Piedmont) is a tremendous place to visit. And Italy is now as open as it was in the Light Ages, so there has never been a better time to head here and do some exploring. Click here to see how I can help you with wine and food tours in Piemonte.

And if you do order some of my wine, it won’t take 2 years to reach you. I promise.