Actually, what I am seeing lately are bottling companies that drive up with a semi with the complete setup for bottling ready and about 6 workers. They do all the bottling at once. They are doing this outdoors in a van that goes from one winery to another. This would seem to me to be a good place to get contamination. There seems to be little if any facility for washing bottles on these trucks.
I've never heard of it but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It would be extremely difficult to manage, though - SO2 is toxic and since the gas wouldn't stay in the bottle, I would think it would be very hard to manage with humans around.
Could "SO2" be a misunderstanding for "CO2" in that case?
M.
I would think if anything, those leased bottling lines would be *less* likely to cause problems than winery-owned ones. That's because in the case of the bottling companies, that's their whole business. Anything less than a sterling repuation for cleanliness would quickly lose them customers, also they would the bottling line sanitation down pat. A winery-owned line, on the other hand, might co-exist in a building with other activities and the hygiene would depend strictly on the owner's sanitation practices.
I think too much is being made here of the bottle-rinsing issue. Granted, my experience is with European and Californian bottles, not Mexican ones, but there are many, many wineries using bottles without rinsing and without problems with bottle variation. As I pointed out in my other post, glass is very hot when it's formed into a bottle and so the new bottle is about as sterile (and dry) as you can get. As long as the bottles are kept covered, contamination is not really an issue. Rinsing really isn't necessary and might be as likely to
*introduce* problems than solve one.
CO2 would certainly make more sense than SO2, although I think either nitrogen or just compressed air is more commonly used.
I'm pretty sure I was told SO2. And it was definitely done by hand, with the bottle inverted IIRC. But the winery was far from the most impressive I have seen, and we were told quite a lot of other rubbish by the guide.
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