wine bottles

You did good, I'm jealous. Currently, sadly enough, I tend to pay 15.99 a case for 750ml bottles. Could be worse, but definitely not great. But going on a trip to southern Missouri this weekend, and friend is picking up

10-15 cases of used, cleaned bottles from St. James Winery for me. Winery charges 3-6 bucks a case. At least, tha'ts what they charged friend's roommate last time he bought some. As with most shops, they charge a bit more for blue bottles, I think. But getting a batch of bottles from him once or twice a year will keep up with my wine making easily(and of course how much I drink every month keeps a decent supply of empties coming too. ;) ). I also ahve 10-20 storebought bottles from first month or two of making wine(when I was still buying wine from liquor store until first kit was ready).

Joel

snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net wrote:          as a newbee winemaker this year, i was needeing to find bottles cheep or free.and was getting discouraged because all my rowdy freinds have settled down... was at the flea market today and got 60 750mll bottles new for 25.00 . i really felt lucky. our local wine store gets

27.00 for 12 of those bottles. what do some of you do for wine bottles ? lucas

I purchased wine bottles at my local grocery store. Wine making is becoming a popular hobby and many of the grocery stores have bottles, wine kits and beer making stuff too. I bought mine several years ago and I just recycle them. It takes about

15 minutes to clean and sterilize enough bottles for a batch. I have enough for about 5 batches. I also ask friends to save bottles for me.  

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Look for the big wineries music/wine events. My local winery has several during the summer months where they bring in a band, set up a stage and sell wine to consumers to drink during the entertainment. I asked and got permission to collect empties from the patrons and came home with 17 cases of bottles in about 2 hours of collecting time.

As others, I ask my wine-drinking friends to save their bottles for me which is where I get most of my bottles. I also recycle all the wine bottles I use here at home. I did break down this past year (first time in four years of winemaking) and buy 2 cases of wine bottles at my wine-making store, but they were on sale, so I didn't pay full price. So far, I have not had to use them yet, but they are there none the less. I have heard of others who have gone to their favorite restaurant or bar and asked them to save their empties for them, or those who have gone to their local recycling center to collect bottles. Good-luck. Darlene Wisconsin, US

I've occasionally had luck getting a case now and then from restaurants, when I've been enough of a regular customer to be recognized by the waiter.

My mother gets hers from the bottle depot, and pays exactly what she would get for bringing them in.

Cheers,

I too save bottles from commercial wine I drink, although I can usually buy them for around $9 per case where I buy my grapes.

Andy

I get them from recycle bins.

Although that may be illegal in your area. But hey it is reduce REUSE recycle. So anyway, you will have to work getting them clean and removing the labels.

Unfortunately most of my friends depend on me to supply their wine so I do not get many bottles from that sources. (Texas is a beer drinking area.) I buy some bottles and their cost is not insignificant. Anytime I take my wife out to a nice restaurant, especially on nights when they have a wine dinner, I ask them to save bottles for me. Not just mine but all bottles. They usually will. If not, I let them know I am disappointed and do not go back unless I get an apology. For the price of a dinner that I would have anyway, I can get several cases of wine bottles which can defray the cost of a nice dinner.

Ray

The only fresh bottles I've ever bought is one case of 24 375-ml bottles. For regular 750-ml bottles, I made friends with the head waiter at a local restaurant, and she had the bartenders provide all I could possibly use. To make it simple, I told them just save all the empties, and I picked them up once a week for about three months. Each week I would go through the batch and typically toss into recycle everything but standard 750-ml bourdeaux, chardonnay and (occasional) reisling styles; a few real oddities were also judged worth saving. When I had accumulated about two dozen cases total, I thanked the guys with a bottle of my best for each and told them I had all I needed for now. Of course, I also regularly purchase wines that I don't make, so those bottles usually also get saved.

Bart

Maybe I should start a different line - I'd like to know cleaning and removing label techniques.

I either spray with goof-off and let sit over night and push off with a razorblade, or I soak in a 1 quart plastic paint cup (buy at Hardware for $1.) and push off with razorblade and then spray goof-off on and clean up. Put thru dishwaters, and store face down. Any better chemicals? or techniques?

DAve p.s. I like the ideas how to GET bottles! wow. I'm g> I get them from recycle bins.

I soak them in a large tote (like a 40 quart one) when I have a large enough number of them with some one step cleanser (sodium percarbonate, also sold as PBW powdered brewery wash or oxyclean). I let them soak for 5-7 days. The ones that are not plastic and glued on with super glue will fall off by then....plus any dried on nasty mold growing wine on the inside gets cleaned off as well.

The ones glued on with that sticky rubber cement type crap I do not bother with anymore since I get bottles free and in large quantities, but in the past I scraped them off with a sharp knife and used goo gone, that would clean it off easy enough.

OMG - I read all the posts on this one. I have around 200 bottles and they were all free. Some work though. I get them from local bars. I usually get bags of them and I well, ok, not free, I slip the bartender $5 per bag. I soak them, get the label off, and then clean away.

I like boiling the bottles in water for about 10 minutes to soften the sometimes tuff glue. Then I scrape off the label using the backside of a stainless steel butter knife. Some labels are resistant to a cold water soak.

YMMV Gene

DAve Allis> Maybe I should start a different line - I'd like to know cleaning and

I had bottles pop at the bottom. Did you have that?

I found soaking them in a laundry tub with the bottle cleaner for a few days really helped to get the labels off. Very little scrubbing.

Occasionally a bottle bottom pops on me, too. Doesn't happen often enough to bother me, and if one pops, I interpret that as the glass had a defect (scratch/nick) which made it weak to start with.

BTW, my bottles are already warm before they go into the boiling water, so my thermal shock is less than if you immerse cold bottles. The bottles presoak in about 130F water (i.e. straight out of my hot water heater), and a lot of the labels come loose during this presoak. Only the ones whose labels are still sticking are (immediately) transferred from presoak into the boiling water for the 10 minutes.

Gene

i for one really appreciate your comments. its helped me alot.lucas

$27/dozen is a huge ripoff unless there's something pretty special about them.

I get most of my bottles from friends and such for free, but when I do need a case or two I can find them at a local supply shop for about $7/dozen (canadian $)--this is for generic clear bordeaux bottles.

Yeah, that is high. $8 to $12 US depending on punts and such is about normal in PA.