Bottling

bottling, vital winemaking operation for all wines other than those packaged in containers other than bottles (see boxes and cans) and those few served straight from a cask or tank as bulk wine.

Bottling techniques vary greatly according to the size, resources, technical ability, and modernity of the winery, although since the 1960s it has been customary almost everywhere to blend all casks or vats of a given lot of wine together before bottling, and to bottle it all at once. (Prior to this there could be considerable bottle variation between different bottlings of even first growths. And see chapoutier for a report of this practice extending well into the 1990s.)