The 2009 Rhubarb, from the allotment has been sitting in a 60 litre barrel since about May last year. Its now clear and dry, the sediment has settled, and we felt that the time was ripe for bottling. The first stage was to clean and de-label 80 bottles using the overnight soaking and a good scrape-down with a knife. This is the least fun part of the operation, and took several days to accumulate the requisite empties. Ho I suffered.
Next, we open the barrel and lift it a very short distance onto a strong low stool. Gently gently, so as not to stir up the long settled sediment. While it was recovering from this upsetting move, we washed out 80 bottles inside using a solution made up from campden tablets with water. By the time this operation was completed, the wine was ready to go. I used a multi-thickness of muslin over the intake end of the decanting tube. With this in the barrel, gravity and a little initial suction did the rest.
We do about 25 bottle at a time, then cork them using the little corking gizmo to prevent the fruit flies getting in. The flies were very keen today. Drunk on the fumes no doubt. But we defeated them in the end.
All in all, we filled 80 bottles exactly before the cloudy must at the bottom of the barrel started to appear in the siphoning tube. At that point, we stopped and fed the residue from the barrel to the fig trees outside the kitchen, by way of a reward. The rhubarb is a light delicate pink colour, and quite dry. Very pleasant.
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