Bottling Bell Pepper Peach Wine for Competition

Most of the time when I bottle, I use bottles that either myself or my friends or family emptied, rinsed, and saved. Because there are so many different styles of bottles out there, quite often a batch of wine will be bottled into different bottles. Sometimes I even go for different sizes, such as a few wine bottles and a few beer bottles.

After I had blended my bell pepper peach wine, it was time to bottle. Since I was going to enter this into two different fairs, I turned to the competition rules for guidance on what kind of bottle to use.

The first set of rules I was interested in is the Clark County Fair. The rules stated that I was to enter one bottle, which would be open, tasted, and all remaining contents dumped. They recommended using small 375mL bottles, which are smaller than the more standard 750 mL. The other smaller competition I was looking at had almost identical entry requirements, but said that I had to enter two bottles larger than 4 oz – one for tasting and judging, and one for display. Since 375mL is not the standard wine bottle size, I actually went and bought some bottles. Because of the added sugar water, my previously one gallon batch of wine fit into twelve of these bottles.

One other interesting thing to note is that wine bottles, despite how much they hold, be it 750mL or 375mL, all have the same size opening, and therefore take the same cork. So just because I changed bottle sizes did not mean I had to go buy special cork to fit the new bottles. The same is true when using beer bottles in that a 22 oz bottle and a 12 oz bottle both use the same sized cap. It makes things nice and simple.