Trivia - Bottle Seals

[Kurt Wieneke]

I'm surprised there is not some brown "goo" on some of those 1997 Niepoort capsules! Elsewhere, I distinctly remember having "Hunt Constantino" on top of the capsule on my 1994 Tuke Holdsworth Vintage Port.

[Roy Hersh]

I have worked on small bottling lines, you know, the kind that are so small they fit in the back of the truck and that truck makes its way from small winery to small winery and leases out the bottling line, which is quite flexible to handle ALL sizes and shapes of bottles. I have done every facet on those lines, although the last time I did this was 1997, nothing has changed. Depending on the winery, and how many staff or volunteers they have come and help I have seen some where they absolutely instruct their peeps to put the capsules facing in a specific orientations so that printing or branding faces a specific direction. So with a small producer like Niepoort, where the bottling line is very simple and not a ton of bottles are put out at once, it is VERY likely these were set in place by hand. Machines don't do that type of work, at least none I have ever seen in Gaia.