The machine also jams corks into the necks and seals the tops with heat-shrunk plastic. It can handle as many as 4,000 bottles per day. You can't feed it empty glass fast enough. The labeling machine is the last step before the newly bottled wine is loaded into cases and stacked. Reed prepares a batch of wine every three weeks, primarily in the wintertime.
Production ceases almost completely during foliage season, the winery's busiest time of year.
In September and October, the staff swells to 12 or 14 people, mostly working in retail, he says. As many as 100 people per day stop in on weekends, his wife says. Some people come every year to stock up on several cases at a time. One reason the winery avoids grapes is that they must be harvested in fall, Reed says. Another reason, he says, is that Vermont's clay soil is not ideal for grapes.