Trempealeau, Wis.—If you own a winery in the upper Midwest, you’re pretty much on your own when it comes to getting wine into the bottle. Beginning this spring, however, wineries will have another option. Todd Roessler, whose family owns Elmaro Vineyard in Trempealeau, Wis., plans to have his mobile bottling company, Precision Wine Bottling, fully operational and ready to service wineries in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and northern Illinois.

Roessler purchased a Comet 2000 bottling line from Costral this past fall and installed it in a 24-foot gooseneck trailer. According to Roessler, “The trailer is 99.9% finished, and we plan to bottle wines, using it for our winery in February. Then we will do some test runs for other small wineries.” In addition, Roessler spent 40 hours training with Hunter Bottling in Canada during the summer of 2010.

The Comet 2000 line, with an 11-spout filler, is capable of filling 1,200 bottles per hour. The unit has electronic leveling, can insert corks or apply screwcaps on the bottles and can apply polylam, tin or PVC capsules. The labeler can apply either a single label or front and back labels.

All the bottling equipment remains on the trailer, and Roessler supplies 100 feet of hose and a pump to move the wine from the winery to the trailer. Precision Wine Bottling expects its customers to have their wine bottle-ready before the mobile bottling line arrives. At the time of bottling, the wine will pass through two canister filters.

Bottles are nitrogen-sparged before filling, and screwcap bottles will receive a pre-finish nitrogen dose to reduce oxidation before the cap is applied. A winery must have single-phase 240/100-amp electrical service and provide bottles, corks or screwcaps, capsules, labels and two 30-inch canister filters.

In addition, Roessler recommends that wineries have three people to help on the day of bottling: One to empty bottles onto the conveyor, one to repack cases and a third to supply the empty bottles and to remove the full cases.

The price structure for bottling depends on the quantity of wine bottled. The case price for 1,000 gallons or less is $3; for 1,000 gallons or more, it is $2.75. Precision Wine Bottling charges a non-refundable deposit of $200, and a transportation fee of $1 per mile.

Roessler’s family planted its first vines in 2006. Its vineyard includes approximately eight acres of St. Pepin, Marquette and La Crescent for wine; Bluebell for jelly and juice, and also some Reliance and Sommerset Seedless grapes. Its first commercial wine was made last fall, and Roessler anticipates that the tasting room and winery building will be finished by this coming June.

For more information, contact Todd Roessler at (608) 385-8043; e-mail roesslertodd@yahoo.com; or visit precisionwinebottling.com.