Quality control

Question 1

Examples

Answer 1

• Chateau Ste Michelle tracks all chemical lots and barrel #s, so that if there is a chemical recall, they know exactly which tanks and barrels the product touched.
• Every month, Ch Ste Michelle checks a composite of barrel lots of VA + SO2.

Question 2

Bottling

Answer 2

• Ch Ste Michelle pulls a bottle every hour and subjects it to a sensory and microbiological test. Sensory test confirms they are packaging the right tank as the right wine. One time they started bottling Chardonnay as Riesling but caught it.
• Ferdinand cans - every 5 minutes, Evan grabs a can and shakes it to see if the can “firms up” from N-add, and also drops in hot water to see if he can “blow it up” which indicates bad seal or too much N-add.
• Ch Ste Michelle also checks bottles every hour for DO + SO2. Elevated DO indicates there is a leak in a hose or bad seal or something.
• Ch Ste Michelle won’t bottle in the winter because of risk of dissolved O2
• After they sparge the bottles during bottling with N they do a QC check with an O2 meter.
• Ch Ste Michelle sterilizes their bottling room at 180F for 30 min.
• They bottle at 59-60F because that’s the temp the wine will likely be stored at so keeps pressure even. Avoids shrinking and expanding.
• Ch Ste Michelle has a UV stamp on the labels you need a black light to see that shows date, time, and facility in case there’s a batch problem from customer return.
• There is a also serial number on the glass
• There is a 3day wait after bottling before releasing wine because that’s how long it takes to plate for microbes
• They QC their corks by looking for color variation and also spot check for TCA by soaking random corks in neutral wine.