Fill Your Own Bottle Day

In 2008, we created a unique activity called our Fill Your Own Bottle Day.

Small wineries always have logistical issues when moving wine around. From barrel to tank to barrel always creates excess volume because the size of the container never matches exactly the wine volume.

What to do with this? We decided to have one tank into which we could put all this excess 50 or 100L. And this excess might be from any of our wines or vintages. And then we came up with the idea of having a special day on which people could bring their own clean and empty bottles and fill them directly.

This means, of course, that each of our FYO days will be slightly different in the wine being filled - because we are constantly moving wine around!

When we started this, we thought it would be an annual event. However, we received so many requests to do it, that we now hold them at reasonably regular intervals.

Exactly when, we never know - it depends on when we need tank space! So if you want to know when the next one is being held, better get on our email list...

What's the procedure?

1- Simply collect at least 6 wine bottles, clean them with very hot water, and bring them along on the day. There is no minimum, so bring along as many as you want. The cost? An amazingly low $9.99/bottle. That's why we say- a minimum of 6.

2- If you have screwcaps, bring them too. But we always have corks (which can be put into screwcap bottles) which we offer for $1. If you want to keep the wine for awhile, we suggest using corks. And we have small corking machines which are fun to use.

3- We always have spare bottles, if you don't have enough. If they are recycled ones that we have collected, they are free. But sometimes we have new bottles. When we do, we sell these for $1.

4- People always ask about the wine. As I say above, it is a special NV blend of our red wines. But you are always welcome to taste it before you purchase any. People also ask about the wines ageability. Well, we suggest you drink up and keep the bottles for the next FYO day. But it is always good wine, and some people have kept it for 18 months and say it's great!

5- These FYO days are always held in our winery, at the very end of our drive at 49 Sharp Rd, Matakana. So it's held where the wines are made. You can see it all!

6- How long does it last? We start about 9:30am and go until 4pm. And we usually have our resident blues guitarist playing for everyone's enjoyment.

Any other questions? You can email me at david@heronsflight.co.nz.