I see a lot of products that are gravity fed and offer a pump as an external option. How are they used for bottling a barrel or more of my fine chardonnay or red wine?
Many gravity fed products require an open tank and filler assembly, a stand, a tank of CO2, Argon, or Nitrogen, (which provides a layer of gas to protect the wine from oxidation). An external pump is also required. The pump only moves the wine from your barrel to the open trough, where it sits until it is transferred into your bottle, by gravity flow. A barrel may take quite some time to bottle using this approach, as the open trough will require refilling many times during the process. IF external gas is not used excessive oxyidation will ruin a good batch of white wine! The user must decide upon which gas to use, and purchase the gas and also buy or rent the tanks and regulator and know how much gas to use, etc. Argon and nitrogen gas can be quite costly and the tanks themselves are VERY heavy and hard to move and manage without help.
