Mark, set, bottle!

Until May 13, I wondered if bottling wine was a cumbersome process of twisting that little tap on the tank/barrel and sticking bottlenecks underneath. How wrong I was; that might allow condensation in the bottles, which is bad. The reality: a wide, lined tube - like a monster garden hose - hooked up to vino-filled tanks and running along the warehouse floor toward an oh-so-cool machine on a parked truck outside.

Inside the refrigerated 18-wheeler: an assembly-line style, u-shaped machine made in France called a "spinner," leased by Coeur d'Alene Cellars from Signature Bottlers (whose customers include Walla Walla and Willamette area wineries) and valued around $100,000, according to Nathan Ofstad of Signature. We workers stood on either side, working at lightning speed.

Such begins the reality of bottling wine. Cd'A Cellars, which makes my favorite red, aptly named Opulence, allowed me and a dozen experienced volunteers to help bottle nearly 8,000 bottles of 2009 Viognier (a slightly bubbly white) in three hours Thursday morning.

I had a blast, got sore hands, and learned a ton about bottling wine:

Step 1: Wine runs through a hose from tank to truck throughout the day.

Step 2: Boxes of empty bottles are hand-emptied en masse onto a skinny, moving conveyer belt, which lines them up as if by magic without breakage. Empty boxes are tossed aside and reused for filled bottles.

Step 3: The first "spinner" picks up bottles one by one, moving them in circular, up-and-down fashion like a carousel, and filling slowly so the character of the wine does not change.

Step 4: As if drawing an "S" they move to the next spinner which stuffs a cork into each.

Step 5 and my first job: Each bottle is hand-capped and checked for fill level (hand-removed if filled or corked improperly). This is trickier than it sounds; those caps are made of thin foil, and getting them off the stack and placed as bottles whiz by without squishing them and going cross-eyed took me a while to get the hang of.

Think "I Love Lucy" and the candy episode to get the picture. I wasted several caps. Sorry, Ricky.

Step 6: Filled bottles travel to a third spinner which seals the caps tightly.

Step 7: The labeler - an intricate system of spools and belts which remove backing from stick-on labels and press them to bottles with perfect placement. At this stage, bottles travel the curve of the "U" and return along the back of the truck. Steps 1-6 occur back-to-back with the rest in a tight fit.

Step 8: Quality check - a worker/volunteer examines each bottle as it goes by, removing imperfections for a re-do.

Step 9 and my second job: Completed bottles are hand-packed by three of us (so fast; I can't believe I didn't break any) and upside down in boxes, sealed with tape, and passed down a conveyor belt to volunteers at ground level who label, stack, and warehouse.

Periodically, corked bottles are removed and a pressure gauge stuck inside. If the pressure in wine containers isn't just so, the taste will change, says Cd'A Cellars' talented winemaker, Warren Schutz.

There is no waste (except my ruined caps). Unacceptable bottles are carefully emptied into the machine and refilled so wine doesn't go to waste.

The whole process was smooth and efficient. It was amazing how well-planned it all was - Cellar Master Blake Hintz kept checking his chart listing each step and assignment.

How could so much work be fun? Six-time volunteer and retired North Idaho College instructor Kay Nelson said of his first barrel-scrubbing experience,

"Kimber (Gates-Travis, Cd'A Cellars owner) is a sweetheart and she makes good wine. She was an angel to my rescue mid-semester - it was a relief from my grousing."

And to alleviate any temptation toward grousing of our own that Thursday, naturally, once finished we were served wine.

Kimber, I'm ready for fall crushing.

Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network. E-mail sholehjo@hotmail.com.