Wine Bottles

Where can I get a really good deal on bottles, I'm going to need about 50 bottles in about a month from now?

I find glass recycle bins the best place. Free! The work of peeling the labels off (or leaving them on and writing on them with a sharpie) is worth not paying for them. Otherwise, try Austin Homebrew.

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=wine+bottles

Tell every wine drinker you know to start saving bottles for you! Thats what I did, and the people who gave me more than 3 or 4 bottles I exchanged them with a full bottle of my wine! The rest I made sure they had a chance to taste it at a party or when they came over or something. Now I have all kinds of people dropping bottles off at the house, I can't keep up with making the wine!

Italian restaurants recycling bins are great. sell a lot of similar wine so bottles are same and there are plenty.

Ebay. Scored 100 bottles for 20 bucks.

+1 on the restaurant. Someplace like olivegarden worked well for my buddy. he got 75 bottles in one night just by being there when the man said be there. Tlk to the manager and he will let you know the best days to hit the bin.

I always go to the recycling center. They are free and you can get blue, clear, green, champagne all sizes I've even got carboys from there before. They are always sorted in colors and I only pick the ones that have easy to remove labels. It always seems like they have 3 or 4 6x6 tubs full and you can go when it's good for you or a few days before you bottle. It's harder for me to get boxes.

I had a local winery selling me usewd bottles for 2 bucks a case.. Got so tired of soaking and peeling labels, I started buying new ones from them. 8 bucks a case.

with wine bottles what do you do for capping??

I buy PVC caps to put over the cork from Midwestsuplies they are cheap and look professional and come in all colors and designs.

Start drinking a lot of cheap wine. You have a month, that's only three bottles a night.
If you have recycling pickup in your town, you could grab 60 in under an hour. I also recommend the restaurant idea. If you ask any employee of a place that sells a lot of wine, they'll be happy to tell you where the bottles end up, and how that could be the trunk of your car. (grab some empty cases from a packy first)

+1 for restaurants. Once or twice a year I go to Carabas on a sunday mornining right when they open when things are slow and ask if I can go through their recycling bin for wine bottles. Make sure you bring gloves, they're often covered in food goo and broken glass. and bring looooooots of boxes or a big rubber made container. There's tons and you don't want them rolling around your car all nastylike.

Talk to a local winery. I have found that most small winery's do not keep the bottles they go through in their tasting room.
A local winery here is hooking me up with about 2+ cases a week. She was very happy to know the bottles would get reused for wine/mead as opposed to recycled.

I provide about 6 gal of blackberry wine per year for our Lutheran Church they provide the bottles...

Restaurants & bars will often save bottles for you if you ask them to & pick them up when it's convenient for them. You could also just buy them new (and empty) from a homebrew supply store. I think the BEST way is to just buy them full of your fav wine & drink them empty, that's what I do.
Regards, GF.

lakedawgs said:

Talk to a local winery. I have found that most small winery's do not keep the bottles they go through in their tasting room.
A local winery here is hooking me up with about 2+ cases a week. She was very happy to know the bottles would get reused for wine/mead as opposed to recycled.

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yep, thats what I was doing for the 2 buck a case bottles.

kpr121 said:

Tell every wine drinker you know to start saving bottles for you! Thats what I did, and the people who gave me more than 3 or 4 bottles I exchanged them with a full bottle of my wine! The rest I made sure they had a chance to taste it at a party or when they came over or something. Now I have all kinds of people dropping bottles off at the house, I can't keep up with making the wine!

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+1 on that Kpr121, I gave away a few bottles of my wine as a drawing prize and asked friends to save me some of their wine bottles and finally had to start refusing bottles. AndreC

I took the advice of a few on here, and went to the local recycling bin last night. JACKPOT!!! I couldn't believe it! Got about 3 cases, all the same color and size. I cant wait to go back next week and stock up on some more!