Casteel Custom Bottling

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photo by Eugene Pavlov

Owner Jon Casteel, 35, grew up in the wine business. He devoted years to working his way up from cellar rat (a fruit sorting manual laborer) to cellar master (a production and machine-maintaining guru) before founding Casteel Custom Bottling in 2006.

“You have to know the product you’re working with,” Casteel said. “Winemakers have to trust their wine will come out of the bottle at the same quality as it went in.”

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photo by Eugene Pavlov

In action, air and blaring music flow through the open doors as Rube Goldberg-inspired machinery sanitizes, fills, caps, labels and clinks out sixty wine bottles a minute.

As a mobile winebottling company, Casteel had to ensure the only moving part was the trailer itself, so he enlisted welders to physically fuse each machine to the steel flooring. “The pieces aren’t going anywhere,” he laughed.

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