Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 January 1898 — Swiss Wine Storage. [ARTICLE]

Swiss Wine Storage.

A “bottle-lake” is the most concise term that can be used to describe the new subterranean tank which the ItaliamSwiss colony has. just completed at Asti, for storing half a million gallons of wine. ’First an excavation was made in a rocky hillside in the rear of the winery. Next a wall of concrete,., two feet in thickness, was put in the floor and sides, and built into the cover, the latter being supported by fifteen steel girders. Next the entire surface was covered with a lining of pure cement, and finally this was glazed to the impermeability of glass. The whole has been buried beneath three feet of earth, and soon grass will grow above the wine lake. The cement wine tank is one hundred and four feet long, thirtyfour feet wide and twenty-four feet high. The contents may be drawn off by gravitation. There are several advantages to be derived from the construction of the concrete and cement cistern. One of these it is expected will be that the wine will be maintained at an even, cool temperature. * Another is.the equal blending of five hundred thousand gallons of wine at one time. A third is the saving in insurance. This is calculated at the rate of fifteen hundred dollars per annum, which in five years would repay the cost of construction. *