The Evolution of the Boswell Bungs

If you happen to work in a winery, you may be familiar with the Boswell bung. For those who do not know what a bung is or where it goes; a short description. A bung is used to seal a barrel. It is placed in the bunghole (my all time favorite “industry” word) where actions such as racking the wine in and out of the barrel take place, topping the barrel to replace evaporated wine or where samples are drawn for analysis or blending trials throughout the aging process. Without that bunghole it would be very difficult to access the wine and so it is quite essential to a barrel's creation. Originally, bungs were made of wood, but innovation gave way to the silicone bung and the silicone bung was introduced by my father Jim Boswell into the California wine market in 1981. This move was encouraged by his brother in law Jacques Seysses of Domaine Dujac in Burgundy who saw the potential of the silicone bung in the American market. The next bung in our line up, The Fat Lip was a request by the legendary Robert Mondavi Winery. The knurled “fat” lip allows for better grip so you can really wrench it into the bung hole with gusto. Today our Boswell bungs are an industry standard. And this year we have introduced our own fermentation bung as the next step in our companies strive for excellence and continual improvement. It started all with a humble bung, but who knows where we will go next.