Vinification
Harvest
Grape pickers receive detailed instructions and grape sorting is carried out in the winery using a sorting table. We only keep grapes which are perfectly ripe and healthy.
They are all destemmed. The harvest is transferred to the vats using small carts to preserve the integrity of the grapes. The juice is cooled ahead of the pre-fermentation phase, which lasts 4 to 6 days.
Fermentation takes place naturally using only indigenous yeasts. Pumping over is carried out on a daily basis, with regular temperature and density checks. Vatting lasts an average of 18 days.
Ageing
To achieve balance and harmony, which are the most important qualities in a wine, every year the vinification process needs to be adapted to the profile of the vintage. “Wisdom and compromise over dogma and fundamentalism”.
The wine is aged for 15 months in oak barrels, a third of which are new, sourced from France’s best forests. The proportion of new barrels varies depending on the profile of the vintage, but is 30% for all wines in the estate.
Wine is racked twice during the ageing period. Each cuvée is blended in vats in December, before the festive season. Bottling is carried out without fining or filtration, depending on the moon’s movements and barometric pressure. At the estate, we only make and bottle the wine from our vineyards in production.
