Harvest

We live one experience per year, it is a source of information and observation which is invaluable for the years to come. If every vintage was the same, we would forget the 50 years of choices, impressions and mistakes also. Better than a laboratory analysis, it is our senses which direct us towards the ideal maturity: observing the leaves, tasting the grapes, the seeds, apprehending the weather and lunar impacts.

We cultivate only one kind of grape but the variations in weather patterns on our land allow us to harvest in an ordered manner. It could take 8 to 20 days, depending on each year. Harvest is done manually with 2 or 3 sortings (expected yield: 40/45HL/Ha). Grapes are always destemed in the cellar.

First wines ferment in open tanks whereas each cru is vinified in a cone wooden barrel for long maceration up to 6 weeks. Extraction is the softest possible, giving favours to natural infusion/diffusion. We have always practiced foot pigeage but only in aqueuse phase (when there is low alcohol, so the tannins of the seeds are not extracted). Remontages are only done in years of great maturity in order to avoid rusticity in our wines.