Harvest is one of our favourite times of the year but it requires a lot of work and many hands. It is performed scrupulously
by hand, collecting all the grapes in small boxes, making sure to only select the healthiest and ripest bunches. Destemming is
followed by another selection process to ensure that excessive unripe grapes, bits of wood and stems do not enter the tanks.
Then follows soft pressing and an immediate transfer to steel fermenting tanks where alcoholic fermentation begins at
controlled temperature. Frequent pumping over, alternated with punching down and delastage, takes place in the first
vinification phase. This generally takes about a week and then we remove the skins to enable another round of fermentation
which, in the best years and for wines destined for aging, can last up to three weeks. During this process we monitor
temperature and acid levels closely until we can decant and remove the lees. The final removal of lees is a prelude to the
transfer into wood for aging.