Harvest
In September and October every year, depending on variety and ripeness, across 25 hectares. We start at dawn because the grapes are cool then and don't oxidise when they arrive in the cellar.
Cooling and processing
Within two hours of picking, the grapes are in the cellar. Cold room at 8 °C, grapes cooled down overnight, processed the next day. This cooling phase is the difference between an aromatic wine and a flat one. It doesn't take much technical effort, just the discipline not to tip warm grapes into the tank.
This cooling stage makes the difference between an aromatic wine and a flat one.
Why the mash is kept so cold
On hot harvest days the grapes come in warm. In 2018 they arrived at 25 to 30 degrees, more than the cold room alone could handle. Since 2019 the mash therefore first runs through a tube heat exchanger: a pipe within a pipe, with coolant in between that brings it below 15 °C. This lets it rest for four to twelve hours even on warm days, sometimes a whole night.
Since 2023 a new cooling control has run the whole press house. In the cold room there are tanks with cooling plates, where the must settles calmly before it ferments.
What happens after the harvest
In the press house the destemmer plucks the berries from the stalks, and a hose pump moves the mash on. The white wines go into the press after their resting time; the red wines ferment on the mash and stay on it for another ten to twenty days. What happens next in the cellar for each line is described under Winemaking.