The harvest
The choice of the harvest date is a heavy decision: too early, the tannins would be green, the color pale. It is therefore necessary to be patient.
Too late on the other hand, it is the risk of rot that will cause the wine to lose its fruitiness and the liveliness of its robe.
From the end of August, once a week, samples are taken from control plots. Various parameters are analysed in the laboratory in order to follow the evolution of maturity.
Two or three times a week, as the harvest approaches, we visit each lot with Stéphane, the vineyard manager and Bertrand, the cellar master. The visual aspect, the sanitary state and especially the tasting of the berries guide us to determine the date of harvest which seems optimal to us.
The harvest itself is mechanized. More and more gentle and perfected, the harvesting machines, well used, allow us to optimize quality: we can wait serenely for maturity, harvesting very early in the morning to pick fresh grapes (preservation of aromas). We can wait and let the grapes over-ripen quietly if the weather is fine, knowing that we will be able to harvest very quickly if necessary if the weather conditions should deteriorate.
In order to make these choices with complete freedom, to control the quality of the work, and to decide on the date and time that seem optimal to us, we have equipped ourselves with our own harvesting machine.
The harvest is then quickly transported to the winery in self-emptying skips.