The quality of a wine is determined by the quality of the grapes; therefore wines of high quality are essentially made in the vineyard. Consequently the emphasis in our winemaking is on remaining the qualitative integrity that comes with the grapes of our vineyards. This starts with our way of picking and continues with gentle processing in all stages of vinification. All fruit is carefully selected, picked by hand and collected in small, perforated baskets. We only place 2 layers of grapes in each basket and thus any squeezing and damaging is avoided. This means the grapes arrive at the winery in excellent condition for further processing.

Our winemaking regime follows traditional European techniques:

For all red wines we carry out what we call “Pinot Noir Winemaking”. This means after a second selection in the winery the grapes are de-stemmed (if not partially used as whole bunches in the ferment). There is no crushing of the grapes so the berries stay intact. There is also no pumping to avoid any extraction of bitterness from the pips. The berries are then lifted into the fermentation tanks with a crane where the initial cold maceration will take place. Fermentation follows and the wine is in contact with the skins for about 4 to 6 weeks. While fermenting we only use very gentle “pigeage” to mix the fermenting skins with the juice. After fermentation and maceration the content of the tank with young wine and the berry skins is then gently transferred to the wine-press without any pumps but by hand and stainless steel buckets. Only a very light pressing is applied to the skins and the young wine is transferred straight away to French oak barriques where it matures, depending on the grape variety, for 16-48 months before bottlin

For our Rosé wine we carry out what we call a “white pressing” or the “blanc de noir” method. This means after a second selection of the grapes in the winery the grapes are de-stemmed. Without pumps to avoid any extraction of bitterness out of the pips the berries are lifted with a crane into the press. The pressing process is slow and can last up to 8 hours which is also the only maceration time with the juice being in contact with the berry-skin. The must then is clarified like the white wines by settling for 24-48 hours. Fermentation takes place in stainless steel tanks under the influences of various yeasts and temperatures. The following maturation of our Rosé is on the lees for several months. For racking we use gravity to keep the maximum freshness of fermentation-CO₂.