It starts in the vineyards where place or rather terroir determines the flavor of the grape and ultimately the wine. Place matters.

Ultra ripe fruit is hand harvested either at dawn or at night(!), for early morning delivery of night cooled fruit.

The small half-ton bins are placed inside the winery to keep them cool.

Each bin is carefully tipped on to a belt and all clusters are sorted through before they are fed into the small, gentle destemmer.

The destemmed berries then land on a mechanical sorter, known as "Le Trieur", which shakes the berries across a specially designed grate. Anything smaller than a berry (shot berry, seed, bit of stem or leaf) shakes through, and only fairly perfect berries move on.

Crewmembers then sort through the berries removing any last bits of stem or leaf.

Now the "Ultra Select" fruit drops into a sump, where it is pumped into one of a series of small capacity tanks (sized to handle as little as a few tons at a time), to undergo fermentation. The results have been spectacular.

Photo by Ed Kadlec