lthough the vat room contains the most modern equipment (easy to clean for enhanced hygiene), we intend to keep to the traditional method of wine making which has done so much over the years to build the reputation of Saint-Emilion wines, rather than give in to the modern trends which produce wines that people are always eager to taste but not so eager to finish and about whose long-term prospects we know virtually nothing.
                he grapes are hand-picked by a cohort of students (whom we feed and house until the harvest is over… and sometimes long afterwards. Sadly, this tradition is dying out elsewhere). When all the grapes are in, it is time for the gerbebaude – an experience that is untranslatable and needs to be seen to be believed! But back to the grapes. After being sorted by hand, when below-standard grapes are discarded, the bunches are destemmed and the grapes go into thermoregulated vats to ferment (the vats are small to take homogeneous batches). The juice is extracted and left to macerate on the skins. The wine is then "run off" (separated from the must) and what is left is pressed to obtain the "press wine". After several weeks' rest, during which it is pumped over several times, the wine leaves the vat to spend 11 to 15 months in oak barrels. A third of the barrels are replaced each year, to be thrown out once they have held their third wine.
                uring the maturing period, the barrels are topped up regularly and the wines are racked every three months to eliminate the lees. Of course, they are also tasted frequently, to see how they are developing. Once matured, they go back into the vat from where they will be blended (when the batches of different varieties from different plots are mixed together) and fined with egg whites to clear them. They can then be bottled. The wine is now twenty months old, but we will have to wait quite some time before we can enjoy it to the full. All that time to wait, and yet it will only take a few minutes to drink it… but what wonderful minutes they will be!

                s the grapes are picked variety by variety and plot by plot, it is easy to isolate the product of each plot according to its origin. That allows us to make two wines, both Saint Emilion Grands Crus:
        - from the more gravelly soils comes LA GRAVE FIGEAC, an expressive wine with a long lifetime, matured in new and one-year-old barrels;
        -from the sandier soils comes PAVILLON FIGEAC, a more supple wine, ready to drink more quickly, matured in two-year-old barrels.
               nnual production does not exceed 35,000 to 38,000 bottles in all for the two labels taken together.

                urning to sales, 75% of the wine is sold direct from the estate or by mail order to private customers. The other 25% is exported to the rest of Europe – our very limited production does not allow us to be present on the other continents.

                he estate is open for visits every day from Easter to All Saints' Day and by reservation the rest of the year.