The fruit is mostly hand harvested at healthy levels of ripe, natural sugar baume range to give richness with a degree of freshness and acidity for the base wine. Grapes are fully destemmed through the crusher into fermenters, for vinification on skins at moderate temperatures for several days, treated to a regimen of pumpovers twice daily. At close to dryness, batches are drained, pressed and returned to the free run. Components are filled to a selection of predominantly French Never and Vosges or American oak barriques for a year on gross sediments. The wine is then tiraged and left on lees for twenty months before degorgement and expedition liqueur.