At Les Belles Collines, we harvest our grapes at optimum maturity. Optimum maturity is about finding the right balance between sugar levels, phenolic (or tannin) ripeness, and acidity. Most of all, it is about flavor. But optimum maturity happens at different times for different varietals, and further varies by vineyard and even by row. We strive to pick each and every grape at its own very window of optimum maturity.
We prefer to harvest our vineyards starting in the middle of the night through early morning, taking advantage of the cooling nighttime breeze of the Pacific Ocean and San Pablo Bay. This way, our grapes are at rest as we take them off the vine and remain chemically inactive before we begin the winemaking process in the winery.
Our specially trained teams are precise and efficient in moving through vineyards, hand-harvesting grapes 15 kilogram bins before loading them for transport to the winery.
