Winemaking/ The Handpicked grapes are whole bunch pressed. The juice once settled is filled into a mixture of 1,2 and some 3 year old fine grained French barriques. Barrels are selected on toasting levels, forest origin and seasoning as best suits our fruit. Most of the barrels are fermented with indigenous yeasts found on the grapes. The wine is left in the barrels for a year with some stirring of the lees. This imparts a creamy texture to the wine, and accentuates the fruit flavor. The wine undergoes a full malo-lactic fermentation. The malic levels in the ripe Gisborne fruit are not high so the wine does not show obvious lactic character. For us it imparts a desirable complexity. After 12 months the wine is blended selecting only the best barrels.