The estate
Terraces that face the setting sun.
Altitude and light
The vineyard climbs from 380 to 620 metres over eleven narrow terraces cut by hand a century ago. Cool nights keep the acidity bright; long, warm afternoons ripen the skins slowly until they take on the amber glow that gives Auréole its name.
We farm without herbicides, plough with a single horse on the steepest rows and pick everything by hand into small crates so nothing is crushed before the press.
The golden hour
Harvest starts in the last hour of light and finishes before dawn, when the fruit is cool and the sugars have settled. Each terrace is picked on its own day, then sorted twice, once in the vineyard and once at the cellar door.
Whole bunches are pressed within the hour. The juice settles overnight and goes to old oak with nothing but the wild yeasts that live on the skins.
A cellar that never hurries
Every wine rests until it has earned its label: two years for the rosé, eight for the Grand Cuvée, ten on the lees for the Halo Brut. Each vintage is bottled once, numbered by hand and released to the allocation list before anyone else.
Visits are by appointment. Tastings are poured by the people who made the wine, at the long table in the old press house.