Winemaking methods

Quality wines are at the heart of our business

In order to extract the full quintessence of the grapes, Desprat Saint Verny has employed a modern winemaking tool at Veyre-Monton, in the heart of the winegrowing region: a temperature-controlled stainless steel tank, pneumatic pressure, and wine cellar. The business also has plateforme logistique de 1500m2 à Aurillac, a dispatch centre that is geared to satisfying client demand.

Our 62 vignerons adhérents naturally care about the quality of grapes, terroir and the wine for which their grape has been selected. 200 hectares provide the grapes used to make our wines.

A specifications list sets out the yield per grape variety as well as the quality of berries, optimum ripeness for harvesting, the health of the berries at the time of harvest and the quality of the harvest.

During harvesting, when the grapes are delivered to the cellar, an initial selection of yields is performed using various criteria: grape varieties, age of the vines, soil type, sun exposure, ripeness, the winee to be created. Rigorous inspections are carried out.

The Cellar team is made up of Julien, oenologist and Technical Director, Elinor, oenolgist, and Patrick, our cellar master. Their philosophy is to add value to our volcanic terroir through each wine produced, to limit the level of inputs into the cellar, and to focus on plot selection (particularly for our old vines).

We use direct pressing to create our white and rosé wines in order to extract all the fruitiness and crispness of our terroir. This is why we harvest at dawn, in order to get the most out of the early morning freshness. The grapes are debudded, then crushed and finally sent to our pneumatic pressing machine. This allows for gentler pressing that is more respectful of the crop and allows for full extraction of the juice and tannins while avoiding the bitterness of the seeds. Our refrigeration system means that we are able to macerate using musts before fermentation. Our thermo-regulated tanks mean we are able to perfectly manage the temperature of our wines at each stage.

Thanks to the capacity of our winery, our red wines have a long vatting period (at least 20 days). This enables us to ensure optimum extraction of aromas, tannins, and colour of the skin, pulp and seeds.

In numbers :

  • Controlled yield of 45 hectolitres/hectare
  • Exceptional natural ripeness (13° natural ripeness)
  • 170 hectares of vines
  • 40 hectares of IGP Puy-de-Dôme
  • 130 hectares of AOC Côtes d’Auvergne
  • 75 hectares of Gamay
  • 60 hectares of Pinot noir
  • 30 hectares of Chardonnay
  • 3 hectares of Syrah
  • 2 hectares of Pinot Gris