To this must be added grape varieties that have been selected over decades or even hundreds of years. We grow several varieties of vines: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc, each of which brings its own characteristics to our wine’s blend.

The production of a great wine begins with the raw materials, which are the grapes. The final product depends very much on their quality. Great wine requires great grapes. The harvest date is therefore crucial as it is the final element that determines the quality of the grapes.

Patience is essential ("to know how not to harvest") as is the ability to assess the maturity of the grapes according to both analytical and organoleptic data. Denis Lurton and his team make rounds of the vineyard and taste the grapes to choose the best harvest date.

Having obtained a high-quality raw material, we move on to the transformation of the grape juice into wine: vinification. This is a stage in which nature, through the transformation of the grape juice into wine as a result of fermentation by yeasts, and the winemaker, through the choice of letting the marc (skins and seeds) infuse in the juice to a greater or lesser extent, work together.

At DESMIRAIL we favour balance and roundness through gentle, measured extraction.

Then comes the mysterious phase of blending the wines. Blending consists of selecting and blending wines from different plots in the vineyard. In this way, the first wine, labelled Château DESMIRAIL is selected, followed by the second wines labelled: Initial de DESMIRAIL, Origine de DESMIRAIL or Château Fontarney.

This selection is made by the Château team and supervised by an oenologist (Eric Boissenot). The owner has the final word, although he has not, so far, used this privilege.

The wine is then "educated", to "round out its character" (its tannins), this is the barrel-ageing phase, which begins with the entonnage (filling of the barrels), traditionally carried out at the end of November. The wine then spends a year in barrels before being blended again, fined (final clarification) and bottled (at the property) in glass bottles, mainly 75 cl, but also magnums (1.5l) and other sizes.

The final stage is in two phases, firstly the labelling, which consists of attaching a label and a back label. The last step is to place the precious bottles in wooden or cardboard boxes (packaging).