Grapes are selected and picked at various times throughout the harvest. Those picked during the earlier parts of vintage show higher acidity, while those picked later attain higher levels of ripeness, achieving a balance between natural fruit sugar content and acidity. Grapes are spread by hand on special straw mats in the appassitoio, a large, airy loft at theTignanello wineworks, where they are left to dry until the end of December. Fruit is pressed and the must transferred to traditional small, 50-200 litres oak casks known as caratelli, for a long, slow vinification which is arrested when the wine reaches 16. Vinsanto is aged in the caratelli three years before a very light filtration.