In Centre-Loire wine harvest begins, according to the vintage, between the last week of September and the first week of October. It ends in the last two weeks of October. It starts with the Pinot Gris harvest (Reuilly) and goes on with the Pinot Noir and the Sauvignon. Châteaumeillant usually brings up the rear of the grape harvest.

In the Centre-Loire vineyards, 80% of the grapes are picked up with mechanical grape harvesters and most of the wine store houses were modernized in order to work as quickly as possible between the harvest and the pressing.

The harvest, as healthy and ripe as possible, is pressed as soon as the grapes arrive. The resulting must is sulphited in order to prevent problems of oxidation. After a must racking of 12 to 24 hours, the must is placed into a fermentation tank where it will ferment at a temperature of 18°C. The control of fermentation temperatures has been one of the most significant developments of the last 20 years. It permits longer fermentations and gives more intense and delicate aromas. At the end of the fermentation period, a racking is made to remove the first particles of the lees. The maturing begins in the tanks in which the wine generally stays on the thin lees of fermentation. Between March and September the first vintages will be bottled, after the operations of clarification and stabilization. Some vintages will wait more than a year before being bottled and marketed.