Division 3.5 Specific steps in production that must take place in the defined geographical area

Production and packaging must take place in the geographical area defined in point 4.

Production begins with the harvesting of healthy grapes, which never takes place before the phenological stage of ‘ripening’ (Baggiolini, 1952), avoiding fruit that are not intact or have been damaged by disease or fallen to the ground before harvesting.

The next step is drying the grapes by directly exposing the bunches to the sun. They must not be dried artificially. The work is done manually: every day the farmer turns the bunches of grapes that are spread out to dry so that they dry evenly on both sides.

Once the bunches of grapes are dry, the berries are removed by work known as picado, performed by hand using scissors whose size and shape are specially adapted so as not to impair the quality of the fruit removed from the dried bunches, or by machine in factories.

Once the raisins are ready, off or on the bunch, the production process continues in the raisin factories, where the following tasks must be performed before the packaged raisins can be placed on the market:

• Receipt and collection of the raisins delivered by the raisin farmers;

• The raisins are removed from the bunch, if this has not already been done by the farmer;

• They are classed by average size of fruit, measured as the number of raisins per 100 grams;

• Preparation for packaging: i.e. the separation into units of fruit that has already been classed and stored. There must always be fewer than 80 fruits per 100 grams net;

• Packaging: by hand or by machine. This is the final stage of production and it plays a crucial role in protecting the quality characteristics of the raisins over time, so only by isolating it from the environment in clean, well-sealed packaging is it possible to preserve the delicate moisture balance that is such an important characteristic of the product.