Harvest Day Three – Baie-par-Baie Basics

In the coming weeks, I will have the pleasure of participating in and reporting from the harvest at Domaine Garcia in Nuits-Saint-Georges – previously Moron-Garcia. I will, time permitting, produce a daily update.

Harvest at this estate is different from most of the rest of Burgundy, as the time-consuming baie-par-baie (hand-destemmed) vinification is one its of main techniques.

Sunday rain

Sunday was rainy, so no harvesting. But it was time for baie-par-baie to commence!

Baie-par-Baie

The baie-par-baie approach to winemaking is time-consuming, but definitely brings lovely advantages quality- and hedonistically-wise. Just smell the roses!

The principle is not complex, but the implementation requires thorough planning and a lot of hard work – that even hit me this time!

The process starts with with the bunches…

…and ends with hand-destemmed, whole berries – grape caviar!

Triage – whole-cluster grapes

First, the whole clusters destined for baie-par-baie are sorted to remove any imperfections.

Triage ahead of machine destemming

The story’s the same for the bunches destined for the destemmer.

Destemming (machine)

A third of the bunches are then destemmed by machine.

Assembling the cuvee

Then the cuvee is assembled in the vinification tank. A third whole clusters are topped by a third baie-par-baie berries, and finally a third traditionally destemmed grapes.

The layers are separated by CO2, and the cuvee itself is topped by it, to provide a milieu in which pre-fermentation can begin.

Ready for pre-fermentation