The End of Harvest 2021

I have spent more than two weeks participating in the harvest at Domaine Garcia with its owner Pierre-Olivier Garcia.

It has been a long, gruelling, exciting vintage, and I have met many new people and gleaned much more information on the vinification process than I would have otherwise.

Why Nuits-Saint-Georges?

I am currently living in Nuits-Saint-Georges, and the choice of the estate was obvious (to me) this year, as I feel the urge to support the village that has welcomed me so warmly. If you want to call it bias – fair enough!

Why Domaine Garcia?

The simple answer is baie-par-baie vinification. Domaine Garcia is one of the very few doing true baie-par-baie, cutting the berries individually to create grape caviar. Going forward, I will get additional insights into how the technique works during fermentation and beyond in the vinification process.

How was harvesting?

The Winehog is 56, and not in the best of shape. Harvesting almost full time for 16 days is hard, full stop. Even young, experienced vignerons are quite exhausted by the latter stages.

I would not, however, have missed this opportunity for the world, as I got a unique view into the world of a dynamic new estate. Many thanks to P.-O. Garcia for this chance.

Harvest in Nuits-Saint-Georges in focus

Harvest is manual teamwork done by people – friends, family and hired help – whose cooperation makes it happen.

Here are some impressions in focus (I hope!).