Pierre-Olivier Garcia, Nuits-Saint-Georges `Les Charmois`

Pierre-Olivier Garcia founded his eponymous domaine in 2016, with a small parcel of vines in Nuits-Saint-Georges. From the beginning, his project aimed to restore biodiversity in these vineyards, something Pierre-Olivier felt had been lost due to the Burgundy’s focus on single-crop farming. This ‘eco-attitude’ means Pierre-Olivier experiments with cereals, ploughing, planting trees and even using chickens to graze the land, in an attempt to bring back bees and butterflies to his 0.4 hectares of vines. In addition to this, he sources grapes from a network of grower friends, with whom he works closely to have as much control over fruit quality as possible.

Pierre-Olivier Garcia is an advocate for low-intervention winemaking. He uses no new oak, believing it inhibits a wine’s ability to express its origin. He also pioneered ‘baie par baie’, or ‘berry by berry’, a painstaking process involving hand-cutting each grape from the bunch with the stalk intact. This technique takes 30 people an entire day to complete a single barrel, yet Pierre-Olivier perseveres with the practice as it enhances aroma and complexity in the finished wine. This tiny address in Nuits-Saint-Georges already has a cult following and a bright future ahead.

Pierre-Olivier’s Aligoté ‘Les Champs Tions’ is a serious, barrel-fermented Aligoté made from grapes grown in Fixin. Made using 50% whole-bunch fermentation, the Marsannay ‘Clos du Roy’ displays aromas of crunchy red fruits, floral notes and fine tannins. The Brouilly ‘La Folie’ is sourced from a parcel planted on pink granite subsoil and offers a more serious style of this Beaujolais Cru. The wine is aged in oak for 10 months, lending spice and depth to the bright red fruit character.

The three Nuits-Saint-Georges wines, ‘Les Herbues’, ‘Les Charmois’ and ‘Les Grandes Vignes’, are made using different ratios of ‘baie par baie’, whole bunches and destemmed grapes. While all displaying delicate floral aromas and velvety tannins, each shows a strong expression of their ‘climat’ within this famous village.