The 2017 Corton “Cuvée Baie par Baie” from Moron-Garcia is a unique and truly delightful wine - firmly setting its mark on the mighty hill. For the Corton - Matthieu Moron and Pierre-Oliver Garcia is using the Baie par Baie “technique” and here we have 40% Baie par Baie, 50% whole cluster and 10% destemmed grapes. It’s a floral, and vividly energetic wine - the perfumed notes of Corton is jumping from the glass like there is no tomorrow. Its concentrated yet lightfooted with a refinement rarely seen - all culminating in the intense and silky finish. The acidity is vivacious adding loads of energy to this Corton. Steen Öhman | Winehog
I have googled Baie par Baie “technique” and found no good explanations and have no idea what it means (Translated bay by bay from French to English). Can the collective wisdom of the board assist me?
Thanks, Jack. Do you know if it is the norm for high quality Burgundy to have parts of the grapes destemmed by hand, or is it an anomaly? It must be very labour intensive and driving up costs.
My guess would be that they are cutting out the rachis and retaining the pedicels, but best would be to ask Steen for clarification as there are a number of possible interpretations.
Matthieu Moron and Pierre-Oliver Garcia employ a special technique whereby some of the berries in the top-end wines are “hand-destemmed,” grape-by-grape, to ensure whole berries for the vinification. This is extremely time consuming. They must have a lot of good friends, not to mention special dedication.
The “baie-par-baie” grapes are mixed with whole-cluster bunches, and in some cases more machine-destemmed berries.__
Quite a few people in Burgundy are now cutting out the rachis and keeping the pedicels, and since it’s fashionable (and an interesting technique) that’s why I assumed this is what is happening. Hard to see what the advantages of simply removing the grapes by hand from both rachis and pedicels would be, nor am I convinced that, given ripe grapes, it would ensure “whole berries”, whatever exactly that means (after all, removing the pedicel breaks the skin).
I would think that hand destemming would result in more unbroken whole berries than using a destemmer, even the gentlest out there. Removing the pedicel would not necessarily break the skin if one very gently - though not sure how much time and effort is being put in here. I of course could be wrong . . .
William, when you say fashionable, is this a new technique or has this always been part of the Burgundy tool box in traditional winemaking. Could you also shed some light on which other wineries are using this technique and how does it affect quality, hopefully in a favourable way.
Well, Lalou Bize-Leroy does it quite a bit I believe, and now a few other producers, such as Arnaud Mortet, are trying a bit of it, generally for just one or two barrels. Obviously, it takes a very large number of man hours… The advantage is that you get some of the properties of whole cluster in terms of aromatics and the texture of tannins, without the rachis which has lots of potassium in it (raising the wine’s pH) and potentially contributes green flavors and more astringent tannin as opposed to the fine, powdery tannin that you can get from stems in a best-case scenario. Without the rachis, the fermentation kinetics would presumably be more similar to a destemmed fermentation, too (i.e. hotter), but I haven’t seen any comparative experiments or really talked too much about it with winemakers. However, I think it is a very interesting technique based on the results!
I think it’s the same ‘technique’ that Pascal Marchand has been using for a long time for his Musigny, berry by berry, for hours, with scissors - and of-course Lalou for even longer before him - probably quite an enjoyable process for all those potential watchmakers amongst you
Steen allowed me to copy and paste his reply verbatim for the discussion on WB.
It is like its explained single berries / grapes - with the berries whole - check the photo in the article - > Domaine Moron-Garcia - tasting the 2018s from cask > - looking a bit like caviar.
The fermentation is then influenced by the grape material used - in this case three types of berries - whole cluster, destemmed and baie par baie berries. So would expect the baie-par-baie to influence the fermentation - hence potentially also the taste.
