Meet Nicholas and Colleen, A couple who met in Luxembourg in high school, got married, worked in the financial industry (obviously), quit their jobs (obviously) and in 2012 moved to Burgundy to make wine!

In the heart of the Côte-d’Or lies the little village of Savigny-lès-Beaune. This is where Nic and Colleen set up shop, not an actual shop, but they did buy a house. But as anyone who has ever been to Burgundy knows, if there’s room for a house, there’s room for a winery! Under the house, outside the house, inside the house, hell, if they could make wine on top of the house they probably would!

Maison Harbour – this is the negotiant that is Nic and Colleen Harbour, and like the team here at Rob Dolan Wines, they bloody love Pinot Noir and Chardonnay! Although they only produce a little over 50 barrels of wine a year, they do manage to get their hands on some amazing Premier and Grand Cru fruit in which they craft into exceptional premium high end wine. Fruit from all over Burgundy which they ferment and bottle as vineyard specific wines showcasing the best the region has to offer.

2019 was a step back in time for me, no machine picking fruit, no fork lift tipping picking bins into the destemmer and no barrel racks to move them around. Here we hand pick, hand sort, manually tip every grape into a fermenter and manually press the fruit. Even lifting every barrel onto each other to build stillage, as painful as it was. Everything done to these wines has been with our own hands, sweat, and yes, sometimes even tears! 6 hours of continuous sorting of fruit through the night while banging out tunes and drinking champagne. Smelling, tasting and sampling every barrel every morning and night individually. Who ever said winemaking isn’t romantic?

In the 2 and a half months I lived and worked with Nic and Colleen, I got to know every single drop of wine that flowed through their home intimately. Oh, and it did flow! Not just the wine we made, but the wine we drank…. From all over the world! Including wines from back to the 40’s in his cave under his house. Lunch and dinner, at least 3 bottles at a time, and don’t even get me started on the cheese……

All in all, 2019 was a year for the record books. And now I have family in France, how good is that!