Chinese company hires Michel Rolland as consultant

A Chinese wine company based in Shenzhen called Wine World has announced that it has hired renowned Bordeaux oenologist Michel Rolland as its chief wine consultant.

Miao Jian (left), chairman of Chinese wine company Wine World, with Michel Rolland

The appointment of one of Bordeaux’s heavyweight wine consultants at a Chinese wine merchant is described by the company’s chairman Miao Jian as a way to provide “more professional, more accurate and more comprehensive” wine knowledge to Chinese wine lovers, and to bring “more and better quality wines” to Wine World customers.

This is the latest cooperation between Rolland, who first set  foot in China in 1996, and a Chinese company, as the country’s affinity to Bordeaux wines remains strong.

The Bordeaux specialist has been working with Chinese winery Great Wall, owned by China’s foodstuff conglomerate COFCO, as its wine consultant since 2011, Castle Li, general manager of COFCO Wine & Wine, previously told dbHK. 

Rolland, listed by the drinks business as one of the world’s top 10 most influential wine consultants, is renowned for his work in Bordeaux where he has consulted at Figeac, Pontet-Canet and St Emilion Premier Grand Cru Classé ‘A’ châteaux Ausone, Angelus and Pavie to name a few. His consultancy also extends beyond Bordeaux to more than a dozen countries and over 150 clients worldwide.

Rolland, however, is not the only supernova Bordeaux consultant that has expanded foothold into China, a country ambitious to turn itself into a winemaking powerhouse.

Stéphane Derenoncourt, the French consultant oenologist and rival to Michel Rolland, was recently drafted in by the ex-chairman of the vast CITIC group to develop vineyards in Manasi county west of Urumqi, according to Financial Times.

Rolland previously sold his Pomerol estate, Chateau Le Bon Pasteur, and two of its sister properties to a Chinese billionaire Pan Sutong, chairman of Hong Kong-based Goldin Group in 2013.

Pan, a wine connoisseur himself, also founded the now closed Le Pan magazine.