Wine world mourns Bordeaux legend Michel Rolland
Tributes have poured in for Michel Rolland, the internationally renowned oenologist and original “flying winemaker” from Bordeaux who died from a heart attack on Friday, at the age of 78.
Rolland’s career was an exceptional one, a Bordeaux oenologist who was credited with helping Bordeaux find its footing after a brutal run of vintages in the 1970s and who went on to consult across five different continents. His work spanned 14 countries over a 50-year career and had a profound influence on modern viticulture.
Born in Libourne in 1947 into a family of Pomerol winegrowers (the family estate was Château Le Bon Pasteur), he initially studied at the Tour Blanche Viticultural and Oenology school in Bordeaux, becoming one of five student chosen by director Jean-Pierre Navarre to evaluate the program’s quality against that of the prestigious Bordeaux Oenology Institute – a school he later enrolled in. Here he studied under the “fathers of modern oenology”, Pierre Sudraud, Pascal Ribéreau-Gayon, Jean Ribéreau-Gayon, and Émile Peynaud, who he said were a great influence on him.
Along with his wife Dany (also an alum of the University of Bordeaux), he established Laboratoire Rolland in 1973, a laboratory in Pomerol offering wine analysis, consultation and collaboration with ten other oenologists, which soon grew in scope and scale to be used by more than 400 wine-growing estates.
Among his first Bordeaux clients were Châteaux Troplong Mondot, Angélus, and Beau-Séjour Bécot but the list of those who he has worked with numbers more than 80 estates, including Châteaux Figeac, Pontet-Canet, St Emilion Premier Grand Cru Classé A Châteaux Ausone, Angelus and Pavie, and La Conseillante, as well as the Bordeaux estates of Vignobles André Lurton. He once said that losing Saint-Émilion first growths Château Canon and Château La Gaffelière early on in his career due to a disagreement in style with its owners led him to “calm down” – and they returned to the fold more than 20 years later.
In addition to becoming one of Bordeaux’ most-sought-after consultants, he expanded into international consultancy, working with more than 150 wine estates across Europe, (France, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Armenia), North and South America (Argentina and Chile), as well as South Africa and India and Israel (Amphorae Winery). This included Ornellaia and Monteverro in Italy, Chile’s Casa Lapostolle, Marques de Caceres in Spain and dozens of Californian estates; Rutherford’s St. Supery and Staglin Family Vineyard, Dalla Valle Vineyards and Harlan Estate in Oakville, Jericho Canyon Vineyard in Calistoga, Bryant Estate and Ovid Napa Valley in Pritchard Hill and Lithology in St. Helena. He was also a consultant for Armavir in Armenia, and worked with China’s state-owned conglomerate COFCO across its domestic and imported wine portfolio.
As a winemaker, he stressed the vital role of blending in winemaking, and that whatever the target market, it should relate to its source.
“I never look for a style,” he told db, “I’m looking for the best wine in the location where I am.” He argued that blending is not just concerned with the amalgamation of wines made from different grape varieties, but also single varietal wines where the wine is made up of different plots. tating that one of the reasons wine quality is so high today, is because “we live in a golden age of blending”. In a db Proust interview, he quipped that “his nose” was one of his most treasured possession, and he was an early fan of ‘hyperselection’ through the use of optical sorting machines.
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Estates and joint-ventures
Rolland sold his family-owned Pomerol estate, Château Le Bon Pasteur, to Chinese businessman Pan Sutong in 2013, but maintained his own estates, Château Fonténil in Fronsac and Val de Flores and Bodega Rolland in Argentina. He also collaborated in a number of joint-ventures, for example, he joined Spanish wine entrepreneur, Javier Galarreta of Araex to produce R&G, a range of “singular wines that retain the character of the region with an appeal to the international palate”, from Rueda, Rioja and Ribera del Duero. Other partnership included Bonne Nouvelle and Remhoogte in South Africa, Pangea, with Canadian-born South African investor Travis Braithwaite which released a Bordeaux-style multi-blend cuvée made from grapes spanning five countries in three different continents; Clos de Los Siete in Argentina, and Campo Eliseo in Spain.
Although he stepped back from the laboratory a few years ago, handing the majority shareholding of the newly renamed Laboratoire Rolland & Associés to business partners Jean-Philippe Fort, Mikaël Laizet and Julien Viaud in 2022, he continued to work right up until his death. In an email to clients on Friday, Laboratoire Rolland noted that he was “still full of energy, projects, and travel plans”, right until his heart attack last week.
However, his technique was not without controversy – notably in the debate on a possible standardization of international wine styles. The 2004 documentary Mondovino by American film-maker Jonathan Nossiter, in which Nossiter followed Rolland on his consultancy visits was, according to Robert Joseph, writing on LinkedIn “a totally biased hatchet-job that totally misrepresented Rolland’s modus operandi”.
Controversy
As Joseph continued, “he unjustly served as a lightning rod/proxy punch bag for people who wanted to attack [his friend] Robert Parker” and “wrongly accused of making the same wine wherever he worked”. He was however “a very likeable and extraordinarily gifted, hard-working member of the wine world”, who “received little, if any credit for helping to rescue Bordeaux from the weedy, green fare that it was selling, and almost no one really liked.”
Aaron Pott, a Napa wine consultant told thh San Francisco Chronicle that Rolland “changed the world of wine forever,” noting that “In California, he worked for the twenty best (wineries) and shaped how we make and grow wine.”
Jane Anson remembered his “oversized charm, as well as his legendary tasting ability”, that he was someone regularly described as “tireless, indefatigable, life-affirming”, She noted that “almost all” of his longest-standing clients became close friends, unsurprising for a man who told db his idea of perfect happiness was “good wine with good friends”.
Rolland is survived by his wife Dany, their daughters Stéphanie and Marie, and his grandchildren.
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A lovely man who was happy to share his knowledge with anyone willing to listen. A legend in his lifetime. Very sad news.
Doubtless he has inspired followers to advance the wine world.