Eric Asimov interviews Michel Rolland

[Rebel Rose]

Eric Asimov of the NY Times: Satan or Savior: Setting the Grape Standard

Overall, I thought the piece balanced and actually leaning toward Rolland. A refreshing counterpoint to the Mondovino caricature.

I have questions, though, about this part:

For his expertise, Mr. Rolland receives annual fees that start around $30,000 but can go considerably higher, depending on how much time he devotes to his client. At Ovid Vineyards, a new winery on Pritchard Hill on the east side of Napa Valley, Mr. Rolland visits four times a year, said Dana Johnson, who owns Ovid with her husband, Mark Nelson.

“We always walk the vineyard,” she said. “He’s very involved in helping us to make small adjustments and changes.” The Ovid vines, planted in 2000 on a hillside with a stunning view of the valley below, are still young. The first Ovid vintage, 2005, won’t be released until 2008. As in many vineyards, each discrete section of grapes is vinified and aged separately until it is time to blend them for bottling.

ALMOST all his clients marvel at his ability to find just the right blend. But Mr. Erickson, the winemaker at Ovid, sees Mr. Rolland’s abilities as much broader. “The way he can taste the grapes and envision the way the wine is going to taste, it’s something that’s really learned,” he said. “Knowing when to harvest the grapes, knowing when to intervene in the winery and, more importantly, knowing when not to intervene.”

Yes, the ability to taste and envision is something that's learned. But only one man in the world can know how one tiny vineyard in Napa should be harvested correctly?

Four visits a year? Assuming they are evenly spaced, that's one visit while the vines are dormant, two during the growing season, and one during or just after harvest. Rolland is consulting around the world, for vineyards based on volcanic soils, calcareous soils, soils with blocked drainage, soils with too much drainage . . .

I'd like to hear someone, anyone, say exactly what it is that was specifically illuminating about Mr. Rolland's visit. In what way did he offer advice to his clients that was significantly different than what any local viti/viniculturist would have offered?

I find it difficult to believe that Scotty beams him down, he imparts specific site knowledge beyond the ken of our barbaric time, and departs again in a beam of light headed for Chile . . .

Certainly Mr. Rolland has extremely powerful clients. But I just don't see any journalistic proof that Rolland advises his clients on a basis of terroir.

Perhaps he is the Andre Tchelistcheff of our time. But why?

[JohnL]

Certainly Mr. Rolland has extremely powerful clients.  But I just don't see any journalistic proof that Rolland advises his clients on a basis of terroir.

Perhaps he is the Andre Tchelistcheff of our time.  But why?

←

The Times piece is pretty good. I think the interview Tanzer did with Rolland in his newsletter a while back (Nov/Dec 05) was even better.

I really dislike the current polemics splitting the wine world "satan or savior" promoted by people like Nossitor and a handful of British writers/critics. Their position is easily dealt with as they have little factual evidence to support their claims.

Rolland deals with terroir in the Tanzer interview--unfortunately I can not link it here--it is a paid site--I highly recommend you get access to it. Rolland deals with the issue of terroir and he answers his critics with specifics:

Tanzer:

When you begin working with a client what's the fastest easiest way to bring about a 20% improvement in the quality of their wines?

Rolland:

Work in the vineyards. better management in the vineyard. Better balance, less fertilizers, better control of yields, better trellising. I am sure these relatively simple improvements represent 70% of the improvements we can make in the first year. After that it's more complicated, it's more a matter of details in winemaking, of the way we age the wine, and each of these details makes a very small difference.

also

Rolland:

"Harlan estate is a very good example of an exceptional place. Araujo is another one with a very specific character. Ornellaia is very special.....sites that make very nice wine but also wines with a very specific personality. That's the goal we have."

He seems to have a firm grasp of terroir and its importance.

As for your question. It sounds like Rolland provides general guidance for the most part (probably specific where he can) and leaves many smaller details up to the vineyard owners/management. I doubt he gets involved in day to day minutia and actual execution.

From everything I have heard/read, Rolland seems to act as a true consultant with give and take and provides guidance--he does not take over the running of the operation.

Like most consultants, people believe in him (some don't) and the key to his success is to look at what he promises against what he delivers. Basically, his promise seems to be to help a winery make better wine.

These "gurus" come and go. Remember Guy Accad?

Wine making can be so ethereal that wine makers are especially susceptible to "advice"--look at the current fads of biodynamiques etc. Rolland is certainly nothing new.

Rolland certainly seems to have his supporters.

As for the detractors, the fact is Rolland works with a tiny percentage of the wine making universe. They vastly overstate his influence to try to make their point.

Again, the Tanzer interview is much richer and more detailed as to what Rolland does and his philosophical and practical approach to wine is--a must read!

[ctgm]

From a personal point of view only:

I do find that Rolland's wines are all very well made, clean and drinkable. however for me they are too extracted and too heavy. I don't really enjoy drinking a bottle to myself of his wines (but that can be said about a lot of Bordeaux at the moment - I do not drink very much American wines so cannot say).

Being very very specific, I look at Pape Clement and see such a big change from what it used to be and to what it is now. To me it used to have charm and elegnace whilst still being a powerful wine. The last one I tasted was the 2005 and it was none of these things. overly powerful, overly worked and overly expensive lacking any charm and elegance.

There's no right or wrong in this - just different. Magrez, under the guidance of Rolland, makes all his wines in the same style - one that doesn't particularly agree with me and therefore I don't buy them. A lot of people like that style so will buy them. As Rolland says, what/who is wine for? The consumers? No - it is a business and only the Californians will admit that they want to make high scoring wines.

Me, I like wines that are still made by artisans and they make wine in a style that primarily they like. Even if there are small faults, I often find them (the faults) charming. I presume that the wines that are made to get high scores are primarily made to suit Parker's palate, seeing that he is Mr. Influential. Fine, I don't have a problem with that. Again there is no right or wrong in this but my palate is different from Parker's but it seems to me that the vineyard owners trying to get high scores think that only Parker's palate is to be trusted (commercially anyway). It sort of reminds me of advice that I sometimes give to people. You shouldn't always buy your wine from the same merchant as you tend to only buy what he likes. Sometimes you miss out on some real gems. - one man's meat being another man's poison and all.

Edited October 11, 2006 by ctgm (log)

[Rebel Rose]

John, thank you for recommending that interview. I had skipped reading it at the time because I was getting tired of the subject of Mondovino, but it’s actually, as you say, a very detailed and enlightening visit with Rolland. Rolland comes across as open, personable and much more humble than usual.

It’s a long piece, but in summary he describes his value as primarily attending to details in the vineyard—encouraging owners to green harvest, if necessary, use less fertilizer, seek balance, use specific types of trellising, etc. He claims to have brought innovation to the California wine industry in the early 1990’s:

If we speak about '89 or '90, almost nobody was doing green harvesting, almost nobody was removing leaves, nobody was doing saignee. Of course the techniques have changed a lot in the last 10 years. I was the first to tell owners to green harvest in Bordeaux, the first to do it in California, in Chile and Argentina. And the first sorting table in Napa was at Harlan Estate.

His clients also seem to appreciate his feedback on potential blends, but Rolland says he does not dictate a style, he only encourages his clients not to discard any lots that initially seem disappointing until they have been trialed in a blend.

He also talks for some length about how all wines are improved, cleaner today, and that as a result, younger wines will not show as much individuality—but that in 10 years or so well-crafted wines will definitely show terroir, and it would be impossible at that age to confuse a Bordeaux with a California wine.

He also discussed a trend toward picking riper fruit, and not just in California,

Two points. First, we are looking for ripeness. I am never looking for overripeness. But when you are looking for ripeness in a hot country like Spain or the U.S. or South America, sometimes the period of perfect ripeness is very short . . .

The second point is that, unfortunately, in every hot country we pick with high sugars. Because if you want to have good phenolic components you have to wait. And because of the weather we pick with high sugars. The mistake we can make when we have 14.5% and even 15% potential alcohol is to think that we can make a nice, fine, pleasant wine. No, when you have high alcohol you have only one possible way to avoid hot and dry wines with harshness in the tannins, and that is to give them more concentration. That's why sometimes young wines are a little bit too much at the beginning. But concentration is the only answer for high alcohol. If you have high alcohol and no concentration, or even average concentration, the wine will probably seem hot. We have to make more dense, more tannic wines.

Interesting comment, for the most part, although perhaps his categorization of the “U.S.” as hot was a bit hasty . . .

I also enjoyed this part:

An enologist, even me, cannot change the terroir, the origin of the wine. But we can always make better wine.

Given the thoughtful and informative context of the Tanzer interview, I get the impression that Rolland is just a hardworking, dedicated, knowledgeable but Franco-centric consultant with a healthy sense of humor and the sort of Gallic self-supremacy that Americans find so confusing, but the French see as perfectly normal.