Michel Rolland
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An outstanding professional and human adventure!
An encounter with a famous wine magician. Over the past year we’ve been offering you the possibility of sharing our encounters with wine industry “players”. These out of the ordinary personnages could sometimes come straight out of a novel, as their story appears to be unreal.
Over the past thirty years, Michel Rolland counts among the talented genies sharing their expertise with winegrowers worldwide. And like a real genie, the hardest thing to do is to get a hold of him. We almost caught up with him in California a fortnight ago, but we finally met for a couple of hours in his office in Saint-Emilion. “Michel don’t move an inch, we just want to ask you a couple of questions!” We could have started this article by Once upon a time, as his story comes across as something written in advance. “I was born in 1947, at a private hospital in Libourne, just 400 metres from the Pomerol appellation and 4 kilometres from Maillet. Back then, my entire family lived at Maillet. As I always say, I was born in wine!” As a result, Michel was also “raised in wine”. He learnt how to taste, studied vine-growing and attended the school of Oenology in Bordeaux – he was totally immerged in wine. This is when he asked himself whether or not he really liked this drink that he found rarely very good. “My first impression was that there were too many really bad wines”.
In 1968, Michel met a gorgeous young woman at the University of Bordeaux – Dany who would become his wife. They’ve stayed together ever since, thereby sharing this professional adventure: didn’t I say that this story was like something out of a novel? Yes a wonderful non-fiction novel! This is around the time when Michel met Dr Peynaud, a very important person in his life, as he was the first to talk about wine in a straight forward manner, leaving aside incomprehensible adjectives, which sound ridiculous today. “Emile Peynaud knew how to taste - nothing to do with swallowing a couple of drops and making peremptory comments.” He was the first winemaking consultant. When it comes to Michel, he decided that he wanted to become an oenologist. Back then, oenologists used to only carry out analyses, handling out results like a good lab technician. Little by little, he started to talk with estate owners to try to understand how they made their wine. A new profession – that of winemaking consultant – took form, and he started to intervene at all the different levels of winemaking. Both qualified winemakers, Dany and Michel decided to acquire a laboratory together in Libourne – the beginning to their fabulous adventure! When his father passed away Michel also took over the management of his family’s property by his mother’s side.
In 1985, he decided to start travelling around the world to study ways to optimise the potential of foreign wines. First stopover, California. This new life as a consultant allowed him to discover over 150 different properties, under every latitude, hence exposing him to every sort of climate and as many different cultures. While Michel travelled around the world on his flying carpet, Dany stayed on the ground to oversee the laboratory and the family’s estates. The enterprise grew with the arrival of new young oenologists. Time flies, sometimes much too fast. Has Michel’s schedule become way too busy for him to take a moment to contemplate his incredible career as if it wasn’t his? “Oenology has considerably evolved, and is now entirely modern.” Throughout all these years, the main thread has been made up of magnificent encounters, partners sharing the same convictions in order to achieve great things: similar synergies and shared energies, otherwise Michel apologies saying he would prefer not to go further into detail. Indeed he has many clients who are also his friends such as Catherine Peré-Vergé with whom he has created the Argentinean wines, Clos de La Siete, but also Bernard Magrez, Gérard Depardieu, or Alain-Dominique Perrin with whom he has given new life to the wines produced at la Grézette – just to name a few. Not forgetting Bill Harlan, who he met 20 years ago, and who in typical American style said to him: “I don’t know how we’re going to do it, but I want to make the best wine in Napa Valley!” Michel answered, “Ok, now we know the goal, let’s go for it!” Bill listened to Michel’s advice and great wines were born a couple of years later, translating to the huge Harlan Estate.
His relationships with others are deep, going further than just a business relationship. Respect and confidence are mutual, allowing sometimes for a special bonding: wine can be very susceptible. At present, Michel is contacted for advice on everything, from vine-growing through to marketing. “This profession has changed a great deal over the past 20 years in this business!” Something else to add Michel? Yes: “Back in the 1970s I was the first to point out that only ripe grapes should be harvested. Thirty years later, you can go anywhere in the world, and if you ever come across a guy who says that he doesn’t wait for his grapes to be fully ripened, even if it isn’t true, give me a call!” Before leaving me on the platform of the Libourne train station and taking off again on his magic carpet, Michel the good genie, let me in on one last secret: “Tell those who believe in luck – that it tends to show up with plenty of enthusiasm and curiosity, and most especially plenty of hard work…!!!” Ok, I promise to tell them. And if you don’t mind, I’m especially going to tell them to try out the couple of wines that we tasted together…
PS: Michel Rolland headed off to give some more advice in California. All in all he works as a consultant in 13 different countries. However, this doesn’t mean that he’s turned his back on Bordeaux. On the contrary he works with Châteaux situated on both banks. Around Libourne of course, and in the Graves and Médoc appellation areas. He also works for a number of estates in the South of France.
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