Bordeaux: The next generation

A new wave of young winemakers, scientists, négociants and château owners is helping to shape the future of Bordeaux. Elin McCoy introduces four of the region’s leading lights...

Originally published in the Decanter magazine Bordeaux supplement 2018 and now available for the first time online, only for Premium subscribers...

Bordeaux: The next generation

The city of Bordeaux is basking in its transformation from dark, staid wine capital to vibrant tourism destination, with buzzing wine bars, scrubbed-white buildings, a revived riverfront and, of course, the curvy La Cité du Vin museum. Mirroring these changes, an emerging generation of 30-something scientists, château owners, négociants, winemakers and consultants is bringing new excitement and direction to the region’s wine industry.

They’re taking charge at a challenging time for Bordeaux. Its reds are no longer the only great Cabernet- and Merlot-based wines in the world, a new generation of drinkers craves diversity above all, and global warming threatens both the wine style and grapes that the region has made famous.But in many recent interviews, I found that Bordeaux’s next generation is embracing the 21st century with gusto. Curious and forward-thinking, they’re researching the latest technology and oenological ideas while still recognising the importance of preserving Bordeaux’s heritage. More open and savvy about communication than their parents, they’re more widely travelled, too, and much more environmentally conscious. And in this once traditional male bastion, talented women are taking on important roles with energy, passion and determination.Here are four people who are already becoming key players in Bordeaux’s future.

The scientist

Axel Marchal, 34

Next in the line of great researchers from Bordeaux, such as Emile Peynaud and Denis Dubourdieu, is Axel Marchal. Researching essential questions about what influences a wine’s aromas, taste and texture at Bordeaux University’s Institute des Sciences de la Vigne et du Vin, he’s pushing the boundaries of our understanding of wine to the molecular level.

Wine intrigued him at an early age. He grew up near Alsace, where his parents loved great food but ‘drank ordinary wines’. The first bottle to excite him was a Coche-Dury Meursault-Perrières 1994. ‘I was the youngest person to buy a bottle of wine from Jean-François Coche,’ he says. He visited the domaine to taste when he was a precocious 13-year-old (his parents were with him) and now goes every year.

Later, while studying for a masters’ degree in chemistry by day, he wine-tasted at night. As part of the university’s wine team, he hobnobbed with French winemakers and critic Michel Bettane. He was on track to study with winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Jean-Marie Lehn, in Strasbourg, but wanted to take a year off to study oenology first.

‘I thought I would have wine only as a passion,’ he says. ‘I didn’t see the connection between it and my other passion, scientific research.’

Fortunately, Bettane put him in touch with Dubourdieu, who showed him how those twin passions could go together. The late Dubourdieu, who was a famous professor at Bordeaux University, winemaker and consultant, as well as Decanter Man of the Year 2016, quickly became a model for Marchal, both as a researcher and in the cellar. He oversaw Marchal’s PhD, taught him to make wine, let him do the harvest at Doisy-Daëne, and integrated him into Dubourdieu’s wine consultant business, where Marchal continues as a principal consultant.

Among Marchal’s many research findings is how dry wines can cause a sweet taste sensation while containing no sugar. The answer lies in molecules imparted from oak barrels during ageing. He’s used gas chromatography to identify the powerful aromatic compounds responsible for the hazelnut aromas in great Chardonnays such as Coche-Dury and is now researching other Chardonnay aromas, like white flowers.

‘Oenological research has a big role to play in wine quality in the future. It can help keep the identity of Bordeaux in the face of global warming,’ he says. Beyond his own research, his influence is growing as his students take up positions at estates such as Château Margaux.

The château owner

Saskia de Rothschild, 31

On April 1 this year, Saskia de Rothschild became the chairman of Domaines de Barons Rothschild (Lafite), the first woman ever to head the family’s wine business. She took over from her father, Baron Eric de Rothschild, who has run the company since 1974, and her appointment coincides with the 150th anniversary of the Rothschild purchase of first growth Château Lafite in 1868.

It illustrates just how much the position of women in Bordeaux has changed and how much influence they will have over the region’s future.

‘Lafite is where I learned to ride a bike,’ muses Saskia, as we speak at the château during en primeur week. Her childhood wine memories include sipping small glasses of sweet Sauternes La Tour Blanche (called ‘le vin des enfants’ in her family) and being fascinated by what the vineyard workers were doing. She interned at Château L’Evangile and at the age of 20 began joining the group of tasters who put together the final assemblage of Lafite. ‘Wine was always a link with my father,’ she says, while her Italian mother, an artist, ‘taught me to voice my own opinions’.

However, her first career move reflected her interest in the power of words and stories. After graduating with an MBA from HEC Paris, where she learned ‘to read a balance sheet’, she headed to Columbia University’s Journalism School, immersing herself in reporting, documentary film-making and writing a novel. A stint at The New York Times in Paris and reporting for the newspaper from Ivory Coast in West Africa followed.

But in 2015 the powerful pull of Lafite drew her back. She says: ‘I spent 2016 learning the basics of viticulture and winemaking, and 2017 visiting all the DBR (Lafite) properties, from Los Vascos in Chile to our project in China.’

Her father revitalised Lafite and acquired properties for the DBR (Lafite) portfolio, and will remain as co-chairman of Lafite. Saskia meanwhile has her own set of priorities. She speaks a lot about ‘protecting’ – whether that’s the soil, the 430 people who work at the domaines or her family interests.

Intense and passionate, she insists: ‘We have to be innovative and experiment.’ That means investigating more natural forms of agriculture, making the individual domaines more separate from Lafite, with their own stories, and finding ways for people who work in the vineyards and cellar to pass on their skills to the next generation. She’s already pushed DBR (Lafite)’s first venture into social media with @thedomaines on Instagram.

And yes, eventually, Saskia will acquire more domaines; but right now her priority is China.

The winemaker

Jeff Berrouet, 36

I caught up with a tired Jeff Berrouet at his family winery in Montagne St-Emilion in mid-April. It was the day after his wife, Diana Berrouet Garcia, technical director at Château Petit-Village, had given birth to their second child.

Bearded and casually dressed, he’s part of Bordeaux’s next generation of winemakers and consultants, two roles that come naturally to him. His father Jean-Claude Berrouet was the winemaker at Petrus (owned by Ets JP Moueix) for over four decades, and his brother Olivier took over at Petrus when his father retired.

Jeff took a different route, making wine at the family’s two small châteaux – Vieux Château St Andre in Montagne St-Emilion and Château Samion in Lalande de Pomerol – and he is also closely involved in his father’s influential global consulting business.

His first step into wine, as for so many children in Bordeaux, was drops of red in a glass of water at age five. During harvest, he fed carrots to the horse at Château Magdelaine when accompanying his father on visits as he checked on Moueix’s wineries. ‘In our family we’re all rugby fans,’ he says. ‘When my father met with rugby players because of wine, I began to see a bottle of wine was like a magic key that opened doors.’

He made wine in the Basque country and worked in the south of France with wine wizard Gérard Bertrand, but says his father is his real mentor. Like Jean-Claude, he prizes classical wines with balance and typicity, and says: ‘Consulting has been an amazing opportunity for me to travel, learn, and work with him.’ He’s consulted at Twomey in California, Tzora Vineyards in Israel, at Argentina’s Bodega Tapiz – where he learned to love the asado – as well as in China, Spain, and on a new project in the Douro. He’s doing more far-flung consulting as his father gets older. (His surprise passion is attending bullfights.)

‘One of the differences for my generation is that communication is very important now,’ says Jeff. ‘My father grew up when the wine alone spoke, and he doesn’t like to be in front of the camera.’ He sees value in being part of a group, and has joined Bordeaux Oxygène, a group of young winemakers who aim to communicate the dynamism in the region.

He sees other serious challenges for his generation, especially doing away with pesticides and growing vines organically and biodynamically. The price of land in places such as St-Emilion and Pomerol make it difficult for young winemakers to start out or expand. Montagne St-Emilion and Lalande de Pomerol, he believes, will be more important in the future.

The négociant

Hortense Bernard, 35

For the past six years, Hortense Bernard has headed up the US branch of Bordeaux-based négociant Millésima, which was founded by her father Patrick Bernard in 1983. Though women have a serious wine presence in Bordeaux, very few of them work in the worlds of négociants and online wine sales. She’s been an innovator in both.

‘I always knew wine was my passion,’ she says, ‘but I didn’t always know if I wanted it to be my work.’ It’s hard to see how she could have escaped it. She grew up in the large Bernard wine clan, which owns châteaux such as Domaine de Chevalier. At 13, she joined the blind tasting held at every family Sunday lunch. As a teenager she worked the harvest and founded an all-woman tasting group.

But after graduating from EDHEC Business School in Lille, she followed her passion for marketing. She joined international spirits company Diageo in Paris to work on Smirnoff vodka and J&B Scotch whisky. ‘I learned about strategy,’ she says. ‘About how to promote.’

Her first foray for Millésima USA was a temporary project. ‘I came on a mission to beef up e-commerce in the US and the company’s online presence,’ she says. At the time, online sales were big in France, but not in the US. Millésima, one of the largest buyers of futures in Bordeaux, is an unusual combination of négociant and wine merchant, selling direct to thousands of clients worldwide. It was the first foreign company to obtain a wine and spirits licence in the state of New York.

Bernard’s role developed, and she became the general manager in New York, as well as the company’s Bordeaux face in the US. There were plenty of challenges. ‘Most of my US competitors are men in their 50s,’ she says.

One of her first innovations was to make the entire selection of the company’s vast Bordeaux cellars available to US customers, instead of offering a limited selection. They can order whatever they want and it will be imported direct from the firm’s cellars in Bordeaux. She has also put in place an email alert system of futures release prices, which customers can sign up for.

Next year she’ll be selecting American wines to sell in France. ‘I have no doubt that Millésima USA can be bigger than Europe,’ she insists. She’s helping it on the way.

Elin McCoy is an award-winning journalist and author who writes for Bloomberg News