Actor and winemaker of his renowned family estate in Meursault: “Mersault was always on my mind”.
For the 27th interview in Le Figaro Vin’s series we head back to Burgundy to meet Jean-Marc Roulot, #24. As both an actor and a leading figure in the vineyards of Meursault he defies categorisation. His sensitivity and intelligence shone through our meeting.
Both his grandfathers were winemakers in Meursault, and Jean-Marc Roulot has always been immersed in the world of wine. But if his DNA led him to undertake a vocational training course in viticulture and oenology in Beaune, he later changed direction to pursue an artistic career. “I dreamt of nothing but the theatre, I was always at the cinema, but I kept it to myself,” he confides. “After a couple of years working with my father, I told my parents that I wanted to be an actor”. So he moved to Paris without a penny to his name, enrolled at the Conservatoire d’Art Dramatique in 1980, when he was 24, and embarked on three years of study which allowed him to rub shoulders with the biggest names in theatre at the time, all the while “reassuring his parents”.
In 1982, when he was still a student in Paris, his father died following an illness. The estate was then managed by the American, Ted Lemon, who arrived in January 1983, followed by Jean-Marc’s cousin, Franck Grux, who left in 1988 to pursue his career with Olivier Leflaive. The following year Jean-Marc returned to take over the vineyard, but without giving up his acting career.
“Meursault was always on my mind, and when my cousin left I had to make a decision. I had a deep attachment to the estate; I wanted it to carry on and I wanted the wine to be good. At the age of 30 I finally appreciated what it stood for. I came back on one condition: that I would continue to be an actor.” Today, along with his sister, Jean-Marc Roulot embodies the sixth generation of an iconic Burgundy family, co-ordinating his responsibilities as a winemaker and distiller, while still allowing himself to act in the occasional film. Graced with an exceptional humility, he quietly concludes: “Theatre helped me understand that I could also put something of myself into a wine”.
Le Figaro Vin: How does it feel to be crowned a winemaking champion?
Jean-Marc Roulot: I am happy that my wines and the work of the estate team have received this recognition. It’s great, but I don’t want to wallow in it. I am constantly challenging how we do things; we can never afford to stand still. And, when I look at the world of wine today with its crazy prices, I remind myself that I am also an actor looking for work, and that calms me down!
What is your greatest source of pride?
My team!
Have you been training for long?
Yes, I have always been immersed in it, alongside my father. That was part of our family life, it’s how we were brought up back then.
Who is your mentor?
I could mention Hubert de Montille, my former father-in-law, who taught me a lot and was hugely supportive. There are also certain wines that have profoundly affected me, such as François Jobard’s Meursault Premier Grand Cru Genevrières 1973.
Is wine a team sport?
Yes, absolutely.
What is the key to making a good wine? The terroir or the winemaker?
It is the combination of the two that is interesting. The terroir is like a screenplay: if you give the same screenplay to two directors they are not going to make the same film.
To what do you owe your success?
To the work of my parents, as well as to my ten years in the theatre, and more specifically to my teachers, Jacques Lassalle and Michel Bouquet, who taught me the importance of attention to detail.
Is your family proud of you?
You would have to ask them. My eldest son puts a lot of pressure on himself. He will write a new chapter in his own image. An estate is an instrument that we pass on, not something immutable.
Your favourite colour?
Blue.
Your favourite grape variety?
Pinot Noir. It is so expressive that I find it moving.
Your favourite wine?
Les Luchets, because it was the village Meursaults that first established the estate’s reputation. There are also emotional and family reasons behind my choice.
Your favourite vintage?
- It is a truly great vintage for whites and the year that my eldest son was born. Nature was on our side.
If your wine was a person, who would it be?
I would love my wines to have the grace of a Max Ophüls’ film.
What are the best circumstances in which to taste your wine?
I like to be focused and somewhere intimate with my family or my friends, in the late morning or late afternoon. I also like drinking when we hold the Paulée (the celebratory lunch held at the end of the grape harvest in Meursault, ed.), where it requires a real effort to concentrate. Remember, not everything is just given away in the glass, we have to put in the effort.
Who is your strongest competition?
Myself, because I don’t know when to stop. Still, we have to focus on what we’ve got.
What is your greatest trophy?
I am not a great collector of medals, but let’s say my certificate for climbing Mont-Blanc!
Who would be your ideal successor on the podium?
A wine fanatic, capable of learning from the past but without feeling pressured or bound by it, who would not be influenced by the latest trends, and who would simply want to make the wines that he or she wishes to drink, freely, with love and an open heart.
Winemaker of this cult grower Champagne in Montgueux: “I don’t have any competitors, just hazards!”.
The 26th interview in Le Figaro Vin’s series takes us to the Aube where Emmanuel Lassaigne, #25, creates some of the purest champagnes in the region at the helm of his family estate. Here he reveals the unconventional approach that has made him one of the favourite Champagne winemakers at the finest tables in the world.
Situated in Montgueux near Troyes, the Jacques Lassaigne estate, comprising 4.7 hectares, was established in 1964. Often compared to the terroir of Montrachet in Burgundy, Montgueux lies at the northern edge of the Côte des Bar, enjoying cool climatic conditions on a limestone hillside which overlooks the Seine Valley. Emmanuel Lassaigne took over in 1999, converting to organic and biodynamic cultivation. While Pinot Noir is typically planted in this region, Emmanuel Lassaigne marches to a different tune, seeking to produce distinctive Blanc de Blancs champagnes by means of vinifying partly in barrels, disgorging entirely by hand without ice, and eschewing the addition of any sulphur or sugar. This rigorous approach produces perfect champagnes for high-end gastronomy, highly sought after by top sommeliers.
Le Figaro Vin: How does it feel to be crowned a winemaking champion?
Emmanuel Lassaigne: I played a lot of sport and I dreamt of being a champion: it’s a belated reward!
Have you been training for long?
Yes. When you are a winemaker you work on a solitary piece of land. If you think about it, it’s not much of a playing field. So I create ephemeral wines, always following the same approach, and I make between five and eight different cuvées every year, in sherry barrels, port barrels…so I have done a lot of training, and every vintage is different, with its own unique characteristics.
Who is your mentor?
We are fortunate in having Aux Crieurs de vin (iconic restaurant and natural wine bar in Troyes, ed.), which played a significant part in my initiation into the world of artisan natural wine. I should also mention my encounters with winemakers from the school of Lapierre (Marcel Lapierre, of Domaine Marcel Lapierre in Beaujolais, who was a pioneer in the field of organic cultivation, ed.), which have had a key role in my development.
Is wine a team sport?
We are a team in some respects, yes, but when it comes to winemaking I am on my own. I need to decide things for myself, not as part of a committee.
What is the key to making a good wine? The terroir or the winemaker?
The terroir. But we should put this in perspective, because not everyone shares the same taste. I think we make the wines that we like to drink ourselves and, in that sense, we are led by our personal preference. Here, we deal in small volumes and don’t have the weight of history on our shoulders. The chef de cave of a great house is a conductor who has to follow a musical score. Me, I’m a jazzman!
To what do you owe your success?
To some pivotal encounters. When I took over my parents sold our entire production directly from the estate. I wanted to outsource sales to specialist wine merchants and sommeliers. I had no connections with any restaurants back then, but I struck lucky with some Michelin-starred restaurants who promoted me. Le Meurice, Yannick Alléno, l’Astrance, Noma, and even El Celler de Can Roca, ordered my wines by the crate! I was inspired to make a wine for an aperitif, namely Les Vignes de Montgueux, a wine without added sugar which is perfect for starting a meal. After all, we don’t start with the dessert.
Is your family proud of you?
I belong to a peasant family, so we don’t discuss that sort of thing. At the same time the village derives a certain pride from what we do, since we raise the profile of the terroir through the names of our wines.
Your favourite colour?
Red.
Your favourite grape variety?
I love the heady dimension of Chardonnay and we work it like a red in order to develop a full-bodied character. I like it when you can recognise the fruit in the wine. The grape is only exciting when it’s ripe.
Your favourite wine?
I have four children and I couldn’t choose between them; the same goes for my wines. The most significant for me, however, is the first: Les Vignes de Montgueux.
Your favourite vintage?
I don’t have one, absolutely not. My favourite vintage is always the next one.
If your wine was a person, who would it be?
An amalgam of Chet Baker, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane.
What are the best circumstances in which to taste your wine?
You can enjoy it on your own because we have greatly developed its multisensorial side. I have gone beyond food and wine pairing because I’m a hopeless cook. I am deeply involved with music and lucky enough to have a Pleyel piano to play on here.
Who is your strongest competition?
I don’t have any competitors, just hazards!
What is your greatest trophy?
The best thing about my job is the encounters I have with chefs, sommeliers, and wine merchants.
Who would be your ideal successor on the podium?
There are two ways of looking at this. From an internal perspective this job is not exactly a lot of fun, it’s not the stuff of dreams. I would sooner my children look outwards, even though I hope that, at some point, one of them will take over the estate.
Winemaker of his family-owned Champagne House in Urville: “At Drappier wine is a family sport”.
For the 23rd interview in Le Figaro Vin’s series we pay a fourth visit to Champagne to meet Hugo Drappier, #28. Son of Michel Drappier, and grandson of André Drappier, it is now his turn to create the family wines at their estate in Urville, which lies at the southernmost edge of the Champagne region. In that neck of the woods, despite their global success, they keep their feet firmly on the ground.
Le Figaro Vin: How does it feel to be crowned a winemaking champion?
Hugo Drappier: I’ll just have to take it on the chin! I wasn’t expecting that at all! That’s really nice. The whole family has put in a lot of work over recent years. We can see the results in the desirability of our wines. It was hard to believe at first. We had to figure out why what we were doing worked. Hopefully we can sustain it over time, and our wines will continue to please the customer base of wine lovers that we have managed to build up over the past few decades. As for now, we still have work to do in terms of the quality of our wines, since we are not always 100% satisfied, so we will go all out to ensure that our wines continue to improve.
Have you been training for long?
Yes, and I think that the training is far from over. There is still a great deal of work to be done to get to where we would like to be every year. We have some challenges to deal with, like global warming and natural disasters. We plan to upgrade our cellars to help keep our wines over the long term. Getting to grips with global warming is one of the generational challenges that will affect us for the next twenty years. We are only seeing the start of it, and we know that it’s going to intensify. We are going to have to reinvent ourselves.
Who is your favourite mentor?
I cannot give you just one name. I have, in the natural course of things, encountered quite a few people who have knowingly and unknowingly influenced my choices and provided guidance in tasting. We all have our favourite styles of wine in Champagne, in France, and even internationally. Every wine I have tasted that has resonated with me has subconsciously exerted some small influence over my technical choices and over the style of the wines that I make. It is difficult to answer this question, although obviously my father has a big influence on me now. Plenty of others have also brought a little something to the table.
If you had to name names?
There are, of course, wines that we really enjoy and that we drink as a family. I could name the Amoreau family in the Bordeaux region. And then there are good friends of mine, winemakers in Burgundy who also work with Pinot, even though we make different kinds of wine. I am very close to the Richoux family in Irancy. Despite the contrast in our winemaking approaches our terroirs are very similar and we have many shared values which inspires me.
At Drappier, is wine a team sport or a family sport?
I would say that it’s a family sport, above all because the history that pervades the house was written by the family in the first place, and that continues to be the case. Transitions take place down through the generations, and today these work themselves out between brothers and sisters. It is truly the family that has written our story and ties of parentage and blood inevitably predominate. That remains a cornerstone of our story. The family is at the centre of our daily activity, in both professional and family spheres, and I hope that is the way things stay. Unfortunately this is becoming increasingly rare, but we are trying to maintain this vital family core.
What is the key to making a good wine? The terroir or the winemaker?
This is something that has evolved through the way that Champagne winemakers have always contrived to plant their terroir in accordance with their chosen combinations of plots, grape varieties, and wines. The interesting thing about this region is that the terroir is read, perhaps more than elsewhere, through the lens of the winemaker. Every winemaker has their own way of interpreting their terroir. There are many aspects to the concept of terroir: the geological and climatic sides, and a human meaning…In Champagne, human meaning is more significant, carries more weight, than in other regions. The winemaker has a more leading role.
To what do you owe your success?
It’s all down to the family. I haven’t succeeded yet and I don’t know if I will ever get there. Either way, any success is shared. I would say, above all, that we share a love for the art of wine. I am proud to have learnt and to have travelled, values that my father and grandfather passed on to me. In terms of my winemaking education, my grandfather has played a major role, while my father has had more of a hand in my love of research and innovation. In terms of my personal fulfilment, I see it as a success to have fallen in love with this profession, to see different things every day, and never to be satisfied with what we have done.
Who is your biggest supporter?
The emotional support of fellow winemakers with whom I have been able to talk things over. I have had a few setbacks and to be able to discuss things with my winemaker friends, from Champagne and elsewhere, to appreciate that I am not the only one to have experienced technical problems, and to be able to come up with solutions together, this is a big moral support in these testing times.
Your favourite colour?
It’s not so much a favourite colour as a colour that challenges me, especially in the world of Champagne, namely orange. That may not be terribly original, but I find it challenging.
Your favourite wine?
2018, because it strikes me as original and sums up very well what we are capable of and what we want to achieve in the years ahead.
Your favourite vintage?
2017 was really interesting, a real test. Also 2018 and 2022.
If your wine was a person, who would it be?
Perhaps the renowned monk, St Bernard of Clairvaux, in terms of personality. I don’t believe that you can make wines that everyone likes. But they should be relatively straightforward, forthright, and offer something relatively unembellished, assured and slightly sharp.
What are the best circumstances in which to taste your wine?
On a daily basis, with friends. And spontaneously.