From left to right: Stéphanie De Boüard-Rivoal, Bernardino Sani, Ernst Loosen, Anselme Selosse, Jane Eyre-Renard, and Matthew Day
Drinking with the experts
For the second time, we reveal the wines that have attracted the attention of some of the world’s leading winemakers. In this article, Wine Lister asks 11 vignerons to name their favourite bottle – providing the ultimate wish list of top-quality cuvées to look out for.
Stéphanie De Boüard-Rivoal – Château Angélus
Eighth-generation winemaker, Stéphanie De Boüard-Rivoal tells us that she has tasted many unforgettable bottles, including Clos Rougeard Le Bourg 2002, Coche-Dury Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru 2008, Rayas 2005, Pétrus 1971, Krug Clos du Mesnil 1988, and Dunn Howell Mountain 1998. Above all, a bottle of Jacques Selosse Millésime 2002 comes out on top, having been opened by Stéphanie and her husband during a holiday to Mauritius a few years ago, where they enjoyed it on the beach with fresh crayfish. “The incredible depth, length, subtle salinity, complexity, and balance make this wine a real stunner and a wine one cannot forget after tasting it”. Stéphanie tells us that it is a combination of the wine and the context in which it was tasted that takes it to the top spot.
Bernardino Sani – Argiano
Bernardino Sani, winemaker at Argiano, tells us that his choice of wine is dependent on the occasion. Having previously worked in France, Central America, and the United States, Bernardino’s selection of favourites is as varied as the countries in which he has lived. Romantic dinners with his wife call for sparkling wine, such as Bérêche & Fils Rilly-La-Montagne. Super Tuscan estate, Montevertine, makes its way onto Bernardino’s podium of top reds, for its “terroir-driven” Sangiovese, Le Pergole Torte. He also cites G.B. Burlotto Barolo Monvigliero – “a pure example of Nebbiolo” – as one of his favourite reds. While Italy’s Amalfi Coast and Etna are high on Bernardino’s list of favourite white wine regions, Domaine Leflaive’s Montrachet 2002 takes the prize for the best white he has ever tasted.
Ernst Loosen – Weingut Dr. Loosen
Ernst Loosen believes that cool-climate Rieslings and Pinot Noirs are “red and white twins”, with both offering “pure pleasure to drink” at a young age, and “become truly interesting with a decade or two of maturity”. He feels “naturally drawn to Pinot Noir, especially the more elegant, Old World style of Burgundy”, and admires the “earthy, ethereal, sous bois aroma” that both varieties develop with age. Ernst tells us that “it’s a lot of fun to drink a well-matured Riesling Auslese alongside a [Burgundy] Pinot Noir of similar age”, highlighting the 1971 vintage as one that provides an excellent comparison between the two. He also notes that a 1959 Burgundian Pinot Noir and a 1959 German Riesling will never fail to provide you with “an unforgettable experience”.
Anselme Selosse – Domaine Jacques Selosse
When forced to choose, Anselme Selosse tells us that his favourite wine would be one produced by Rioja Alta’s López de Heredia. During a visit to the estate in 1972, two years before he joined his father at Domaine Jacques Selosse, he was “captivated by the family’s winemaking philosophy”, elements of which still influence his own style today. He singles out Viña Tondonia Blanco Gran Reserva as an exceptional wine that is “deeply imbued with the character of its birthplace”. For Anselme, it brings to mind “someone with the wrinkles of experience etched on his face, who dares to express himself without seeking approval”. Anselme pinpoints two vintages with these qualities, the 1996 and the 2001, describing them as “coloured with age [but] young at heart, […] harmonious, balanced, complex, and subtle” – “storytellers” which tell the unique tale of their terroir.
Jane Eyre-Renard – Maison Jane Eyre / Jane Eyre Mornington Peninsula
Fortunate to have tasted many outstanding wines since her first harvest in Burgundy in 1998, Australian-born winemaker, Jane Eyre-Renard, discloses (“in no particular order”) her three favourite categories: Pinot Noir, Grower Champagne, and Vin Jaune. When pressed for names, Jane tells us that, “if she really had to choose”, it would be between Pierre Overnoy’s Vin Jaune 1985 and Jacques Frédéric Mugnier’s Musigny Grand Cru 2010. Shared with a group of dear friends, the Vin Jaune, with its “complexity, power, length, and pure deliciousness”, was, for Jane, the perfect illustration of why “no great bottle was ever drunk alone”. Meanwhile, the Musigny encompasses “all the things [Jane] loves about Pinot Noir.” Having worked with Frédéric Mugnier back in 2002, she shared this bottle with her harvest team in 2022 when it was 12 years old.
From left to right: Omri Ram, Guillaume Pouthier, Telmo Rodríguez, Thibault Liger-Belair, and Sebastián Zuccardi
Matthew Day – Klein Constantia
With a host of experiences across the globe, from Saint-Émilion to Napa Valley, Matthew Day followed his roots back to South Africa, where he heads winemaking at Klein Constantia. He tells us that his favourite wines sit in two categories: those that hold sentimental value and have played a vital part in his career, and those that he just can’t get enough of. He ranks Penfolds Grange, Margaux, and Didier Dagueneau in the first category: his first job in Australia was at Penfolds and Margaux was the first First Growth he tasted. “When it comes to Dagueneau, I am crazy about Sauvignon Blanc, especially those from Pouilly-Fumé or Sancerre”, explaining that the wines “opened [his] mind to a terroir-focused winemaking style”. His wine picks for pure pleasure include d’Yquem, while Gramercy Cellar’s Syrah is his absolute favourite wine to drink. He is a firm believer that wines like these are better enjoyed with friends, without food, rather than trying too hard to force a pairing.
Omri Ram – Château Lafleur
Like many other oenophiles, Omri Ram struggled to narrow his favourite wines down to one. He cites the wines of Domaine G. Roumier, Domaine Coche-Dury, and Domaine Jamet as having marked “unique and special occasions”, while noting that some of the greatest wines “are those you can drink on a Tuesday evening, without breaking your head wondering if you should open your last bottle of something very rare”. In this case, he turns to the Rhône and Bordeaux. He enjoys the wines of Domaine Alain Graillot in Crozes-Hermitage – no frilly edges, “just a pure, well-made Syrah”. His adopted region, the Right Bank, holds a special place in his heart, offering great ageing potential without needing to break the bank. While Omri enjoys gems from Château Magdelaine (vintages 1990, 1995, and 1999 to be specific), he tells us that the real unsung heroes come from Fronsac, Côtes de Bourg, and the Médoc Crus Bourgeois. A current favourite of his is Château Tour du Haut-Moulin 1996, a Cru Bourgeois Haut-Médoc “of depth and sophistication”.
Guillaume Pouthier – Château Les Carmes Haut-Brion
Awarded the title of France’s best winemaker by Le Figaro Vin at the end of last year (recap the article here), Toulouse-born winemaker, Guillaume Pouthier, has many favourite wines. If he had to choose the one that he felt the “strongest emotional connection” with, it would be Hermitage Cuvée Cathelin 1991 from the icon Northern Rhône estate, Domaine Jean-Louis Chave. He tells us that it is a perfect example of a great wine with “perfect balance, good texture, and structure”: a classic Hermitage, one to be drunk now or kept for many more years.
Telmo Rodríguez – Remelluri
Telmo Rodríguez, of Remelluri fame, tells us that his favourite wine is Bodegas De La Riva’s unfortified Palomino, ‘M. Ant. De La Riva’, produced by winemakers Willy Perez and Ramiro Ibáñez from grapes grown in Jerez’s iconic Macharnudo vineyard. Seeing its Place de Bordeaux debut last September, this wine could be, according to Telmo “one of the world’s best whites, thanks to the Palomino grape’s noble expression and the finesse and flavour provided by the Albariza soils found in Jerez”. Dedicated to the revival of Spain’s native grape varieties, Telmo is keen to promote the new generation of great winemakers keeping these historic wines alive.
Thibault Liger-Belair – Domaine Thibault Liger-Belair
Unlike our other interviewees, Thibault was quick to disclose his favourite wine: Domaine Hauvette Cuvée Cornaline 2011 Baux de Provence. “I love the precision and the style Dominique Hauvette can integrate into her wine”, he tells us. With “bright fruit and a wonderful aromatic expression”, this wine displays “exemplary precision and finesse, even when young”, according to the vigneron. Thibault recently brought a bottle to taste blind with his winemaker friends at their regular haunt in Beaune, and tells us that it left them stumped!
Sebastián Zuccardi – Zuccardi
“I have so many wines that inspire me and open my mind”, explains Sebastián, third-generation owner and winemaker of Argentinian estate, Zuccardi. Faced with the task of picking just one favourite, he chooses Soldera: “The wines display finesse and transparency, allowing the intensity of the distinctive terroir of the Montalcino forests to shine through”. Sebastián shared with us tales of his visit to the estate, where he was hosted by the legendary late Casse Basse winemaker, Gianfranco Soldera, remembering clearly Gianfranco’s desire for the aromas of the forest to be reflected in his wines.
Managing Director of the pioneering Pessac-Léognan estate: “Thinking you’ve made it spells the beginning of the end!”
Guillaume Pouthier, Managing Director of Château les Carmes Haut-Brion, has been awarded the title of France’s best winemaker by Le Figaro. The Pessac-Léognan estate, which today boasts a state-of-the-art winery designed by Philippe Starck, has experienced an unprecedented rise in popularity in recent years, its leaps and bounds in quality driven by the winemaker’s technical daring and spirit of innovation.
“I owe a lot to my mother,” the Toulouse-born winemaker tells Le Figaro. It was his mother who encouraged him to study agricultural engineering, when he had more or less given up on the idea of pursuing higher education. Today, after three decades of winemaking, he embodies one of the most meteoric success stories in the Bordeaux wine region, if not the whole French wine-making industry, over the past five years. Today, Château Les Carmes Haut-Brion is the fastest-selling en primeur wine, with prices that continue to rise on the secondary market, whereas so many others end up experiencing a decline. What lies behind such enthusiasm? The combination of a unique style – which manages to be both modern and authentic, and is appreciated by critics and consumers alike – with canny marketing management has made the château utterly irresistible. Rare are the winemakers who are able to tackle both fronts with so much panache, whilst remaining kind and humble. All these qualities justify the choice of Guillaume Pouthier at the head of Le Figaro Vin’s ranking of France’s 50 best winemakers.
Le Figaro Vin: How does it feel to be crowned a winemaking champion?
Guillaume Pouthier: In wine, we never talk about “champions”. The word “champion” is appropriate in sport, where there’s a winner and a loser. Wines, on the other hand, will all reach their target consumers. We make wine in relation to a particular place. No one wine is any better than another; it’s just the purpose of each wine which ends up being different. The reason we make wine is linked to a form of expression. I don’t think I’m any better than the next winemaker and, what’s more, I’m very surprised to be so high in your ranking, especially when I see the exceptional people who have appeared in it. They are legends, whereas I am just a little troublemaker from Toulouse!
Have you been training for long?
I made my first vintage in 1994, so I’ve been doing it for 30 years. There’s still a lot left for me to do. It’s a real marathon – or even an ultra-endurance run. But I’d better lose some weight if I want to do one of those!
Who is your mentor?
I have several. My personal coaches are the people around me – my family – who put into perspective the pressure that I do, at times, feel. Professionally, one always has several mentors. In 1998, when I was only 25 years old, Jean-Marie Chadronnier took a big gamble in handing Château La Garde over to me, a young gun with no experience, and, for that, I am very, very grateful to him. Since then, there have been many people who have inspired me, for the purity of the wines that they produce, which move me beyond words. I am in awe of the wines made at Gonon (Domaine Pierre Gonon in Saint-Joseph, ed.), and of those made by Pierre-Olivier Clouet at Cheval Blanc, and by Baptiste and Julie Guinaudeau at Château Lafleur.
Would you say that wine is a team sport?
The two are synonymous. You can’t make wine without a team behind you, as, when you’re making wine, you’re never 100% right. Each vintage is made up of lots of different decisions, or paths, that you take as you go along. Each one is different, so each year we have to seek out new paths, in order to get to the same destination and make a great wine.
What is the key to making a good wine? The terroir or the winemaker?
It’s 100% about place. The winemaker is but a passing presence. Wine was made before they arrived and will continue to be made once they have gone. The winemaker is merely giving a voice, through the various vintages that they work on, to the place. They are the linchpin – the go-between that links the place to the wine that is produced from it. To say otherwise would be to give too much importance to the winemaker’s actions. Of course, we take decisions, and we make choices – but, ultimately, making great wines in less than great locations is something I don’t believe to be possible.
To what or to whom do you owe your success?
I owe it firstly to my parents, who made it possible for me to pursue higher education when it seemed like I wasn’t cut out for it. It was my mother who encouraged me to apply for Purpan (an agricultural engineering school in Toulouse, ed.); I was amazed to be accepted. It was there that I learnt to use a team sport mentality in my work – and it was that very mentality that I wanted to be trained to use. My studies there really helped me in thinking about the questions “What is higher education for?” and “What purpose does the concept of a team serve?”. On our own, we can go far but, together, we can go really far.
Is your family proud of you?
My daughters are 15 and 21. I’m not sure they truly understand what it means to be a winemaker. I think they love their father for who he is, and what he stands for in their eyes, without any thought of professional success. As for my parents, we’re quite reserved in my family, we don’t really show our emotions, we’ve never had this need to say out loud that we’re proud of each other. In our family, pride is out of place.
Who has been your biggest sponsor throughout your career?
I have several. The first is the owner of the estate, Patrice Pichet, who, each vintage, lets me try to make an exceptional wine with my team. Beyond that, our best supporters are all the wine enthusiasts out there who, year after year, are willing to invest a bit of money to buy these fine bottles. I hope they get their moment of pleasure from them.
Your favourite colour?
Blue. It’s a colour that you can find in lots of different places and one that I like to see in the distance – the sea, the sky, the horizon. What is wonderful with wine is that you must never give yourself any limits, never think you’ve got it all covered, you have to keep saying to yourself all the time that you are just at the beginning of your journey.
Your favourite grape variety?
Cabernet Franc, as it’s an unpredictable variety, which is very difficult to tame and to grow to perfect ripeness.
Your favourite wine?
One of my most treasured tasting memories remains a Jean-Louis Chave wine. I think it was during his father’s time – a Cuvée Cathelin 1991. It was a legendary Syrah, as it had everything that you could ever look for in a wine: perfect balance, a lot of complexity, with that kind of characterful elegance that Hermitage wines possess. Above all, it was a wine that made a very great impression on me.
What’s your favourite vintage?
I have two: 2016 and 2022. They are both vintages where we made certain choices – making choices always implies some form of sacrifice. At a certain moment, you have to accept that to improve, you have to make wines that are a little less extracted, less in-your-face, which will allow you, somehow, to make wines that are much more expressive. Today, those two vintages are the translation of a particular place, they are the image that I visualise when I think of Les Carmes, they represent the choices that we have made as a team, and which have allowed us to make the wine that I had always hoped to make.
If your wine were a person, who would it be?
One person, and one person only: the place it comes from.
What are the best circumstances in which to taste your wine?
Sharing a bottle amongst friends – not necessarily with connoisseurs, but with people who appreciate our winemaking philosophy and where the wine comes from.
Have you ever thought about chemically enhancing yourself, or your wine?
I enhance my wine every day, with the passion that my whole team puts into their work. That shared passion that runs throughout the team – from the winemaker through to the estate owner – is the best enhancer that exists. In life, you need to be both willing and able to do things. We are lucky enough, with our owners, that we are able to do whatever we want to do – which is fairly rare!
What are you most proud of?
I’m most proud of having encouraged my team to work together, as one, and to take pride in each other’s work, in the project that we have accomplished together and in the recognition that we, and the château, receive from our peers.
Who is your most formidable opponent in Bordeaux?
Mother Nature. With global warming, things are getting very difficult, very stressful, because there are so many different elements and events which can spoil a harvest. It really worries me, as I think this phenomenon will be considerably magnified in vintages to come. Behind each vineyard, there are people, and decades and decades of work which could be erased in a few minutes. You might escape the clutches of disaster for a year, two years, perhaps even three, but I’m not sure you can escape them eternally, between frost, hailstorms, diseases, heatwaves, etc. We do everything we can to prepare for these events, but I’m not sure that we will always manage to recover. We’re putting up a fight, but we have no guarantee that we’ll succeed: even with all the means in the world, it’s Mother Nature who decides.
What’s your most innovative tactic in the vineyard?
No great red wines are made without some moisture restriction, so optimising water management between plots is what makes us tick. This year, it was a real challenge. When it comes to our cultivation techniques, we work the soil, at different moments of the day, and we use different kinds of cover crops. We use green manures of varying compositions, according to the quality of the soil and its porosity. We have certain indicators and, using these indicators, we always try to optimise the moisture restriction without going all the way to hydric stress, because we know very well that it’s when we are stressed that we end up making mistakes.
And in the cellar?
At a time when everyone was against the idea of varietal extraction, we dared to use whole-bunch fermentation – as it used to be done in days of old – and submerged cap techniques.
Who would be your ideal successor on the podium?
The person who succeeds me will have to be someone innovative, passionate and, above all, who is not afraid of mixing things up. Nothing is worse than inertia. I’m not in favour of change for change’s sake, but I am in favour of constantly reassessing things. Bordeaux is a powerhouse, the likes of which exist in very few places around the world. The Place de Bordeaux, if we’re talking about distribution or sales, is the same. However, you mustn’t start thinking you’ve made it, whatever you do – because that spells the beginning of the end!