Lagrezette Blog

Lagrezette and Parker

By AD Perrin
 
One can appreciate or criticise the choices made by Robert Parker, or discuss the benefits of his influence. But no one can dispute the impact of his judgments. Now, when that critic decides that, aside from Bordeaux, the only wines from Southern France which he agrees to grade are those of Château Lagrézette, we must, first and foremost, consider such treatment as an acknowledgment of our achievements. For us, this is not a reason for pretentious or self-satisfied pride. But let’s be frank and precise: NEVER has Parker given any of our products a grade under 89 (out of 100) and we more often move between 93 and 95.

This renown won by Lagrézette should serve the entire label. I know that a growing number of wine growers in the region understand the profit they can derive from it. If this can benefit the best, we can only rejoice. They deserve it.

And if, in the years to come, there were ten or even fifty high-quality estates on our native heath, I would be proud to have contributed to such a result.

Black Wine? No thanks!

By AD Perrin

If something proved damaging to the Cahors label, to my mind, it was putting forward the « Carte Noire » (“Black Card”) brand, invented in the sixties and seventies and sold exclusively in supermarkets. The brand was quite successful into the nineties, but it clearly did nothing to enhance the label. Carte Noire meant a bottom-of-the-line wine, a rough-tasting one. And the image that people still have in mind can be summed up in a simple equation: Cahors = Carte Noire = mediocre.

We even stumbled recently on a very mediocre wine called Noir de C… A masterpiece of bad taste! Today many wine growers harbor a fast belief in that marketing notion of “black wine”. They think it will give sales a new start. I’m afraid that the reverse will happen, simply because no one associates the color black with wine. Coffee is black, yes indeed. Wine is red. Sometimes very dark red, deep scarlet, or purple - but not black! In terms of marketing–and I believe I know something about that–it’s a bad idea. I have had the opportunity of saying as much to the wine growers of Cahors: do as you like, follow your hunch, but I cannot stick with you on that point. Sorry.

The future will tell whether I am right or wrong. I will submit to its judgment with good grace…

The “enfant terrible” of the Cahors label?

By AD Perrin

"Enfant terrible": that is the image I am often assigned, actually somewhat hastily… No doubt because, in all my activities, I have always taken great care to preserve my full freedom of speech, even at the cost of displeasing. This sometimes earns me some low blows. One gets over them… But is that a reason for preferring the empty language of officialdom?

Thus, in the “Letters to the editor” column of the “Revue des Vins de France”, one of my colleagues and neighbors, Jean-Luc Baldès of Vire sur Lot, following a remark about his products, kindly puts forward the idea that “as a specialist in finance and precious stones, [I am not in] the habit of meeting with Cahors producers, on their own turf, to talk about the land, soil protection, yields, etc.”.

This makes me smile, for it is easy to grasp the innuendo beneath the heavy-handed wording. The author forgets that I presided over the Cahors label for nearly fifteen years; that I contributed to its renown by bringing journalists and celebrities from the world over to the Lot. No one in Cahors disputes this, by the way. It even occasionally happens that one is thankful to me. I even brought together the “young wine growers” at my home on two occasions!

In fact, let’s be precise: I am not the label’s “enfant terrible”. I am the label’s “Parisian”. No one cares that I have been here for thirty years, that is longer than the young wine growers who are working their land today. Come what may, I will remain “the Parisian” and “the man from the château”. Those two defects will follow me forever, whatever I say and do and consider to be a quality. And so I have learned to live with them.

“Continue to say what you think. And to do what you believe needs to be done” remains a motto to which I am greatly attached.

You never forget the first time…

By Alain Dominique Perrin

We all remember the great french singer and poet, Georges Brassens:

“Never will you forget

The first girl you took in your arms”.

Neither am I likely to forget my first vintage: the year was 1983…

... Impossible!!

The grapevines were too young. I had harvested them with my buddies, and we had a wild time. Illi Nastase was one of them, and José-Luis Clerc, that other extraordinary Argentine champion. French singer Gérard Lenorman was there too.

But the wine was no good at all, zero!

I still have a few bottles of it in my cellar, for old times’ sake. The label was used that year only. But you wouldn’t even cook with it – that’s how bad it is. 1984 was not terrific either.

1985 saw a change of tune. The grapevines had aged. We did a serious job, we followed the rules... And we won a Gold Medal. The very first! That’s when I stopped making a game of wine and settled down to work for good.

Michel Rolland enters the story in 1988. At the time, he was not the star he is today. He was introduced to me by a friend of mine, Patrick Léon, who at the time was the General Manager of Mouton Rothschild… Michel worked with us for four years, from 88 to 91, when we were still with the Cooperative, and he was the one who persuaded me to leave it and to venture out on our own.

He very soon encouraged me to build my own wine cellar, which we did... We opened it in 1992, an average year… But that first “real” Lagrézette was nevertheless rather a success. Beyond the investment, which was a large one, it opened up new doors: a call for excellence, which we have never given up.

120,000 bottles

By Jean Courtois (Managing director)

Since Michel Rolland last returned to the Château, in February, our  2006 vintage wines are resting in their barrels.

It's always an impressive and intense moment to see him preside over the assemblage of a forthcoming vintage of Château Lagrézette. The next step comes between June and September. We’ll bottle and then store some 120,000 bottles, for just this one vintage…

It pleases us to imagine the bottles leaving the vineyard, over the months and years, for the pleasure of consumers worldwide.

The art of wine is an art apart

By Alain Dominique Perrin

I’m often asked, even today, whether my passion for wine and viticulture is influenced by my taste for Art. I do not honestly think so.

I love art, that is obvious: I always need art all around me. When I find myself surrounded by walls without art, I’m bored to death and ill at ease. Working inside the house of Cartier taught me extreme refinement, excellence, the search for perfection. So, when I’m making wine, I want to make a fine wine, not a supermarket wine. But the approach is different. Wine is not, and must never become, an exclusive, luxury item. When I talk about our wine, I am first talking about the passion that we put into making it. There is love in working and cultivating the vines, in finding the best assemblages and in waiting to share the fruit of our labor. But if I had to find a link with art and if I had to compare my wine to a work of art, I would choose one of César’s compression works, for its strength, force and density.

Our wines are masculine. They have body and a strong personality, just like the works of Cesar. He was like a brother, my best friend, and wine is inseparable from friendship.

Speaking of Cesar, this note gives me the chance to announce that an exhibition revolving around his work will be held in the near future at the Fondation Cartier… Dear friends and readers of this blog, don’t miss this retrospective, which I await impatiently. All the more so as it is being staged by the great architect, Jean Nouvel.