Are you a winegrower’s daughter?
No, not at all. I arrived in Libourne at the age of 4, so I was brought up among the vines without coming from that world. I studied management and accounting, and my first job took me to a small wine estate. It was while working on that estate that I took an interest in wine in an empirical way, with the curiosity of someone who had everything to discover. I asked the people working there, “but what exactly do you do in the vineyard?” I went to see and I found it incredible. During the winemaking, I did the same thing, and when I entered the vat room, the magic carried on working. I was completely won over.
Has that magic eroded a little?
I experience the magic every day, truly, ever since 1999, when we set up Domaine de l’A: when I go into the vines, when I bring in grapes to make a new vintage. It is always fascinating because, by the time you bring the grapes back to the vat room, you have been with them for months, observing them! And because we have been on the estate for 26 years, we are beginning to know them a little. You have a small idea of what they will give depending on the plots. The magic of this profession is that sometimes you find what you had imagined and at other times not at all, or else in another form. Which is absolutely fascinating.
Who has changed the most in 26 years? The estate or you?
The vision I had has inevitably changed. In 1999, I had this sort of revelation that led me to throw myself headlong into the world of wine. The way I look at life and at my profession is no longer the same. Nor are my appetites and taste expectations. I don’t know whether one can speak of evolution; I would rather speak of change. I think, quite logically, that you don’t expect the same thing at 25 as at 55.
When you taste your wines over time, I imagine you gauge that change?
Lots of things come into play, since your understanding and your experience of the place evolve. Your knowledge of this environment becomes ever more refined, provided of course that you are willing to give it the attention it deserves. You gain in maturity, which transforms your knowledge of the place. The wines, because they are alive, also gain in maturity.
What ties you to Sainte-Colombe?
The beauty of the place, of this burgeoning nature, amazes me every day. I have always loved this environment. I define myself above all as a daughter of nature. It is something that has always lived in me. And that is quite wonderful. Coming back to the Domaine, I find it easier to make a lovely wine when you have beautiful grapes in a beautiful setting. We must not forget that everything starts in the vineyard.
With hindsight, are you aware that, with Stéphane, you helped to change the Bordeaux approach to winegrowing?
I wouldn’t make that claim. Everything we did, we did naturally, in a very empirical way. We also worked hard and did what we loved and what we felt. It is a profession that requires — it is essential — bio-sensitivity. I would add that a lot depends on you, too. Indeed, if you put other people in this place, they will make a different wine. You are, deep down, only a messenger, which is to say that you will look after a place, the land, but none of it belongs to you. It will be passed on. There was a life before, there will be a life after. And my role is to look after the place as well as possible. I think the wines are imbued by places, but also a little by the person or people who are there. I would go so far as to say that Domaine de l’A is an extension of myself!
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Which descriptors of this wine suit you?
What I particularly like in the estate’s wine is the perfumes, because I find that the wine world is a universe of scents. When I say that, I am also referring to the plant material, to the vine. When you walk through the vines, you have all the aromas of trees in blossom. Right now it is flowering, with scents that are hard to describe, of incredible elegance and refinement. I am particularly sensitive to that refinement, that elegance. I wouldn’t say that I am refined myself (laughs), but it’s what I like in any case.
Is that what the Domaine is?
Yes, and then there is a lot of sensuality in this wine. An extremely delicate touch on the palate. A texture that, if we extend the metaphor, is a bit like haute couture. I find that the silky texture of our wine evokes, at times, taffeta.
What did Bordeaux miss or get wrong, in your view?
I think it remains important for a winegrower to take his or her wine to the door of consumers, to distribute it directly. I find that important because it is a culmination. You know how to talk about it, you can talk about everything that happened during a vintage with a certain intimacy. I remain convinced that people are sensitive to that. I think this embodiment, this accompaniment, is all the more important because our estate is recent; we are not here on a third generation of winegrowers. You can explain, you can say why that year was difficult, what you put in place, how you experienced it. You can have a rich exchange. The human side remains, as you can imagine, paramount. You have a duty to embody this wine… which was somewhat lacking in Bordeaux.
I would add that I feed my talk with extraordinary sensations, such as when you are leaning over the vat in full fermentation. You then feel as though you are above a giant cooking pot, as if you were in your kitchen with its fragrances and smells… I love coming back to these notions of fermentation and transformation, which are absolutely incredible, things that I draw on when I go to meet private customers, restaurateurs or wine merchants.
Should Bordeaux come back to the heart of people through gastronomy?
Of course, we need to come back to the incredible pairings between gastronomy and wine; it is quite fabulous, after all. It is only in France that people talk about food again at the end of a meal. Wine is linked to pleasure, to enjoyment. Perhaps that is what has been forgotten in Bordeaux.
What is your ideal wine?
I need to love the nose, to have a nose that is lovely. And if the nose pleases me, the impression on the palate must match the nose. I look for this harmony that begins with the smell and ends with the swallow. The wine must work on several levels to please me: sensuality, floral character and savouriness. More generally, I would say I have always found it easier to make a wine with a good attack; the hardest thing is to get the finishes right. We will not forget, of course, the importance of the soil markers. Limestone, in this case, marks our wines, in which one often finds a chalky, saline side.
