Séverine Bonnie, marketing, communication and hospitality director at Château Malartic-Lagravière, who spent some time in the world of the press, looks back for us on the need to take emerging trends and new consumer demands into account, and also tells us about her love of podcasts, her great source of inspiration.
What is your role at Château Malartic-Lagravière?
I look after marketing, communication, hospitality and, beyond that, the image and reputation of the brand. I am also responsible for the editorial content of all publications, from the web to press releases. An activity that allows me to maintain a sort of editorial line. Wine tourism is part of a more recent remit. In 2017, I wanted to structure our welcome for professionals and the general public better by building a genuine wine tourism offer.
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What adage has followed you all your life?
My father told me for a long time that you should always have a project up your sleeve – large or small – otherwise you risk falling asleep! This project remains, of course, limited to the size of our entity; we are not L’Oréal (laughs). These projects are often an emanation of internal energies and strengths. I look for this stimulus internally among colleagues and employees, or externally during my many meetings and trips. The press, wide-ranging reading, the world of luxury and art remain for me an inexhaustible source of ideas and inspiration.
Where does this impression of dynamism that sticks to you come from?
Some time ago we were in Verona at the Great Wines Capitals Annual Conference, where that image was indeed reflected back to us. We don’t necessarily realise it, since it is the sum of what we all do at Malartic-Lagravière.
Through your various projects, one senses a desire to reshuffle the cards?
You have to know how to stay open, sense the spirit of the times and go and look for ideas elsewhere. I keep an ear out for “trends” while preserving what makes our identity and without distorting our image. Our challenge is to widen the audience and to attract new consumers without following fashions.
How would you describe Château Malartic-Lagravière?
It is a family wine business! That is something I like to highlight and that defines us rather well. I would add that it is a property with an agricultural, even peasant, dimension, with our Malartic farm animals maintaining a perfectly preserved biodiversity, a stone’s throw from Bordeaux. It seems to me very important to claim a local and ancestral rootedness while promoting a dynamism perfectly anchored in the present and open to international trends… but not to excess.
What style do your wines have?
They have a very Pessac-Léognan patina in their elegance and balance. The hallmark and weave of the red Malartic-Lagravières are felt through a very fine, very velvety tannic touch, great purity of fruit, and with age, expressions of mocha and chocolate mingle with spicy touches. I would say of our whites that they have great finesse and complexity. Chiselled and slender, they have, beyond their great aromatic scope, a real charm that makes them unique!
What is Bordeaux suffering from?
I think we need to realise that we are not the only ones suffering, from Napa to Burgundy, by way of Valpolicella, where I was not long ago. I would add, regarding Bordeaux, that people still like to pick on the leaders a little. Besides, the sommeliers I meet all over France and the world tell me that in blind tastings we often bring everyone into agreement. We certainly have an image problem, but the quality is very much there. It is up to us to go out to consumers, to break the codes, to bring a touch of modernity to our wines, perhaps in a more relaxed way. We must take account of changes in habits and mentalities. We have to understand that people may not want to drink wine every day, that there is a desire for sobriety. But wine must be able to remain a real pleasure, with real conviviality! We host many visitors for lunch at the Château and we offer tapas menus that are very popular, or more classic lunches but always with vegetarian options. It seems to me that Bordeaux must get used to the idea that many of us have changed the way we eat meals and wish, for example, for more plant-based food… Wine consumption must absolutely fit these new trends. We cannot fight against it; we have to hear it, and work on our offer accordingly.
What type of wines do you want to make in the future?
The 2024 vintage, with its lower alcohol and its freshness, clearly meets a demand and in that respect represents a real windfall. Perhaps these vintages, combining freshness, finesse and fruit ripeness, will become the new benchmark? It is in any case this type of profile that we have been seeking at Malartic for some years, working on crunchier, fresher fruit with great depth. Which also corresponds to what I look for personally when I taste a wine.
You said you feed on diverse and varied reading; what would you recommend to us?
I am currently reading an inspiring book on women philosophers, Moi aussi je pense donc je suis by Élodie Pinel, and another on Femmes d’État by Anne Fulda, from Cleopatra to Angela Merkel! I listen to quite a lot of podcasts such as Le Podcast by Pauline Laigneau, How to fail by Elizabeth Day or the impeccable Business Wars but also, in the wine world, 20Divin by Philippe Hermet, in which I had the good fortune to take part, or the fascinating Areni Global by Pauline Vicard.
