Sampling with the KING of wine!

Last week, we enjoyed a private wine tasting with Michel Rolland, generally regarded as the King of Wine as winemaker for a veritable “who’s who” of Napa’s most renowned Cabernets including Harlan ($500) and Bryant Family ($600) just to name a few. Rolland hails from Bordeaux, France where he is owner of Château Le Bon Pasteur and Château Rolland-Maillet. You might argue that Robert Parker is the most influential person in the world of collector wines and I’d be happy to debate that but the fact is Rolland plays an integral role as winemaker for over 100 wines annually while Parker is only “officially” involved in the production of one wine (his own Beaux Freres Pinot Noir). The funniest title I’ve heard about Rolland was when a British journalist referred to him as “the Speilberg of wine”

The purpose of our tasting was to sample the most recent vintages of wines from properties that Rolland personally owns in France, South Africa, Spain, and Argentina. This was a thrilling “tour” around the world in just a few hours as we savored the distinct flavors from each region while noting the consistent qualities (primarily smooth texture + prominent oak) across the board. Our winner of the day was the 2005 Château Rolland-Maillet from the village of Saint-Émilion in Bordeaux. This wine embodied all the deservedly lofty praise synonymous with Bordeaux 2005 while maintaining an unbelievably under-inflated retail price of only $59/bottle, roughly $1,000 less expensive than the over-hyped first growth 2005 Bordeaux sourced from vineyards just down the street! Rolland insightfully proclaimed that he believes 2005 to be the “best ever” {So far} from Bordeaux because the vintage combined the most perfect weather since 1982 with new quality control techniques not available decades ago. “Best ever” is a BIG call from a many who has personally crafted many wines judged “perfect” 100 points by both Robert Parker and the Wine Spectator magazine.

A few other notes about our experience with Rolland: Wine geeks will remember that he features prominently in Jonathan Nossiter’s controversial film “Mondovino” as a demonized agent of wine globalization along with Robert Parker. That was a silly propaganda piece in our opinion but it did provide rare footage of the two most influential individuals in wine. Anyway….in our experience Rolland was both entertaining and relatively humble given his position as “master of {his} universe”. He honestly shared some insider scoop on some of the individuals he works with and noted that he won’t even consider a project if he doesn’t like the proprietor individually. Of course he’s very knowledgeable and not shy about sharing his opinions so if you’re ever fortunate to meet the man don’t make any plans afterwards!

Currently this wine is available for $59 (click here)