My story as a winegrower cannot be separated from the inheritance my parents left me. It is the means it gave me that made it possible to turn Mille Roses into a small winemaking gem of the Médoc.
In a way, I have to admit that the injunction "you have no right to fail with everything you have been given" really did make my life miserable. Even today, I struggle to leave a little room for a sense of satisfaction that would tell this adventure more honestly, an adventure for which I am at least partly responsible. It is a fine achievement, isn't it?
Because yes, Mille Roses has carved out a small place for itself. A discreet one, some will say. My own rather troubled story from the outset did not help: my parents died very early, before I was 5. That break, between my departure from Macau and my return at 20, erased the few connections in the Médoc my parents probably had, connections that could have served me as a more "relational" inheritance.
An inheritance that weighed heavily
No emotional transition, then, for the young lad who traded his bike and his childhood friends for the management of a property: farmland, maritime pine forests, gravel pits, and some very fine buildings "in the making". That heritage called for a great deal of care, and for many different trades.
I like to say that I traded the bike and the skis for the paintbrush and the mower. With, I admit, a certain loneliness that changed my life at the time.
My guardians had steered me towards studies in oenology and viticulture, knowing what would one day come to me. I knew nothing about it. So I started the Mille Roses adventure alone for 3 years, before meeting Sophie, who really allowed the estate to fly through less turbulence. Rather like airliners that ride the jet streams to save fuel, gain altitude and put some distance between themselves and the bumpy ground.
I meant to tell the story of Mille Roses and I am only talking about myself. That is ultimately what gives its full meaning to the line in our brochure: "A human adventure on a terroir of character".
Why "Mille Roses"?
Where does the estate's name come from?
In 1999, starting from half a hectare of family vines, I gave the first impetus to my own estate. I named it "Mille Roses" in tribute to my mother, who loved flowers and rose bushes. The name also says the goal I had set myself: to produce aromatic, elegant and refined wines, in the image of the flower that inspires the estate.
And then the rose has been bound to the vine since the end of the 19th century. Planted at the end of the row, it acted as a sentinel against the plant diseases of the time, downy mildew and powdery mildew above all. It would be hard to find a more fitting symbol.
Sophie, and the adventure as a couple
Sophie comes from a family in Nantes, a very Breton one at that. Trained in international trade and in organising commercial events, she came to carry on the adventure with me in 2002. Jean was born in 2006, Marie in 2008, Suzanne in 2010. Like clockwork.
Today I can say it plainly: Mille Roses would not exist as it is without our partnership. I even wonder whether a vineyard can reach the same harmony without a fine family story behind it.
Like the vineyard, we both know that nothing is ever won for good. Every day the counter goes back to zero, which keeps us from resting on our laurels.
Who does what at Mille Roses?
The division of responsibilities is very clear. I look after technical and commercial management, Sophie handles administration, accounting, finance and the general organisation of the estate. And for some time now, given the difficulties the wine world is going through, and Mille Roses with it, we have been working flat out together to keep a future for this adventure, going out to meet our future customers.
Wine remains our main subject. We cannot do anything by halves, cannot get anything wrong. I do wonder, in fact, whether I have a few knots in my stomach from worrying so much.
Our idea of an honest wine
We have to produce wines that appeal to our customers and that match the idea we have of an honest wine, one that reflects its appellation. Revealing the terroir rather than masking it: that is the most important goal. Our cultural heritage and our land must lead first and foremost to a wine that does not surrender its identity to the sirens of commerce.
We refuse excessive extraction and ageing too heavily marked by oak. We want balanced, fresh wines with a character of their own. There is no need to be a stakhanovite of pumping over or of oenological analysis to make our dream real. The main work is the vine and its grapes. And thanks to this terroir, which already does a great deal of the work thanks to its natural quality.
If, in taking on that responsibility fully, we add to it the idea of passing on a property that is well cared for and respectful of the environment, then we will be proud of this modest journey.
Passing it on, in the end, is everything
One feeling stays with me as I grow older: we take nothing with us to the grave. We are merely the custodians of things to be passed on as elegantly as possible.
That is our final responsibility.
