(Manfred Klimek)
With Michel Rolland, it is not simply someone who wanted to make wine better who has died. With Rolland, someone has left us who wanted to change it. And did change it.
The Bordeaux oenologist, who died in Bordeaux on the night of 19 to 20 March at the age of 78, was one of those figures with whom an entire industry has wrestled. Admired, criticised, copied – rarely ignored. Rolland was not merely part of modern wine history. He was one of its driving forces.
Born in 1947 in Libourne and coming from a winemaking family, it all began comparatively inconspicuously: an analytical laboratory, set up with his wife Dany. Yet from this analytical precision developed something that extended far beyond Bordeaux. Rolland understood early on that wine is no longer just about origin, but a decision for or against. And that this decision can be guided.
In the 1980s, the oenologist Rolland became a global player. Rolland travelled – and with him travelled an idea of wine. California, Argentina, Chile: he was everywhere that wine was not merely grown, but wanted to be made. The term “flying winemaker” is scarcely conceivable without him.
His signature was clear. Ripe fruit, soft tannins, density, opulence. Wines that were approachable early, that explained themselves without building up lengthy resistance. For many, this was a blessing. For others, the beginning of a problem, because Rolland did not merely meet the tastes of his time – he helped shape them.
And this did not happen in a vacuum.
With the growing importance of Robert Parker, a global reference point for quality emerged that aligned remarkably precisely with Rolland’s style. It was an alliance without a contract, but with impact: wines were no longer made merely for regions, but for markets. And markets demand clarity. What followed is well known – and remains controversial to this day.
Rolland became the symbolic figure of a development later called “Parkerisation”. The accusation: too much ripeness, too much extraction, too much oak. And above all: too little sense of place. Wines that work everywhere – and thus, at some point, taste similar everywhere too. That is the simple reading. And it falls short.
For Rolland did not destroy anything that was not already undergoing change. He made visible a movement that had begun long before: professionalisation, internationalisation, the conscious choice of style in viticulture. The fact that excesses also arose from this was not solely his fault – but that of those who adopted his methods without his restraint.
Rolland himself remained remarkably clear in his position. Wine must please, he said, more or less. And by that he did not mean indiscriminate appeal, but precision: the ability to formulate quality in such a way that it is understood. That made him successful. But also vulnerable to attack.
For while many winemakers sought their identity through differentiation, Rolland worked on accessibility. He thought about wine from the perspective of the market – without reducing it to the market. A balancing act that he managed – but not everyone who followed him.
Through it all, he remained what it is easy to forget: a man from Bordeaux. Rooted in that region, which itself has always oscillated between tradition and adaptation. His global career originated there – and there, too, it found its point of reference. With his death, the wine world loses a figure of contention.