(Manfred Klimek)
With Michel Rolland’s passing, we have not lost someone who simply wanted to make better wine. With Rolland’s passing, we have lost someone who wanted to change wine. And who did change it.
The Bordeaux oenologist, who passed away in Bordeaux on the night of 19–20 March at the age of 78, was one of those figures who kept an entire industry on its toes. Admired, criticised, imitated – rarely ignored. Rolland was not merely part of modern wine history. He was one of its driving forces.
Born in Libourne in 1947 into a family of winegrowers, it all began in relatively unspectacular fashion: an analytical laboratory, set up with his wife Dany. Yet from this analytical precision emerged something that extended far beyond the Bordeaux region. Rolland realised early on that wine is no longer merely a matter of origin, but a choice for or against. And that this choice can be guided.
In the 1980s, the oenologist Rolland became a global player. Rolland travelled – and with him travelled a vision of wine. California, Argentina, Chile: he was everywhere where wine was not just grown, but intended to be crafted. The concept of the ‘flying winemaker’ would be almost inconceivable without him.
His signature style was clear: ripe fruit, soft tannins, density, opulence. Wines that were accessible early on, that revealed themselves without putting up a long-drawn-out resistance. For many, this was a blessing. For others, it was the start of a problem, for Rolland not only captured the taste of his time – he helped to shape it.
And this did not happen in a vacuum.
With Robert Parker’s growing influence, a global benchmark for quality emerged that aligned astonishingly precisely with Rolland’s style. It was an alliance without a contract, but one with real impact: wines were no longer made solely for regions, but for markets. And markets demand clarity. What followed is well known – and remains controversial to this day.
Rolland became the figurehead of a development that would later be termed ‘Parkerisation’. The criticism: too much ripeness, too much extraction, too much oak. And above all: too little sense of place. Wines that work anywhere – and thus, eventually, taste similar everywhere. That is the simple interpretation. And it falls short.
For Rolland destroyed nothing that was not already in a state of change. He brought to light a movement that had long since begun: professionalisation, internationalisation, and conscious stylistic choices in viticulture. The fact that this also gave rise to excesses was not solely down to him – but to those who adopted his methods without his sense of proportion.
Rolland himself remained remarkably clear in his stance throughout. Wine must be pleasing, he said, in essence. And by that he did not mean arbitrariness, but precision: the ability to articulate quality in a way that is understood. That made him successful. But it also left him open to criticism.
For whilst many winemakers sought their identity in setting themselves apart, Rolland worked on fostering connections. He approached wine from the market’s perspective – without reducing it to that alone. A balancing act that he mastered – but not everyone who followed him did.
Through it all, he remained what is easily forgotten: a man from the Bordelais. Deeply rooted in that region, which itself has always oscillated between tradition and adaptation. His global career had its origins there – and it was there that it found its point of reference. With his death, the wine world loses a source of friction.