ROUZAUD SETS HIS SIGHTS ON CLARET

Published: 23 July, 2008

Jean-Claude Rouzaud, the head of Champagne Louis Roederer, has set himself a new target to improve the quality and perception of claret. 'I drink wine every day for lunch and dinner. I prefer red that's a personal taste because it is easier to digest and it's better for health. And I have concluded that the only wine I can drink all the time is Bordeaux. Yet 80% of generic Bordeaux wines are nearly undrinkable,' he told Harpers in an exclusive interview. So Rouzaud, a passionate oenologist who already owns both Chteau de Pez and Chteau Haut-Beausjour in St-Estphe, has set out to buy up to 200ha of very good 'terroirs' in lesser-known appellations such as Bordeaux Suprieur or Premires Ctes de Bordeaux. There he plans to invest in viticulture to produce what he believes will be 'fantastic wine'. 'I have a team evaluating every estate that comes up for sale. I have already bought one property in the Premires Ctes and I want to build a big project of ideally 200ha, but we will start with 100 if we can find them. 'I want to produce a fantastic Bordeaux in terms of the ratio of quality to price. Maybe for about b6 ex-cellar. That means about b20 a bottle to the consumer. If I can do that, it will be a huge success. But Rouzaud, who is a member of the national committee of the INAO (Institut National des Appellations d'Origine), is already facing a significant problem because he does not want to be limited solely to the traditional claret grapes for his new wine. 'I don't want to call it Bordeaux or Bordeaux Suprieur. This would be a new category of regional wine. Maybe it will contain 0.5% of Syrah, so what could we call it? Under the present laws it would be vin de table. But why not Vin Rgional de Bordeaux or Vin Rgional de la Gironde?'

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