Bordeaux 2015: Rolland on the rampage

With en primeurs having only just begun, one topic of conversation was not the quality of the vintage but an expletive-filled rant by Michel Rolland.

The renowned consultant had given an interview to French site Terre de Vins, in which he was asked about the subject of ‘Bordeaux Bashing’.

More precisely, the question asked whether the apparent quality of the 2015 vintage would bring an end to it.

‘There’s no antidote for this bullshit,” Rolland replied before launching into a strong rebuff to any critics of the 2015 vintage.

“For me 2015 is a great vintage. Too many arseholes won’t notice of course. We’ll see in 10 years though, as always.”

His diatribe was particularly aimed at journalists, none of whom, he said, would see the strength of the vintage.

“There are no journalists rooted in reality anymore,” he said. “They can say, write and think what they want but nobody will give a f***, in 40 years!”

“Maybe when they realise that they’ll learn some humility. They won’t become intelligent, because that would be difficult, but they’ll think differently.”

The reaction has raised eyebrows if only because, so far at least, there has been little to no criticism of the 2015 vintage from the Anglosphere.

However, and it is a point James Suckling picked out in one of his recent reports, there were some rumblings in the French media about the quality of the vintage before primeurs.

Last October, for example, Vitisphere published a report from the Sovivins laboratory in Bordeaux that suggested that the 2015 vintage was not quite as homogenous as it first appeared – a fact that is becoming increasingly clear as the current primeur tastings progress.

Anglo-Saxon writers can perhaps, therefore, rest easy that Rolland was not referring to them – this time at least.

The full extract can be read here (in French).