Paul Pontallier (Chateau Margaux)
Managing Director of Bordeaux First Growth Chateau Margaux
Dinner with Dr Paul Pontallier, managing director of Bordeaux First Growth Chateau Margaux is a rather grand affair that takes place in the cellar of Simondium farm Plaisir de Merle one summer's evening towards the end of last year. However he delivers the real insights during a more sleeves-rolled-up interview that takes place in a back room of the offices of Plaisir de Merle's public relations company the day before. Though he is sitting through the last in a long series of appointments, he is urbane and witty and exactly how you'd expect the MD of Margaux to be.
Pontallier is qualified as an agricultural engineer with a degree in oenology. When he began at Chateau Margaux in 1983, the property suffered from a somewhat diminished reputation, but he has been key in returning it to excellence. Along with friend Bruno Prats of Second Growth Chateau Cos-d'Estournel, he is also co-owner of Domaine Paul Bruno in Chile.
The then Stellenbosch Farmers Winery achieved something of a coup when the company got Pontallier to oversee the conversion of Plaisir de Merle from a farm supplying Nederburg to an estate in its own right. He was involved from 1990, supervising the replanting of the vineyards, and also helped train Niel Bester, who has been winemaker at the farm since the first harvest in 1993.
When Plaisir de Merle's wines first arrived on the scene in the mid-1990s, they caused quite a stir, with most commentators agreeing that the Cabernet Sauvignon in particular set a new standard for the Cape.
A decade on, and Plaisir de Merle wines do not appear to retain the same cachet, so my first question to Pontallier is why this might be so. "Frankly, I'm not surprised," he replies. "Ten years ago, the SA wine industry was backward. A lot of progress has been made by other producers since then."
It has been more or less four years since Pontallier was last in South Africa, but he feels Plaisir de Merle is still on track. He points out that since the beginning the intention was to produce wine that was first of premium quality, second representative of South Africa and third in such quantities that it would be relatively easy to come by anywhere in the world.
Current production is around 40 000 twelve-bottle cases in total, 25 000 of which is Cabernet Sauvignon. "I think the spirit of what we set out to do has been well preserved," says Pontallier. "There are plenty of wines that attract attention but are produced in such limited quantity that nobody can get hold of them. We always wanted Plaisir de Merle to be generally available".
In addition, Pontallier explains that crucial to the Plaisir de Merle concept is that the reds should always offer fine drinking. In order to be such, they need to "well-balanced, fleshy and soft" as opposed to "showy" wines which can be wonderful to taste, but become overwhelming beyond a sip or two.
Still, there are today plenty of local wines that are not made purely to win medals and are significantly more aspirational than Plaisir de Merle. Is Plaisir de Merle a successful venture over a decade on?
It all depends how you measure success, reckons Pontallier. Pure excitement is one way, but the "most objective proof of reasonable success" is healthy sales. "We're not sitting on millions of bottles of stock," he observes. The current release Cabernet Sauvignon 2001 goes for R97 a bottle from the farm and the flagship red blend Grand Plaisir 2002 is R183 a bottle so they are not exactly discounting the stuff.
Pontallier's winemaking knowledge and experience goes without saying, but what really sets him apart is his sheer love for wine and his deep understanding of the role it should play in our lives. "Of course, it is possible for Plaisir de Merle to be more ambitious and progressive, but this should never be at the expense of the consumer."
He again draws the distinction between those wines made for drinking and those made for competition. "The act of tasting is quite different to the act of drinking. Winemakers fixate on tasting - it is a requirement of their profession. But I have often picked out a wine in a tasting that I have trouble finishing with dinner. We must all remember that we don't necessarily drink the wines that impress us the most."
What to make of the recent introduction of the Grand Plaisir into the Plaisir de Merle range? Most consumers would associate the farm first and foremost with its single-variety Cabernet Sauvignon and surely the challenge is to keep refining this wine, especially after early vintages showed such great potential.
It emerges that the Grand Plaisir is part of the quest for "something even better" from the farm. Pontallier remarks that "the basic aim of any farm is to progress, and in order to progress, experimentation is necessary". Hence, this red blend that apparently usurps the Cabernet Sauvignon as the farm's flagship wine.
The maiden vintage of the Grand Plaisir was 1997, and the blend consisted of the slightly unusual combination of three Bordeaux varieties (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Petit Verdot) combined with the Rhône variety Shiraz. This was put together ahead of the 1999 Diners Club Winemaker of the Year Award, which saw entrants competing in the category of Cape Red.
There was not another Grand Plaisir until the 2001 vintage and, as mentioned above, the current release is from 2002, which consists of 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Merlot, 10% Shiraz, 10% Petit Verdot and 6% Malbec.
In justifying the Grand Plaisir, Pontallier reveals his Bordeaux roots, but at the same time provides an interesting take on the concept of blending. "Making wine in the Bordeaux-style should not be limited to Bordeaux varieties. Blending is simply a tool to arrive at the best wine possible from a particular site. It doesn't make sense to insist on the varieties that apply in the Médoc [when working in Simondium or elsewhere]."
The reason that Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Petit Verdot are so revered is because of their close association with Bordeaux, but Pontallier points out that their success in the region is simply because they are best adapted to the climate. "Pinot Noir would ripen too soon and Shiraz would never ripen. What's exportable about Bordeaux is the concept of blending rather than the particular varieties used for blending."
Grand Plaisir is very much a work in progress, with Pontallier pointing out that developing a property's reputation is achieved "step by step". Blending, he contends, is "not undertaken for the fun of it, nor for marketing reasons but simply to get a better result".
It emerges that there will be no Merlot in the 2003 vintage of Grand Plaisir as it was deemed not up to scratch. "Grapes are like children: when you desperately want them to do something, they won't," sighs Pontallier ruefully. He is insistent that a blend should never be "an a priori, designed wine" but should always be an effort to arrive at the best possible outcome. If the first version of Grand Plaisir back in 1997 came into being specifically to win a competition, then this appears to be the case no longer.
If Grand Plaisir is an effort to get the best possible wine from the Plaisir de Merle land, then by what criteria do we judge it as better than the Cabernet Sauvignon for instance? It is here that Pontallier indulges in some interesting semantics. "For it to be better, it must impress more without losing its soul." The quest is for more complexity: the wine must gain in broadness and depth without becoming huge or gross, without losing balance and harmony.
But after all is said and done, what ultimately drives Pontallier when it comes to winemaking is to the win the trust of the consumer. "Some success among the professional tasters is useful, but I never want to be entirely dependent on this." He strikes a profoundly philosophical note when he says; "Food, wine and good company are meant to go together. It's a way of life in France. But more and more we are starting to fixate on wine tasting to the detriment of the other elements of a good life."
It is outside the confines of an office meeting room and towards the end of dinner in the Plaisir de Merle cellar that he says perhaps the wisest words of all: "Can we be totally lucid and objective about wine? Of course not. It's about passion and love."
