Jean-Claude Berrouet: poet winemaker of Pomerol

A dinner in Montagne-Saint-Emilion this past June featured two surprising blasts from the winemaking past. The first, Château Trotanoy (Pomerol) from the disreputable 1972 vintage (cold spring and rainy August) proved better than expected, especially for the man who had crafted the wine: Jean-Claude Berrouet.

One of the world’s most experienced enologists, Berrouet should be more famous – and not just for his 44 years making wine at estates belonging to Jean-Pierre Moueix, including the legendary Petrus, from 1964-2008.

1972 was a birthday year around the table, so Berrouet was rather nervous about decanting this fragile wine to serve blind from a carafe. He asked us to guess the vintage, and while we were in the right ballpark – Pomerol, check. 1970s, check – 1972 never came to mind. “Given the reputation of the vintage, most people wouldn’t bother trying this today,” Berrouet said, as we admired its soft power and red fruit aromas some 50 years after the harvest. Chaptalized to between one and 1.5 degrees to reach an alcohol level of 12.5, it had been aged in 15% new oak, Berrouet recalled.

Even better was the Château Latour à Pomerol 1967. While not as bad as 1972, 1967 is hardly a top 20th century vintage, lagging behind four other 1960s vintages: 1961, 1962, 1964 and 1966. And yet it proved especially remarkable, displaying impressive concentration, palate depth, density and brightness of fruit for a wine some 55 years in bottle.

“It was a good year for Merlot,” Berrouet said. “Thanks to a wine club from the Netherlands, I re-discovered the quality of this vintage, when they told me about how ‘amazing’ they found it to be”. There was no need to chaptalise, as it had a natural degree of about 12.

Aromatic aspirations

Long before Berrouet made wine for these and other now famous Pomerol estates belonging to Jean-Pierre Moueix, he developed an appreciation for aromatics that he discovered as a seven-year-old when visiting his maternal grandfather’s wine cellar in Bordeaux:

“Thursdays I went to my grandfather’s, where I breathed in vinous scents that came out of each bottle, and this fascinated me to no end,” he recalls. “Smelling is an unconscious act that alerts me; I love jasmine and acacia from the garden, for example, as they awaken me.”

Such aromatic sensitivity makes it no surprise that Berrouet’s favourite novel (reading is a preferred pastime) is Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, a 1985 fantasy novel by Patrick Süskind that explores the sense of smell and its relationship with emotional meanings that scents may have. For Berrouet such emotional meanings include empathy and observation.

“I believe in the cult of humanity,” he said. A strong influence for these character traits come from his father, who under the nom de plume Denis Réjane published poems when not working as a Bordeaux civil servant. “He was not a materialist,” recalled Berrouet. “His poetry inspired me to see and to feel things.”

He especially likes a poem called Retour aux Sources (Back to the Roots) with a message to appreciate life’s simpler virtues and not get lost in superficiality. Indeed, four lines reflect Berrouet’s aromatic appreciation:

Dans le souffle de l’éternité

Tu trouveras l’odeur des roses

Perdue au creux de la cité

Au bénefice des névroses

(an attempted translation – In the breath of eternity, you will find the scent of roses, lost in the hollows of the city, soothing our anxieties)

Berrouet, who turned 81 this past March (“I am older than President Biden, but I think that I am in better shape,” he quipped), also developed the conviction that wine should never be superficial, that it should reflect balance and a sense of place.  Most people who know him appreciate not only his good nature, but also his unparalleled winemaking knowledge – burnished after having worked with such Bordeaux luminaries as Émile Peynaud, Jean-Henri Dubernet, Yves Glories and the Ribéreau-Gayon family among many others.

Throughout his career, Berrouet forged a winemaking philosophy privileging elegance and aromatics over extraction and structure. “Peynaud taught me technical knowledge, to understand how to best express tannins; he had a professional oenological basis with which to react and taught me to be pragmatic, patient and technical in dealing with vinification. While many wine observers praise Peynaud for having dared to pick later to achieve optimal ripeness, Berrouet recalled that “he never picked too late; he sought aromatic purity, harmony and subtlety, and he would come to Maison Moueix with a focus on wines shaped more by delicacy than structure.”

While most people these days in Bordeaux talk about the virtues of gentle extraction, Berrouet had already learned its benefits for Merlot decades ago: “At Petrus, we tested punching down and pumping over and came away convinced that the gentler we extracted, the better the wine became.”

Earlier this century, in the heyday of so-called Parkerized wines, Berrouet was sometimes cast as old hat. It was an era of dark-coloured wines crafted from nearly overripe grapes, high temperature fermentations and extractions, with plenty of new oak tannin. “On the oenological level, we now have a technical arsenal that permits significant interventionism, but such tools can be overused,” he said. “Winemaking is like working in the kitchen, and it’s not because we concentrate everything that we make good wine.”

Balanced extractions
Berrouet stresses that enology can be used to distort rather than shape wine. Back in November 2010, tasting wines of this superlative vintage from barrel, I recall Berrouet advising against over extraction of wine already steeped in tannin: “When you have a rich plate of food, you do not want a second serving”, he told me.

But few in St-Émilion were listening to that advice. Indeed, one well known merchant who at that time criticised what he called Berrouet’s “al dente” approach to winemaking remarked: “If I could control Petrus, I could make a better wine”. Fast forward to verticals today, and one can see why the pendulum has returned towards refinement, less extraction, less new oak and earlier harvests.

Berrouet compares wine to tea, which he dubs “symbolic and representative” of the balance between tannic structure and aromatic expression. “So, if infused too long, tea becomes too tannic, eclipsing aromatic complexity,” he said. And yet: “Too many tasters focus excessively on the wine’s physical aspects”, he said, neglecting what the French call aérien or the subtle lightness of wine as expressed via its aromas. “These are wine’s defining aspects, too often put aside” (by tasters) because we live in an exuberant world that favours over-ripeness, sugar and less acidity, and this can be seductive, but it ends up being simple, losing complexity.”

Back to the future

Berrouet recalls 1950s-era postcards by former Petrus owner Marie-Louise Loubat. “When people came to visit, the postcards of the old Petrus cellar showed very few new oak barrels,” he said. “Some new oak was used starting around 1964, as Maison Moueix crafted its own barrels, and for Petrus, we used new oak, about 30%.” Berrouet explained that new oak didn’t really come into fashion until the arrival of Robert Parker in the mid-1980s:

“Oak became more an element of seduction, so many producers started to use 100% new oak for their wines. Some would use separate barrels of new oak for malolactic fermentation as well, calling that ‘200% new oak’. I remember when a professor from Berkeley asked me if that 200% is good, and I replied with a smile that perhaps 300% is even better”.

Climate change makes new oak more challenging still, he said. Higher temperatures and greater sunlight tend to result in higher sugar levels in grapes, with ensuing higher alcohol levels. The higher the alcohol, which is a solvent of polyphenols, Berrouet notes, the more oak tannin will be solubilised, that is to say, extracted, and felt in the wine. For that very reason, Petrus has been aged for decades with only 50% new oak. At the Premier Grand Cru Classé Clos Fourtet in St-Émilion, where the ostensibly retired Berrouet still consults with Stéphane Derenoncourt (since 2001), the estate has been slowly diminishing the new oak percentage for wine aging from up to 100% not too long ago to a record low of 40% for the hot and dry 2022 vintage.

Another common practice that Berrouet criticises is micro-oxygenation (also called microbullage), a technique meant to “optimize” the colour and taste of wine by adding the “appropriate” amount of air or pure oxygen to the must: this was made famous (or perhaps infamous) in the wine documentary Mondovino (2004) where Michel Rolland was seen advising Bordeaux estates to use that technique. Berrouet says that the origins of micro-oxygenation are in the Madiran appellation of southwest France, where it was used to more positive effect:

“That method is indeed suitable for the tannin-rich variety Tannat, but much less so for Merlot,” he said. “While it made it possible to shape young wines with a lot of seduction for the barrel tastings during en primeur, it can “destroy the purity of aromatic expression when it comes to Merlot.”

The increasingly hot and dry years associated with climate change also make earlier harvesting more important. “Today’s wines will not age as well as older wines because tannins are being degraded sooner in the vineyard”, Berrouet said. “The sun is more violent than it was even 25 years ago and with tannins degrading more quickly already in the vineyard, that means fewer aromatic precursors, which are so essential for the essence of fine wine.”

He said it was a mistake to systemically de-leaf or expose grapes to the sun earlier this century, and that canopy management to protect grapes from sun-rays is essential. Berrouet speaks often in soft and even gentle tones, but there is a stern seriousness to his vision for wine being true to place, without ‘makeup’, reflected again in his father’s poem, which ends with these lines:

Peut-être redeviendras-tu

L’homme qui fut mis sur la Terre

Pour apprécier les vertus

Au lieu de les vendre aux enchères

(again attempted translation – Perhaps you will return one day, the man who was put on earth to appreciate virtues rather than selling them to the highest bidder)

Fashion comes and goes, but class remains. Even if his influence waned during the height of ‘Parkerization’, Christian Moueix, son of Jean-Pierre Moueix, sent me an email for this article: “Jean-Claude never changed his approach, and he has ended up triumphing.”

But Berrouet neither wants to impose his vision on others, nor draw attention to himself. In recalling his father’s poetic approach to life, he compares wine appreciation to painters portraying the same landscape from alternative perspectives. “Liberty is a concept that is deeply important to me, and each person has his or her own taste,” he stressed. “The most important thing is to appreciate joyful moments in life with friends, sharing wine, and there is indeed a kind of poetic joy in appreciating wine, not strictly in a scientific manner, as we discovered when we found pleasure in vintages that can be so easily dismissed,” he said, referring to the 1972 and the 1967 bottles over our recent dinner.

Global recognition

For Christian Moueix, Berrouet proved his talents not only in Bordeaux but also at Dominus in Napa Valley, his first foray outside of France back in 1983. “His collaboration was invaluable and above all reassuring,” Moueix recalled. “He never panicked, even though we were working in difficult conditions”. Since 2008, Berrouet began consulting producers outside France, and those with whom he has worked more recently echo such praise.

Tzora Vineyards winemaker Eran Pick MW, in the Judean Hills of Israel, appreciates elegance and freshness in his reds, but when he had arrived at this estate 13 years ago, the reds were “bigger”: darker in colour, with more tannic extraction.

In 2010, something changed. He hired Berrouet as consultant, “but he became more of a mentor,” Pick recalled. “He taught me the importance of elegance and since his arrival, we have been picking earlier – in fact we are the earliest to pick in the region, and our reds have become lighter and more fragrant, but that does not mean that they lack substance or depth.” Indeed, in winemaking, Berrouet encourages more delicate tannin management, with shorter macerations to extract less tannins. Pick also praised Berrouet for “helping you achieve what you want to achieve, without imposition; he is a true gentleman.”

Across the Atlantic in Argentina, Berrouet arrived in 2011 to consult head winemaker Fabian Valenzuela of Fincas Patagonicas for three wineries: Tapiz, Zolo and Wapisa. “He didn´t come here with a recipe; he understood instantly that Argentina is different, and he could see the potential in our terroir, and he adapted to that, which I thought very smart and very humble, too,” said Valenzuala, who also admires Berrouet’s philosophy and work ethic: “He is very, very detailed in every aspect of the winemaking process and his precision in every stage from the vineyards to the bottling, and he has an unmatched palate when tasting wines, and his dedication to varietal typicity and the expression of terroir is one of the main reasons behind our success in the market.”

This success is reflected in two wines crafted to honour the consultant: Las Notas de Jean-Claude, first released in 2012, “where he brought all his experience of working with Merlot to create this award-winning wine, which has gained very good feedback from critics and journalists worldwide”, Valenzuela said, and Retrato por Jean Claude (Portrait in English), a Cabernet Sauvignon-driven blend that was first released in 2017.

 The expertise of Jean-Claude Berrouet by Christian Moueix

Jean-Claude is a great oenologist; sensitive and ‘vintage specific’, he offers no magic formula, but is always listening, with a thoughtful adaptation to how things develop. I always teased him by calling him ‘teacher’ because he has a gift to make everything related to wine and winemaking intelligible, and when one meets Jean-Claude, one is always learning something new about wine, and in a most gentle and friendly manner. Indeed, he has trained more than 400 trainees, who have become oenologists around the world, and that is also his legacy.

Berrouet’s advice to young winemakers today? “Take the time to appreciate history, to be patient and be observant,” he said. “Knowing the history of the vineyard is essential, as one must understand the history to understand the present,” he emphasised. “One thing that has always impressed me was the foresight of our ancestors who found balance between Merlot and the soils; it was uncanny for example how they planted to a density of about 6,300 vines per hectare, which works well today for Merlot and the clay at Petrus.”

He also stresses communication and teamwork: “I am very attentive to people to see what they need, because the success of Petrus was due to teamwork, to the work of individuals who respected each other”. Indeed, when I spoke with Virginie Roux, quality and R&D manager for Jean Pierre Moueix, who worked with Berrouet for some 10 years, she immediately praised both his “extraordinary knowledge” in enology and his “kind, human character”.

Key facts

• Born in 1942.
• He has two sisters and one brother, none of whom work in wine.
• First enchanted by wine aromas in 1949.
• Oenology diploma obtained in Bordeaux in 1962.
• Hired by Jean-Pierre Moueix and directed winemaking for Petrus and other top Pomerols from 1964-2008.
• Happily married since 1977.
• Begins working with Christian Moueix at Dominus in Napa Valley in 1983.
• Son Olivier takes over at Petrus after 2008.
• Son Jeff taking over family properties at Montagne-Saint-Emilion and Lalande de Pomerol.
• Although officially “in retirement” Berrouet still consults for properties in and out of Bordeaux.