Jean-Michel Cazes: a farewell

Jean-Michel Cazes, 25 March 1935 – 28 June 2023

One of the most dog-eared books on my shelves is a two-volume, closely typed history of the Médoc vineyard from the Middle Ages to the mid 20th century. Written by French geography professor René Pijassou in 1980, it is a major contribution to Bordeaux history that is still not particularly well known, as it was published as a thesis with only a limited number of copies.

My copy was given to me by Jean-Michel Cazes, during one of our first meetings, in his offices at Château Lynch Bages, 20 years ago. He barely knew me at the time, but told me, ‘you are here to write about Bordeaux, so you should read this book’.

It was obvious then that this was a kind and generous gesture – but today I know just how typical it was of a man who spent much of his professional life welcoming wine lovers into the world of Bordeaux. I was back in his office recently and saw a small collection of the Pijassou books on the top shelf of his bookcase. Waiting, I like to imagine, to introduce the next person to this region he loved so much.

I have a few other books that he has given me over the years, including a much-used small volume on walking routes through the Médoc, and have translated two of his own, one on Château Lynch Bages and its deep links to the Médoc written by Jean-Michel and Cordeillan Bages former chef Jean-Luc Rocha, and the other, more recently, his autobiography, which came out in French last year and in English just a few months ago. I knew as I was doing it that it would prove to be an invaluable record of this wonderful man’s life, and I am so grateful that he entrusted me with the task.

As anyone who was lucky enough to meet him will expect, it is full of insider stories and personal histories told with warmth, humour and honesty. He speaks about the impact of an Allied bombing raid on Pauillac towards the end of World War Two, when Jean-Michel and his sister Jacotte sat on a wall in their garden a few kilometres away to watch the local oil refinery burning, creating a ‘fireworks display’ for the two young children. And about the poverty of the post-war years, when it was impossible to earn a living from a wine estate alone, and Jean-Michel’s father tried to persuade him to stay away from the industry, meeting him in Paris (where Jean-Michel was working as part of a team at IBM that built and sold the first personal computers into businesses worldwide) to discuss selling Lynch Bages, and replying, ‘You’re crazy!’ when he tentatively suggested moving back to Pauillac to keep the château in the family.

Luckily he wasn’t put off, and Bordeaux has benefitted beyond measure over the past 50 years since he returned with his wife Thereza and their young family on July 13, 1973. He spent much of the next five decades bringing Bordeaux to the world – regularly visiting the United States in the 1970s and 1980s, then Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing from the early 1990s. And when he wasn’t travelling, he was bringing the world to Bordeaux, with the development of Bages village and the opening of hotel and restaurant Cordeillan Bages, attracting a series of talented chefs who went on to build starry reputations, most famously Thierry Marx (always ambitious, Jean-Michel could at times air his frustration that Pauillac was too small to hold on to them).

No doubt his natural warmth came partly from his upbringing, and his heritage. Unlike many of the aristocratic owners of the great châteaux of the Médoc, the Cazes family emigrated to the region in 1875 from the Ariège region of southwest France, after spending decades as seasonal workers around Pauillac. Even after returning to this 1855 5th Growth, Jean-Michel worked in insurance to earn extra income, as his father André had done, and it wasn’t until the late 1980s that the wines created a steady enough income to support a wife and four children. After his father passed away, Jean-Michel continued to live full time in Pauillac, the head of a family both rooted in the Médoc and yet open and welcoming to the rest of the world.

He will be missed immeasurably, and we are all richer for his life. All love to his wife Thereza, daughters Kinou, Marina and Catherine, son Jean-Charles, and his grand-children. They will be holding his funeral in Pauillac this Tuesday July 4. I am so sorry not to be able to be there, but wanted to share with them this poem, that we read at my father-in-law’s funeral a few months ago, and which perfectly captures Jean-Michel.

‘That Man Is A Success’
by Robert Louis Stevenson

That man is a success
who has lived well,
laughed often and loved much;

who has gained the respect of intelligent men and women
and the love of children;

who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;
who leaves the world better than he found it,
who has never lacked appreciation of Earth’s beauty

or failed to express it;
who looked for the best in others,
and gave the best he had.