Rolland gets taste of controversy
NORWOOD -- Bearded, suntanned, smiling, and confident, the man in the dark suit inserts his nose into a glass of wine that is so intensely purple-black it is nearly opaque. He inhales deeply, then sips, slurps, chews, and spits. ''This wine," he tells the 60 professionals whom he is leading through a tasting of red wines from France and Argentina, ''has no weakness."
Bold assertions are what everyone has come to expect from Michel Rolland, who is visiting from France. Around the room, heads nod and notes are scratched as sommeliers, retailers, and other wine-trade insiders make the most of their recent two-hour audience with Rolland at the offices of Classic Wine Imports. Perhaps more than anyone else, Rolland is shaping the red wine we'll be drinking for the rest of this century --and maybe beyond.
Rolland was in town to flog a portfolio of wines from the firm of Dourthes Frères, one of 100 clients in 12 countries who pay handsomely to have their vintages whipped into shape and styled à la Rolland. By now, the global influence of the man who grew up on a small, none-too-prosperous family wine estate in Pomerol is so well-established that calling him ''the pope of Bordeaux," as some have, may be selling him considerably short. Not bad for a 58-year-old Frenchman who claims to do ''nothing at all."
By all accounts, Rolland's celebrated palate is indeed one of the industry's most virtuosic. His strong suit is the artful process known by the French term ''assemblage," in which individual lots of wines are sampled and judiciously combined to achieve the most appealing final blend. Considering that no less than six grape varieties are permitted in the making of red Bordeaux, that each varietal may be represented by several distinct plots of ground, and that each of these may have been vinified differently, the number of individual components to be considered can mount quickly. In making the rounds of his Bordeaux clientele, the sturdily built enologist with energy to burn may sample a palate-traumatizing 350 wines a day.
This is how he describes what he does: ''I don't work in the vineyard. I don't work in the cellar. I am the pure definition of a consultant. I show them a way to go, but they don't have to follow it. But I've been at this for 30 years and there are some who think I'm not the worst taster in the world."
The group gathered here is mainly composed of Rolland boosters -- not surprising since many of them earn a living selling his clients' vintages. But not everyone conceives of Rolland's influence as benign. The atmosphere at the event is suffused with what one noted Boston sommelier described as ''a whiff of damage-control," the result of an unflattering portrait of Rolland in the documentary film ''Mondovino" released in the US earlier this year.
Directed by the American filmmaker Jonathan Nossiter, the film depicts Rolland as a cynical businessman who tours the world, making the same technically oriented wine wherever he goes, and in the process burying traditional winemaking and regional diversity under layers of ripe fruit and new oak. Although Rolland isn't the only one the film accuses of plotting to eradicate ''real wine" from the face of the earth (the Mondavi family, Robert Parker Jr., and the Wine Spectator's James Suckling all come in for a fine skewering), ultimately it's the voluble Frenchman who becomes memorable. He is seen chortling and chain smoking his way from property to property while talking on a cellphone in the back seat of a chauffeured Mercedes.
The image is one Rolland and his supporters dismiss as a grotesque caricature. ''This movie is so stupid," Rolland says. ''I do smoke and use a cellphone, but the only reason I was in the back of the car instead of the front was so that Nossiter could photograph me.
''The wines I make are not getting their personality from me," he continues. ''They don't get their minerality from me. You can only work with the components on the table."
Rolland studied enology at the University of Bordeaux under the influence of Emile Peynaud, the man who almost single-handedly jump-started the quality revolution in Bordeaux by advocating cleaner cellars, riper grapes, and temperature-controlled fermentations. Today, Rolland says, it's hard to imagine the insularity and isolation that once reigned in Bordeaux.
''When I was a boy," he recalls, ''winemakers on the right and left banks [of the Gironde Estuary] had no contact -- it was as if they were separated by the Atlantic Ocean. Sons made wine as their fathers did. There was no compelling reason to innovate or improve." Rolland became part of a new generation of enologists who brought Peynaud's reformism into the vineyards, in effect vertically integrating the quality-control process. The Rolland approach demands lower yields and ripe -- some say overripe -- grapes. His cellar regime includes plenty of new oak at properties that can afford it, and a technique known as micro-oxygenation as a way of adding richness and smoothing coarse tannins.
As for Rolland's fees, in the book ''Noble Rot: A Bordeaux Wine Revolution," author William Echikson says it may cost a vineyard $50,000 a year to get the full Rolland treatment. Proprietors consider it worthwhile since it is widely believed that a Rolland creation is more likely to get a high score from publications like Parker's ''Wine Advocate." Higher Parker scores often translate into higher prices.
While Rolland denies that his many projects are accelerating the globalization of wine, skeptical observers point to his massive new project in Argentina as a further example of ''the Pomerolization" of the world's red wine. Others argue that even the energetic Rolland can't be everywhere at once.
Don't bet on it. On his way out, Rolland is approached by a young admirer who introduces himself as a native of Bangalore, India. Almost hopping out of his loafers with enthusiasm, Rolland pumps the man's hand. ''I just came back from India," says Roland. ''I'm making wine there!"
Stephen Meuse can be reached at onwine@comcast.net. 
