Denis DUBOURDIEU
www.denisdubourdieu.com/
A scientist, a vineyard owner and a wine maker. Educated as an agro-scientist, Dubourdieu has been an Oenology Professor at the university of Bordeaux since 1987, where he has concentrated his research studies on yeasts, aromas and colloids.
He is seen as the godfather of the white wine revolution in Bordeaux (his father and grand-father were both winemakers, particularly of sweet wine at family estate Doisy Daëne), and has undeniable star-quality, with waves of perfectly coiffeured hair and Harrison Ford eyes. One of my funniest dinners in Bordeaux was experienced around a table with Mr Dubourdieu - not particularly through anything that was said, but simply watching everyone else around the table fall over themselves to talk to him, or simper at his every word. Having said that, I am not immune and actively seek out his white wines - his Clos Floridène (from the Graves) is easily one of my favourite Bordeaux whites.
He also consults on red wine (with Haut Bailly and Cheval Blanc among his clients), and is renowned for bringing out elegance in the Bordeaux grapes. He told Stephen Brook a few years ago, `Micro-oxygenation can certainly make a wine taste better when young, but no one knows its long-term consequences. It isn't necessarily sensible to make up a girl of 12 as though she were 18`.
Above all, Dubourdieu is an excellent teacher. I have several friends who studied the DUAD under him (the tasting diploma from the institute of oenology) who rave about his classes. I have heard him talk at a number of vintage round-ups during the primeurs, and in 2007 he gave a succint summaries of what sets up the quality of a vintage. I will repeat it here:
The characteristics that govern the quality of a vintage are almost always the same. A successful red wine vintage depends on a chain of 5 essential conditions:
1) rapid and early flowering
2) Beginning of water stress at nousaison (berry set, after flowering)
3) End of shoot growth at approach of veraison (= allow the grape to concentrate on maturing, not using its energy in growing new shoots. In order to stop that, you need water stress, or a low water supply, to stop growth. In an oceanic climate like in Bordeaux, there is a certain suspense each year. But we can do two things to offset this suspense (and our own stress!) – plant on soils that have relatively low water reserves (the greatest terroirs have this), and ensure a large green foliage surface, lots of leaf canopy, which we obtain by planting lots of vines by hectare
4) Dryness and moderate heat during maturation of the grapes to favour production of sugar, colour, tannins and aromas.
5) Clement weather during harvest, without fear of dilution or rot, maximum ripening of late-ripening parcels and varieties. This allows the winemakers to wait until peak ripenss, particularly for cabernet and petit verdot. There is often a threat for these varieties that you have to leave them so late that there can be problems with grey rot. Need ideal conditions to avoid this.