Yves Cuilleron is one of the leading winemaker of the Northern Rhône Valley. But what’s striking about this man is that prior to taking over his uncle domain in 1987, he had absolutely no farming experience nor any professional wine background apart from his strong passion for wines. During our interview, Yves came across as a very kind and professional man, who, like most of the highly talented winemakers focuses on what’s important in delivering a brilliant product: passion for it, quality from the vines, and respect of your Terroir. Olivier Bourseau: Yves Cuilleron thank you very much for giving us a few minutes for this interview. Your family has been making wine for a few generations but you were not designated to this trade until you decided to take over your uncle’s vineyards. What made you take the leap and did this passion for wine all start? Yves Cuilleron: Passion for wine came from my parents. They were also passionate about food. So we always ate good products, good ingredients at home and it was the same for wine. My parents didn’t have a lot of money but they would pull out the good bottles on the special days. I therefore got to winemaking from liking the product and getting interested in it since I wasn’t predestined to become winemaker with no prior experience in this trade or any agricultural background. I had a passion for wine and also thought that it was interesting to make something you transform and today I am completely sold to it! I don’t feel like working because it is a real pleasure to make wine. And I very much like all the aspects of it, from the work in the vineyard to the work in the cellar. Olivier Bourseau: What have been the biggest challenges for you to change life and how do you see this winemaker job? Yves Cuilleron: It is true that in France winemaking depends a little bit on how you do it. I think the best winemakers are often those who have a real passion for wine. There are too many French winemakers who inherited of a plot of vineyard and who might not have passion in it and so try and continue the work from their parents without a real interest in it. The Northern Rhône region for instance has started all again with a new generation of people who have come from totally different backgrounds to wine since vineyards had completely disappeared. Those people are completely passionate by this product and if you have passion you are willing to work the vines and wines well. Olivier Bourseau: You make a range of excellent Northern Rhône wines: Condrieu, St Joseph, Côte Rôtie. How do you manage to cover so many different “Appelations” and maintain such a high level of quality across the range? Yves Cuilleron: I have developed my range quite a lot because I have passion for the product and am always looking to make a new wine, or to discover a new Terroir or another grape variety. Because I think it is so interesting to make a new product. And when I think about doing something new, it is not with the idea to make whatever new wine, it is to make a good one. So the goal is to make the perfect wine whichever the style of wine is, even if it is the smallest “Vin de Pays” in terms of quality which must also be perfect, otherwise it is not worth doing. Olivier Bourseau: Viognier is a very special white grape variety which can be made into wine on its own in the case of Condrieu for instance or blended up to 20% in the Côte Rôtie. How do you work this grape variety and for instance in your Côte Rôtie Bassenon, and how do you make up your mind about the percentage of Viognier to add with Shiraz? Yves Cuilleron: I have never really measured the impact of Viognier into the Côte Rôtie honestly. I had planted 10% of Bassenon which is the name of a vineyard with Viognier. There was already a small portion which was old vines but I planted the rest of it. I decided on the 10% of Viognier because it is the percentage which is used usually in the area. But in practice you never have 10% of viognier in the wine. We are often lower than that and so I do not decide. We always harvest everything at the same time and it is the vintage which makes it how it is so I believe I am between 6 to 8 or even 10% depending on the vintage. But I think I am going to dig a little deeper on the subject. I have understood that Viognier blended with Shiraz gives very interesting things especially in terms of the flavours. By the way last year I made a “Vin de Pays” with a blend of Shiraz and Viognier to understand this blend. I put 15% of Viognier to try and measure which could be the good percentage and try and work my côtes Rôtie better and more accurately going forward. Olivier Bourseau: Roussane and Marsanne grape varieties used in your white St Joseph produce wines with exceptional complexity to my taste. They are part of the great French white wines. How do you work these two grape varieties? Yves Cuilleron: They are very different from each other. Viognier for instance is a very aromatic grape variety with yellow fruits aromas and flower aromas which have lots of appeal to the consumers but Marsanne is more unprofitable with aromas, a bit more closed up and discreet with flavours like honey or almond but isn’t less interesting though. The Marsanne grape variety really needs a lot of maturity to become interesting and I think that is what makes the difference for many winemakers. You really need to harvest the Marsanne very very ripe. I had noticed this and it gives a lots of complexity. The Roussane has got more fruit flavours than the Marsanne and I like it also because it has a very good acidity and we often lack acidity in our region. I think blending Roussane and Marsanne is quite nice regarding complexity but using each grape variety alone is also interesting. It is the reason why I make 3 different white St Joseph: one from Marsanne, one from Roussane, and a blend of both, and each wine is different. Olivier Bourseau: Shiraz is the other very important grape variety from Northern Rhône. The granite soil and steep slopes provide this very mineral character into the wine of Côte Rôtie which are made from Shiraz mostly. How do you approach this amazing grape varitety and what are you looking to do with your Côte Rôties in terms of style of wine? Yves Cuilleron: The goal is to reflect your terroir always when you work under the appellation label: you want your Côte Rôtie to look like a Côte Rôtie, and your St Joseph to look like a St Joseph. So you need to work the grape variety quite well. When you start getting some ripe grapes and the vines look well and you get just the right amount of fruits that has come to the optimum ripeness level in good conditions, then the rest will follow. I would say that the wine is made in the vineyards really. And that is for sure! The vine is just one step in the process of making wine and you must not fail on the next steps but if your fruit is not great already after harvest it is tough to turn things around. You really need to be in the vineyard to make great wines. Because you need to understand the maturity and balance concept. When you are in the vineyards and you harvest, you become aware that the bottom of the slope in your vineyard is different from the top part. Vines are very very complex since you have differences between soils, between the top and bottom in your vineyard which are each going to make different wines. There are also differences between the age of the vines and how the vines have been worked or pruned. There can be some excess of “vigour”. By the way “vigour” is a crucial element in viticulture. And you need to manage vigour in your vineyard. And the best grapes are coming from vineyards where balance of vigour is perfect and this is why you need to know your vineyards well. And you need to adapt yield to vigour and maturity. Some say that if normally vines are in good shape and well presented, there is no need to green harvest (when the winemaker takes some grapes off the vines so that the grapes left are more concentrated) but perfection never happens. So we try to tend towards getting a yield which would be naturally perfect with perfect vigour but in practice this rarely happens. So we need to spend time in the vineyard and check on the amount of grapes we get because a vineyard is never homogenous. So I take out the excess. And it is a job which is very worthwhile in terms of the quality. You can really improve the quality of your wine by spending some time in the vineyard. Olivier Bourseau: Is there any wine you prefer amongst the wines you produce? Yves Cuilleron: There is one which I am quite proud of: St Joseph “Les Serines”. And it is because St Joseph is an appellation which is less renown than Côte Rôtie or Condrieu are. I have put all my soul and body into this wine. I wanted to prove St Joseph could compete with the big appellations from the Rhône region. I have got the chance to own 14 hectares of red St Joseph and some of the parcels are very nice and of great quality. This wine, « les Serines » is a selection of the best parcels. I believe I made a St Joseph which could be put in a blind tasting against some Côtes Rôties or Hermitages and never look ridiculous and I am proud of that. And I always have very good client feedback on this wine. You know it is pride! Because it is difficult to make wine and because each wine has got something special. And I am also proud of the smaller “Vins de Pays” and wines are for different kind of usage: some are in the spirit of the aging wines and others are for early drinking. And I would adapt my winemaking style to the wine I want to make. There are different objectives. Olivier Bourseau: How do you see the fact that the Bordeaux region or Burgundy are more famous in the world than the Northern Rhône region and how do you see the wine industry in France? Yves Cuilleron: The Rhône region could have been as renown as Burgundy or Bordeaux region because our history is as rich as those 2 regions and as is our Terroir. The only problem for our region is that it had a big gap between the end of the 19th Century and the destruction of our vineyards by phylloxera and its revival from the 1980’s. We had completely disappeared from the map for the 2 thirds of the 20th century. We had to rebuild and I am part of the generation who has planted new vines. We are quite a few in the Northern Rhône having 40 or 45 years who have started again, and reclaimed the “Coteaux” which have been abandoned and I think the Rhône area has been running late. Our vineyards are difficult to work also. They are located on steep slopes and you can not use machines there! During the times when wines were not selling that well in France, and when the cheap wines were selling only, we weren’t profitable! Then consumption habits started to change with people drinking more better quality wines so that we could sell more of our products and be profitable again and that it was worthwhile to work on our steep slopes again which are by the way the most expensive vineyard t produce in France because you need much more workforce. The wine industry in France is changing dramatically because there is some kind or reconsideration. There is a strong competition from New World wines and there are mainly 2 styles in terms of the winemakers: some in France want to stay on the traditional side with the Appelations. And others are looking for more freedom a little bit like what’s happening in the New World. And I believe it will go in both directions in the future. The highest appellations in quality like the Grands Crus from Burgundy or in the Rhône valley, or in Bordeaux will stay on the traditional side of things with the importance of Terroir. On this side of things I don’t think we need to get too technical and using too much of the modern winemaking style at all. And on the other side, there will be the other style of the French winemaking which will probably modernise further like in the New World. But I think France should keep its traditional character. This is what makes French wines interesting. In more modern wines, you correct all the imbalances; you make the wine you want on order… You just target the consumer and you make the wine for the consumers whereas I believe that French wines should reflect the Terroir and vintages only, and then it will be up to the consumers to adapt themselves. And it is with this in mind that wines will remain interesting and my winemaking philosophy is to intervene as little as possible on the wine. If one year there is no acidity or no alcohol in the wines, this will be how the vintage and therefore the wine was, and also a consequence of the Terroir, grape variety and it is why wine will remain interesting. If we always make the same wine, then it will become boring! Olivier Bourseau: What do you think about New world wines compared to French Spanish or Italian wines and do you think the difference in style is as obvious as it was before? Yves Cuilleron: You have to pay attention to those differences. Spain for instance tends to make wines in the New World style too much and I think the Old World needs to stay faithful to what we have been doing. We need to stay like this but with an open mind. Italy is also comparable to Spain. Some regions in Italy are too much “New World” in my opinion. They blend all the grape varieties together and I don’t think it is a good thing. If you look at the Old World and the maps and its identity, you need each region to go back to the original grape varieties they used to plant which are part of history and also using the simple winemaking techniques and true viticulture. I feel we need to stick to this. If we shift to making modern wines with all the different grape varieties blended together and using a vinification with loads of technology attached to it, we might not be as good as we have been, and not as performing and we will loose our soul. We need to be watchful for that. There are currently big reconsiderations in France and people are becoming more and more aware of this. I can see for instance in the Languedoc in France that some good winemakers are planting the traditional grape varieties again. People have become aware of this. Olivier Bourseau: What are the other wines you drink and do you have a preferred wine? Yves Cuilleron: I drink all kinds of wines, I am not narrow-minded at all and I even drink New World wines! I like them and I think it is interesting to see what is happening elsewhere. But there is one region I like in particular: Burgundy. Especially because when you go to the Burgundy region, it remains one of the most traditional in France with old houses and stones, old barrels, and old vines. This is what provides me with the more emotions: those vineyards with lots of history behind them where winemakers have sticked to traditions and it is what I enjoy the most!