Château Rauzan-Ségla: Chanel & John Kolasa
The Wertheimer brothers Alain and Gérard had been looking to buy in Bordeaux for a little while; they missed out on Château Latour, which had been snapped up by businessman François Pinault, who allegedly swooped in by helicopter to seal the deal when the Chanel brothers were looking the other way. And so they began investing in this slightly forlorn Margaux estate with gusto. They installed a winemaking team led by David Orr and John Kolasa (born 1949), both poached from Château Latour, which is one way to spite the competition I suppose.
Despite the work carried out by Eschenauer there was still much to do here; the vineyards were harvested by machine and yet all the processes in the winery were carried out by hand. Indeed, it was only a few years before the arrival of the Wertheimers that foot-treading of the freshly harvested fruit (still de rigueur in the Douro, but not Bordeaux) had been abandoned, perhaps the strongest indication of the antediluvian nature of the cellars. The vineyards, which now covered 42 hectares, were completely restructured. Some vines were top-grafted over, others were planted anew. In the cellars there was not a computer in sight, and while the gigantic steel vats were at least in good condition their capacious size meant that there was no possibility of plot-by-plot vinification. These were removed, and replaced with 35 smaller vats to facilitate this.
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