For this new episode of the Wine Makers Show, we set off to meet Francine Picard, head of Domaines Picard. In the heart of Bourgogne, Francine makes the wine world vibrate and brings all her time and energy to its promotion. We had an excellent moment with Francine who introduced us to part of Bourgogne. With that, we just have to wish you a wonderful listen. Antoine: Thanks so much for welcoming us here, we’re at the Château de Chassagne-Montrachet, with you since last night. It’s really a pleasure to come here in the middle of the vines and spend a bit of time with you. Plus I just did a tour of Mercurey which I now know like the back of my hand. Thanks so much for all that.
We’re obviously going to talk about lots of things today, but before that can you start by introducing yourself?
Francine: Francine Picard, of Burgundian origin, Burgundian parents, Burgundian grandparents, after that I don’t really know, I think they’re Burgundian too. I’m going to be 48. I came back to Bourgogne to work since I was about 30 and I’ve been in charge for about 15 years, of the family’s wine domaines, here, in Bourgogne. Antoine: We’re going to dig into all that a bit.
Can you tell us? Your family owns vines here in Bourgogne that you’ve always known since you were little. What was it like back then? Did you play in the vines? How were you initiated to all that?
Francine: I wasn’t really initiated actually because my father was a workaholic. He left, he’s still alive by the way, very early in the morning, came back very late at night, traveled enormously. I’d set myself a principle that I would never live in Bourgogne and that I would never work in wine and that I would never drink wine. Until I was 18 or 19 I never drank a drop of wine, by refusal. I think there are some who do it when their father is a doctor, they don’t want to touch medicine. I wasn’t really initiated, well I was initiated but in a certain way: the quantity of work and the slight paternal absence.
You really didn’t drink a drop of wine until you were 18 or 19? What was the first occasion? What made you drink the first glass?
Francine: I think to really annoy them but well after that they never knew, I left to do a business school. We didn’t have a lot of means, we’d go buy peach wine, frankly disgusting stuff, for our parties. After, the parties were something else. And how did I come back? By maturing a bit already, by being less in rejection or refusal. I drank a bit of wine at the restaurant and I found it nice. I remember the first time I drank Montrachet frankly I didn’t actually understand the price of the bottle compared to the feeling of what I was drinking. I can sometimes put myself in the place of certain consumers. And after that, you know, you grow over the years. I came back to Bourgogne after a while. You rub shoulders with people who drink wine with pleasure and who put your foot in it with conviviality. And so I got into it.
What happens between your 18th and 30th years precisely? So in a moment when you weren’t connected to wine at all. We talked about it a bit earlier, but you did business school. You went to work at Nike, in this case. Did you still come back to Bourgogne sometimes? Had you sworn not to come back too much, well maybe not to come back but to work there?
Francine: No, I really didn’t come back often, neither during my studies, I didn’t come back much. When I worked for Nike I was already in Nantes, so no, I didn’t come back. It’s quite funny because it’s a region, but it could have been another region that I rejected in my head for a while. And I did indeed work at Nike. It was a real pleasure to work in the sports world because I did a lot. It was quite natural and in a, it’s not a startup, it’s a company that has a vision of the commerce world, of the marketing approach, of the communication approach, of the sport approach because actually we talk sport from morning to night which is quite astonishing. It’s super to participate in that when you come out of school. Now there’s a “corporate” notion that I have less so it’s true that I put an end to that contract. But when I came back, I was first married to someone who was from the region. We knew each other since we were tiny by the way since we were in middle school together, not in middle school, in kindergarten together, and our parents knew each other. We had a first child and I tell him: “But listen we have to meet some people”. Actually I started appreciating this region through the social environment and through making acquaintances, going out, taking pleasure in something else. It could have been in Bourgogne or elsewhere. I think you appreciate a region from the moment you’re well with your loved ones, that you’re well with people, friends, and you want to share moments. That makes you appreciate a place, so the product behind too. Antoine: Attachment to the region also comes through the people you know who are on site. I think I also experienced it a bit personally in Paris.
You come back to Bourgogne. At that moment, you’d just left Nike, so you told yourself we’re going back to Bourgogne because precisely we have acquaintances on site, we settle a bit there. Did you already have the idea of coming back to work, of coming to work here?
Francine: When I came back, no, I didn’t really know. But looking at what I’d done, looking at the company my father had developed I told myself it might be a shame to go work elsewhere. I put what I’d learned for 3 years at the service, paid, of the company. That allowed me to get my foot in the stirrup and enter that world but quite simply. I hadn’t planned too much by telling myself: “I’m going to be this, I’m going to be that”. Anyway, everything is a question of skills, at some point you have to move forward. It’s not because you have the family name that you have to take a position or that you’re better than the others, it’s: “Are we bringing something?”. I hope to bring my contribution today and having learned over the years, never with certainties by the way, but with convictions and a desire and goals that I set for myself. But I would never have set these goals at the end of the 1990s. I was a little under 30, I would never have set these goals because I didn’t even know the constraints of the field, nothing. It’s an apprenticeship that’s quite great because as time goes on, you advance, you grow.
How does your arrival at this very first job here actually go? You go see your parents, you tell them here I am coming back to work here for a while, bring a bit of my know-how, etc.?
Francine: I didn’t discuss it with my parents. I came back, that they knew, of course. I was immediately oriented toward the general manager, there was a marketing director at the time. I exchanged with the marketing director to see what the possibilities could be. Antoine: See if he had a job available. Francine: Indeed. I never had direct exchange with my parents saying you do this, or you do that. It’s almost simpler, because there’s no family relationship. You have a mission, transmitted by someone external and it’s almost easier to accept I think one way or the other. Antoine: It simplifies things in any case, yes, it perhaps avoids certain problems. Francine: It avoids complexifying them.
This first job here lasts for?
Francine: From 1999, knowing I had my first daughter also in 1999, so I was absent for two months, so from mid-1999 or early 2000 to 2004. We have other activities than in Bourgogne, so I was rather marketing. At the time it was label creation, everything that was marketing. It’s not just label creation, but brand management. I did that until 2004. Then in 2004 with my brother, who had joined the company in 1997, me it’s 1999, we decided to really, my father had several activities, separate the wine activity from the rest of the activities. So make him a little nest, his own nest. We dissociated the structures in 2004 and I took responsibility for the development of this structure which is Famille Picard from 2004. It was commercialization but also the whole domaine, viticultural approach. Knowing that before I hadn’t put myself on the topic. Between 2004 and 2007, having no knowledge on this topic, we had a head of culture at the time, I asked him questions to learn. It’s not that I don’t have confidence, but I tell myself it’s always interesting to challenge the other’s word. I started making contact with various winemakers in the area who seemed quite pioneering to me when I went to meetings, that I found seemed interesting. I asked them the same questions and the answers could differ. I went back to the head of culture and told him: “But why?”. That’s also how I did my apprenticeship, it’s not by preaching the false to have the true but in any case to challenge the answers. I matured and from 2007 I really took over management of the vineyard in the vision, the approach we could have, the strategy orientation and then in terms of viticulture, in terms of lots of things, while learning every day. It’s a daily apprenticeship but it’s by exchanging with more knowledge. I gather knowledge to be able to exchange with people.
It’s surely the best way to gain skills, going to see these different people, exchanging different points of view, etc. It’s also the origin of this podcast. I hope the people listening to us have this goal that’s fulfilled. You must have progressed on this part at an incredible speed.
Francine: I start from the principle that we never have the knowledge. It’s teamwork, it’s by listening that we progress, and we can always progress, it’s fascinating. It’s fascinating to listen to the other. There we exchanged yesterday even seeing what you do, why, how, well the origin… That’s what makes you get up in the morning and the day is interesting, because if it’s just recurring tasks I get bored. I think we’re many to get bored. To give flavor to all the ideas we can have, to all the work we’re going to do, to tomorrow’s work, to anticipate them at six months, at a year, but why, how, in what direction, but indeed it’s by exchanging, by looking at what’s done next door. Even if we’re sometimes wrong, because anyway obviously we make mistakes, we don’t have all the answers, but in any case the goal stays the same. From the moment there’s a goal that’s set, we have to be aligned on the goal. Even in the family, we had to be aligned on a goal that was perhaps environmental, very environmental but wanting to produce very good products, anchored in terroir and all but with this very environmental vision. That’s the goal. Behind, there are several paths that lead to this goal and maybe in May this year, or I don’t know maybe last year we maybe didn’t take the right one. On certain vines we maybe didn’t take the right orientation but we go back and we learn. We tell ourselves the following year we’ll do better and we’ll be better, more impactful, we’ll think. I find it great to learn like that actually, with people, with others. Then there’s an emulation that you find too in your environment. An emulation, that is, people feel grown. When they come to work, they know why they work. They also see the progression of the vineyard, the progression of this or that. They’re involved, there’s responsiveness, they too in the morning want to come and tell themselves: “Tomorrow what could I do or how could I do to make the schmilblick advance”. It’s quite great actually. Antoine: It’s the best work environment you can have.
In 2004 you take over management of the “wine” part in its entirety. What’s the first decision or first decisions you take? Is it precisely to continue as we did until now? Do you give an orientation that’s completely different? How are you going to work?
Francine: In 2004 I lay things out a bit, that’s already in terms of label or orientation domaine by domaine. We’re on 4 wine domaines that we’ve kept, that is the names of the domaines we decided to keep. It’s a choice I made from 2004 to keep the name of Domaine Voarick, Château de Davenay, Domaine de Levert Barault… There’s a marketing orientation behind that’s even more accomplished today, but in any case it was the base. And we also learn to know the teams, because before I didn’t know them, I was in marketing. You set down your bags with them and you take time and then after a few years from 2007, by dint of seeing other people, I indeed introduced organic and then from 2009 biodynamics. It’s the most impactful decision in terms of viticulture. If I had to choose, I’d say it’s this one. So it’s giving people the means to get there, it’s doing trainings, it’s everything that follows because it’s a pretty word to say we’re organic, we live in dynamics but behind how do we do, how do we apply it concretely. We did the tour of the vines this morning. You see that today we produce more leaves than grape this year, or grass. There we have vegetation that’s like in the southern hemisphere, that’s tropical actually. How do we manage all that? It’s indeed having a level of knowledge that allows exchanging with the viticulturist or the day worker or the head of culture and being able to challenge them. These aren’t radical decisions, it’s little by little that makes you give the other the means to reach the goal.
There almost all the vines have moved to organic or biodynamic or will move in the coming years, not all is yet, yes, that’s the case? I really don’t know actually.
Francine: Yes, actually on the, well it’s 140 hectares of vines. It’s 105 hectares on the Côte chalonnaise, so mainly around the villages of Montagny and Mercurey and then 35 hectares on the Côte de Beaune. So mainly Saint-Aubin and Chassagne-Montrachet and then we have a little bit of Puligny, Corton and Beaune. The whole Côte de Beaune is in biodynamics and the Côte chalonnaise is very largely organic. I started a big uprooting session on vines that were historic, historic even before us, that were treated, that were conventional, you could say HVE, HVE-3, that are on the lowest appellation areas in Bourgogne, so coteau bourguignon, Bourgogne aligoté. These ones we have hardly any choice but to uproot them. We’re underway and in 2 years I’ll have finished these uprootings. For example out of 140 hectares, I only have 106 hectares this year in production. And I’m still continuing to uproot. We are indeed in biodynamics, organic, and we have a few hectares but it’s very low, that are due to be uprooted where we’re still in conventional. But it’s countable on the fingers of one hand.
You made this change, or you gave this impulse rather early. What pushed you to do it, was it in your head for a long time or even in the boxes here for a long time to make the switch?
Francine: Actually, it was like an evidence to discuss with people. I always come back to my goal, but I want to produce very pretty wines, very good wines, but precisely avoid using as much as possible chemical products. After I’m not anti chemical products. I’m not going to set up an anti this or that lobby, everyone does as they want at home, everyone has their conscience and to advance. But I tell myself already millennia ago, there were no chemical products. There were fewer problems of air pollution and acid rains, that’s also for sure. But it’s how to do your work like was done a very long time ago finally but in the spirit of the times. That’s what actually animates me, we must succeed in doing it while having a production. We’re not here to tell ourselves we’re organic, we’re biodynamic and we don’t harvest anything at the end, that’s not the goal. It’s good to live from it. It’s finding how to do it, and that was an evidence for me. It’s not an evidence on a daily basis, it’s not simple. I would even tend to say that even this year it’s not simple in conventional and that nothing is simple. That’s the profession.
If we want to make wine and that it be simple, that’s perhaps not the best idea.
Francine: Exactly. That’s what’s fascinating, it’s how to succeed in exchanging with each other to find techniques that allow us to produce, to use the fewest products possible, to do the fewest passes possible. It’s perhaps in the environment of French viticulture. We’re I think a world sometimes a bit sclerotic, where we don’t advance much because we say we’re a bit conventional and we say tradition is this, it’s that. But when we look at tradition, tradition 2,000 years ago isn’t tradition today. It means nothing tradition actually. We must have values, we must have convictions, we want to protect a product, a quality. And it’s how to manage to protect that with the daily aggressions and they’re getting stronger. Which surely indeed wasn’t the case 8,000 years ago. We get up every morning and tell ourselves the day or the year isn’t simple, but how do we want to do it? Maybe we’ll never get there, but in any case if we don’t ask the question anyway we’re sure to never get there. That’s what animates me.
It also comes back to what you want to leave once you’re no longer here, or that it’s no longer up to you to manage the domaine, if you want to create something.
Francine: I often take the example, I have three daughters, and I don’t know what they’ll do later. My brother has two children, will they take over, won’t they take over, I don’t know, and it’s their life. They’ll do well what they want but there’s a form of property somewhere, even if we’re not active in the operation. I’d like, in 40 years, to give them back a territory that’s healthy, that’s pretty, where we don’t have holes and an excessive vineyard wasting away, see that there’s no more, almost no more, that we have living vine leaves, that we have a soil that’s aerated, you can walk on it, you have fun, you know. And we produce, there’s still that at the end. It’s that indeed it’s a culture, so we produce. If, in 40 years, we can give them back that, well we’ll have succeeded, in any case at our family level. That’s what made me want to advance on the topic.
You talked about it a bit, but do you often come here with your daughters, do you take them a bit into the vineyard?
Francine: I don’t take them with me but on the other hand, two out of three, one is abroad, but who worked for a month and a half, two months as seasonal workers but in the vineyard. So always the same, they don’t do it with me but they do it with others, they see and frankly this year wasn’t what was the simplest. They were also there last year, they do a bit of harvest, so there’s a connection, but without imposing it. The first goal, they had told themselves it’s to earn a bit of money, well very good, and then they also see the profession, the difficult profession. Because all the vineyard workers who are outside, it’s very hard. We complain when it rains or it’s too hot. They can complain but in any case they have no choice. They can’t go inside saying we’re going to go to an air-conditioned place or we’re going to take shelter because it’s raining. No, they have to be in the vine. It’s a very difficult profession, so they see it too. Over two months they come back, they’re tired. The hours, the heat wave, you have to be there at 5 in the morning. They finish earlier admittedly, but they spend their afternoons sleeping, well there’s one who would party a bit after but you know it’s an approach we did like that. Anyway, I think you can’t force someone, I think I discuss it each time but if you’d been forced, you would never have come back and it’s the same with your children and it’ll be the same with their children and so on. If you force someone you can never. Francine: Get what’s best. Under constraint we rarely do good things. Plus I don’t necessarily have the will for them to come back. The only wish I have for them or for the children, is that they be happy in their life, whatever the way of being so. A company certainly, you can say it’s familial, we extended it, we’re the third generation with my brother, but we’ll always find solutions. It’s always the same, a company, we’re a bit broader than the vines in Bourgogne. You can be an owner and be involved actually because it’s a charge too to be an owner shareholder, a charge, a responsibility and a chance. But behind that doesn’t mean that on a daily basis you have to work, or they have to work, it’s the work tool, it can be something completely different but be involved as shareholders. When you’re a shareholder and not involved, you have to understand what the ins and outs are. It’s also fascinating because otherwise we say nonsense at the board of directors and it serves no purpose.
Can we come back to your wines in particular? You said there are quite a few, can you come back maybe either on the great characteristics or a bit on the great ins and outs of your range, if we had to discover it just like that, in a few minutes?
Francine: So already there are 4 names of domaines. If I start from Montagny, the vines of Montagny it’s under Château Davenay, then Mercurey we have two domaines, so we have Domaine Voarick which is on Mercurey and a bit of Givry. We have Domaine du Levert Barault which is 100% on Mercurey, on the old part of Mercurey, the tour we did this morning, with very pretty premiers crus and then we have the Côte de Beaune domaine called Au Pied du Mont Chauve, which means at the foot of the Montrachet, which used to mean at the foot of Mont Rachas which was written in two words at the time. That’s the domaines that constitute the Famille Picard envelope, so 140 hectares, 105 in Côtes chalonnaises and 35 in Côtes de Beaune. Then the wines. We’re mostly on 4 villages, Montagny, Mercurey, Saint-Aubin, Chassagne. The proportion pinot noir and chardonnay is 50/50 to within a few things, it’s 51/49. We’re on the typicality of our white wines. The first thing, we said we worked organic, biodynamic, well fine. That’s an anchor. The goal is still to anchor the roots in depth, in the soil that’s underneath. That is, the roots aren’t on the surface, just above. That means we’ll go retrieve, the grape at a certain moment will go retrieve what comes out of the soil below, so the notion of terroir which is very present in Bourgogne, that’s what we claim. Outside of this terroir aspect that’s specific to each wine, in Chassagne it’s Chassagne, Puligny it’s Puligny and Saint-Aubin too. We have on our white wines, already on the approach, it’s all hand-harvested, that’s for sure, we don’t sulfite on the arrival of the harvest. So that leaves us a slightly natural degradation of what’s going to arrive in the press. And then we’ll work on wines with wood agings that will be quite fine. We’re almost 100% in wood on the aging, but on the other hand with very few new barrels. When I say very few, it’s between 10 and 20 percent depending on the years. Which remains quite low. That means we’ll still normally have the terroir imprint in the wine more than the initial aging imprint. So with a freshness, generally an acidity that we try to keep. So depending on the vintages, well recent vintages aren’t always easy because we still have rather solar vintages. But there, on white wines, it’s really the terroir imprint with a lot of freshness. On red wines we’re, it’s a bit the same idea. We have red wines with tannins that are quite supple actually, that are quite melted. So we put a bit of whole cluster but not on all wines, far from it, it depends on the vintages and then we’ll often destem. We remove, I think people will see what it is, but when you eat a grape, you eat the grape and the stem remains. It’s the same thing but it’s the machines that do it. We’ll go vinify them, age them similarly with a low percentage of new barrels to keep this crunch, this freshness and fruit, lots of fruit. We do pre-fermentation cold macerations that make red fruit come out. These are wines that are for keeping, it doesn’t necessarily have to do with keeping, but that at first approach really have this crunchy, fruity side, with quite a lot on the Côte de Beaune for that matter. We have quite a lot of soils with limestone, so with a very saline, very sapid side. Me I appreciate a lot. And in red wines and in white wines, because I find it relaunches the tongue actually when you eat something, the saline side at the end of the mouth. On the Côte chalonnaise it’s a bit less the case, but we’ll be more on a more terroir side, a bit of earth but the good side of earth actually. I don’t know if that describes the wines for you but it’s a bit of a typology. Few new barrels, we let the grape speak in the bottle.
In any case it makes the mouth water and I hope our listeners will want to discover them. They can obviously come here to do so?
Francine: Yes. All the family wines are, well no, a large part of the family wines are sold here at Chassagne-Montrachet in the domaine shop. Antoine: On your road in Bourgogne by car, by bike, by barge, you know whatever, you can stop by. In any case, it’s very pretty, it’s clearly worth the detour. Francine: Yes and then I have four people who welcome, who are quite young and who really have the wine side, so I tend to say that rather than salespeople, they are wine amateurs. They know, there are some whose parents are local winemakers. They really do a visit, a journey to learn to discover our profession actually. More than a tasting that will tell you the wine has violet, raspberry, something like that. It’s also explaining our profession, our journey, why we’re here and what we do and they should normally answer the questions asked. So that people leave with a little baggage. There that’s possibly contradictory with what they’re going to see further, to gather information, always the same.
Among this range of wines you just talked about you also have a small parcel of freedom you talked to me a bit about earlier. Do you want to come back to it, on the tests you’re doing, or things that are going to arrive soon?
Francine: Yes, it’s on a part of the vineyard, I mentioned before that I’m uprooting, because too old, because working in a certain way it’s hard to go back. In Bourgogne, we have what’s called appellation areas. There those are zones that are on the smallest appellation area. So on these zones I could only make Bourgogne-passetoutgrain or Côte de Bourguignon, or Bourgogne Aligoté, which in themselves can be very good. But me it doesn’t interest me to do that to produce these appellations. It’s very personal. And if by discussing with winemakers, perhaps whose names I’ll mention later, on what was done hundreds of years ago, more than 150 years ago we weren’t in single grape variety in Bourgogne. We had several grape varieties. Single grape varieties date rather from the 20s, the 30s. On these small appellations, how to succeed in reconciling the evolution of time, of meteorology, of climate, of these lands we’re going to reconstitute. We’ll switch them to organic and biodynamic but how to manage to obtain on these small zones excellent products for the 20, 30, 40 coming years. It’s a pretty challenge. When we see what was done more than 150 years ago we were on grape variety blends, that weren’t only Burgundian grape varieties today. Indeed, we’re thinking about planting, mostly Burgundian grape varieties. If it’s white Chardonnay, Aligoté, but possibly introducing one or two other grape varieties that will seem interesting to us in the blend, that can match the soil type, the orientation of the vine, if it’s north, the altitude… And being able to make super good products from them. For now, I really say for now, they’ll come out of the appellation because there’s a reflection that has to be carried out more generally in the region because I won’t have the choice. That is, today blending Bourgogne-Chardonnay and Bourgogne-Aligoté can’t be a Bourgogne. INAO, led by winemakers, refuses that. The request hasn’t been made. That means that if I estimate I have a parcel of Bourgogne, planted in Bourgogne-Chardonnay and Bourgogne-Aligoté and that the blend of the two, we did a test last year on 1,000 bottles, is very impactful and very good, I’ll do it but I won’t be able to call it Bourgogne. I decided to call it Les Terres Affranchies. After understand who will, but they’re the freed lands but from lots of things, from yokes, to be able to advance, to always think. Project oneself into the future, not be in a frozen scheme where we don’t evolve because since 1850 we haven’t evolved. No, we have to advance. Nature advances, evolution advances much faster than what we could perceive before. We’re a bit overwhelmed at the moment. The wasting away of the vine, diseases… We see it well, we’re not going to harvest much this year. It’s going to be a catastrophic year. Well catastrophic, there are places that will harvest but it’s true that it’s not a simple year. We must project ourselves if we want to still continue our profession in 20, 30, 40 years. We’re advancing in this direction, the type of clone, why, how. On the Côte de Beaune we have to plant next year. We’re also planting on high vine, we have the right to do it on these appellations. These are vines that are planted at 5,000 plants per hectare and not 10,000 plants per hectare, that are less close to the ground, it’s semi-high. That means we can pass more easily with slightly different tractors, lighter ones. We can mow, we don’t have to plough, which can be interesting before the frost not to plough too. There we’re going to plant them in a slightly orchard form. That is, we’re going to use different clones, we’re going to separate our orchard plots. We’re still studying which trees and being able to do our tests further. But that’s on 4 hectares all the same, so it’s not negligible. But it’s going to be interesting. We’re advancing too, we have lots of subjects of reflection.
That means it’ll be worth doing a second episode in 10 years to see what it looks like. Les Terres Affranchies, when will it be available?
Francine: With pleasure. So the first ones are tests on the parcels we had today where we do blends. Let’s say commercially, really, it’ll be in four or five years, a bit more massively because the plant needs time to grow, to be planted. Now the small tests we’re doing, I’ll have 1,000 to 2,000 bottles already available. After I just have to finish my label that I designed. I have to have it made. I think at the end of the year I’ll do tests with friends wine merchants to see the feeling, even if just the first one which is the Bourgogne-Aligoté, Bourgogne-Chardonnay which officially will be in Terres Affranchies and see the consumer feedback. Antoine: Stay tuned, alerts of news from Domaines Picard if you want to come across these wines at wine merchants.
Where can you find your wines? Do you have a distribution? What’s the split between France and abroad? How do you organize? How do you commercialize all that?
Francine: It’s about 65% export today, hoping it doesn’t increase, but it’s still not simple, because there’s an evolution of tariffs and the evolution of tariffs is inevitable, unfortunately. But it’s more absorbable in certain foreign countries than in France but rightly so. In any case I hope it will stay in those proportions. You find us at wine merchants, restaurateurs, a few cash and carries that resell products. And we also have to push on this aspect to be even more diffused. So we’re recruiting to go after restaurants and wine merchants. There are a little over 6,000 in France, so we need people to brew all that. Antoine: To convince them too, it’s not the easiest, but we love them. Francine: Hello to our wine merchant friends.
There’s also a country, well France obviously, 35% is considerable. Among the foreign countries is there a predominant one?
Francine: Yes there is one, it’s the United States, of course.
Yes, did you go there a lot?
Francine: I went there a lot at one time, for a while I go less. But yes, I go quite regularly. There’s a country I go to more and that I love, it’s Japan. For two years I haven’t really gone back but it’s a country that, in terms of culture, I find fascinating. In terms of food, it’s great. It’s extremely good, it’s fine, it’s refined, it’s meticulous. So it’s everything I love, it’s the product worked in its raw state and that’s highlighted in a plate, you just want to savor, to crunch. It’s still very refined because they manage to work in a handkerchief, with very small foods. The opposite of what I know how to do but I find it quite extraordinary. By the way there are many Japanese chefs in France, there’s a reason. There’s no fat, which isn’t bad because I have a digestion problem with that. I find it great to work with other products. And then the Japanese’ relationship to wine and even the Japanese’ relationship to life, as I understand it. The first time I arrived, it was in 2007. It’s not that long ago but I found it astonishing actually, Japan. I almost had Samurais in my head, little villages, that’s not at all what we see. It was rebuilt, it had been bombed during the war, and rebuilt in a very ugly way. They’re buildings that can resist not bombings, earthquakes, seisms and all that. They’re concrete cubes, everything you don’t want, everything you don’t desire but in 2007 a bit mixed on the return. I went back every year and there actually there’s such an immaterial side at home that we don’t see. What we see is all this material side where they’re 5,000 to pass on the Shibuya pedestrian crossing. That’s what we show. There are tons of cartoons that come from there, there are lots of productions. But in any case, when we do wine dinners or have exchanges with Japanese people, there’s a reflection time, a pause time, we don’t talk, we’re calm, we’re serene. And this time, that we have a hard time having in France even or when we’re quiet at home, we can perhaps possibly sit down. It’s not meditate, but we think. Well there over there there’s that and actually I love it. I’m not sure I would live there, but it’s this immaterial side, relationship to the product. They’re great connoisseurs, great amateurs, it’s still primordial, it’s relaxing. When I come back from Japan, I’m relaxed. I sat down with people who appreciate the product, who are connoisseurs, who want to advance, who want to know more but in a way actually not very snobbish. That’s also rather nice. It’s a country I appreciate enormously for that. Antoine: Yes, I’ve never been to Japan yet, but I really want to go. It’s part of my destinations and I want to go even potentially for a bit long, not just a week or 10 days to play tourist and discover the thing. Francine: Get to know people, enter their intimacy, to know how they live. Antoine: Potentially two or three months on site. Francine: And go out of the cities, because actually there’s the city which is bubbling. At the same time it’s bubbling, actually when I walk a lot, because when I go back to the hotel generally I go back on foot, and honestly it’s a very silent city. It’s quite impressive, you go from a neighborhood, from a small environment to another and there’s no one. You don’t get bothered, nothing. I can walk for an hour and a half to go back and not a sound. When you leave Tokyo, or Kyoto, even it’s possible to get a permit there, which I did and you drive, it’s totally possible to drive in Japan, and actually you’re in peaceful zones, where people work in their fields. You arrive in small villages, the people are all smiles, they’re super pleasant. So after it’s true that there’s a language problem. If you don’t speak Japanese it’s not simple and generally they don’t speak English. But with hands you manage to express yourself and you always find someone who knows how to speak a language or other. It’s really a pretty country with lots of culture, so I recommend it. Antoine: I really have to find a way to go there, I’m going to take a plane ticket. Francine: You have to wait a bit because it’s average right now. Antoine: Yes, right now it’s a bit hard. Already just to enter I think it must be a hassle. For the people listening to us in the future, we’re July 27, 2021, we’re starting to come out of Covid. Everyone is starting to be vaccinated, there’s a variant there that’s arriving. You know, we don’t really know where it leads. We’ll see, I hope we can really travel freely again soon.
Completely different topic, that we haven’t really addressed in the conversation until now, but you’re a woman in the wine world. So far I haven’t revolutionized the thing, but I think it’s important for you too this dimension. In any case the place of women in wine is surely a cause that’s dear to you from what I understood yesterday in my exchanges here. Can you talk to us a bit about it? How do you see things? Was it hard at the beginning, or not so much?
Francine: The place of women in the wine world, I don’t know if it’s dear to me, it’s the place of women in the world in general. I’m not feminist but that there be indeed a rebalancing, when there should be rebalancing. I’m not necessarily for quotas because quotas allow obtaining something. But you can also have women who are in positions and who are completely incompetent. It will be told to them more quickly than to a man, that’s perhaps the difference. There’s really a question of skills. But in the wine world, I haven’t, frankly, maybe I went beyond because of my private life, but I never felt unwell because I was a woman, because of this, because of that. I believe, it’s not that I make fun a bit of what others think, because to advance, what I was saying earlier, it’s important. But on the other hand on what they can think of who I am, how I am, did I gain three kilos, did I lose two, do I have long or short hair, I dress like this, like that, things like that, me that doesn’t interest me in others. Others’ view of me surely weighed on me in my youth, and I think at one moment I totally let go on this topic. There are lots of topics on which I don’t let go, but that one I totally let go and it doesn’t matter to me. I commit on orientations or meetings where I’ll say what I think but not as a woman, as Francine Picard who expresses herself. I could perhaps be a man and say the same thing. There are still in the wine world even more winemakers. But I believe there are still 30% women, which isn’t negligible among winemakers. There is also, as in any profession, children, perhaps a real additional charge, insidious but real. And this desire ultimately also to take care perhaps more than a man in general, I don’t want to make a generality, of children. We perhaps feel this natural need more, so we’ll also spend a bit more time on it. Which means at one moment we can’t be everywhere or at the same time, perhaps less than a man on certain topics. And sometimes we can be. I would tend to tell women, get involved. It can’t necessarily come from the male world that’s going to say we’re going to put a quota on you and you must be in this and that meeting because we need a woman. I’ve already done boards of directors, I still do, where we must be two or three women out of 40 people. Isn’t that a lack of involvement of the female gender that doesn’t go. Why don’t they go? Because maybe they have lots of other things. They also often tell themselves we won’t be listened to, we’re not impactful. The main distinction finally that I make between a man and a woman in their way of approaching work, it’s more sharing. There’s a project mode, there’s a goal mode on something precise for a woman but it’s not necessarily claiming it saying I’m the one who did that. It’s what makes that I can advance such topic? I see men a bit differently which is: “It’s me, I’m the project”. In a meeting, if you’re not necessarily heard, if you’re not loud enough, you don’t want to push further, it’ll never be super to go to these meetings. That must discourage some. No feminism, let’s move together and have, we can have a different vision of work, of the way of approaching it. For me there are no feminine or masculine wines, made by women, by men, it all depends on the characters of each. It’s mainly teamwork. It’s rare that there’s only one person who does everything from A to Z, even among winemakers, and even among well-known winemakers. In any case I don’t know any. There’s always a sharing, even the great winemaker who works alone perhaps has a tractor driver who’s in his vine. There’s a notion of sharing, because if the tractor driver messes up the work behind it’s complicated. It’s teamwork. I don’t know if that answers your question? Antoine: There was no expected answer, everything answers the question.
Teamwork is rather a very good answer. In this podcast for a long time, I had good parity and after that it deviated. I had lots of men one after the other, who are fascinating people, no problem.
There’s a progressive rebalancing for a few episodes, it’s quite cool. I don’t know if the people listening are sensitive to this attention but me I’m rather happy. Francine: They can send you a message.
If you had the opportunity to cross paths again with the Francine who just got out of Nike and slip a little word in her ear at that moment, what would you tell her?
Francine: I’m going to maybe transform your question. If I had the opportunity to cross paths with the Francine who was in high school, I’d tell her to move a bit more. It’s at those ages that you gather the most information easily and I think I was a bit too dilettante at that time. I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. It’s in this period, 16, even before, or 22 years old where you have to gather as much information as possible, document, read. It’s not necessarily at that time that you want to do that. That’s what I’d tend to say like that, that’s what could be missing in my head telling myself: “I should have done that”. Even though I don’t like that verb at all. Out of Nike, I don’t know. I think I gave myself, I had a thread and I rather stuck to it. And I see myself moving forward very serenely and I think putting in corrective actions when needed. I have fun in what I do. When I get up in the morning, generally I want to advance, I’m rather happy actually. We talked about it yesterday, the profession as I understand it in any case, my profession is a bit, all proportions kept, being a conductor. That is, being able to work with people who are better in each domain than myself and making them work together. That means it’s a bit jack of all trades. Maybe at Nike it was that that I was missing too, this corporate side and the side very oriented not very jack of all trades. I touch on lots of things and it’s the purchase of a vehicle, of a tractor to a straddle, and why, and how, what’s it going to do, why we need that until tasting, commercialization, the labels I do, team management. There are lots of things, the human… I appreciate this diversity and I believe I have great luck. It’s not given to everyone, it’s also up to me to seize it, to have fun and to tell myself I have a lot of luck. What I would change, is before, not after. It’s perhaps a message for my daughters too. Antoine: If they listen to this podcast. It’s the moment or never to launch yourselves, to move and learn a maximum of things. By the way that’s why I have to take my driver’s license very fast because otherwise my memory is going to start dropping. Francine: You can recall your age. Antoine: Yes, it’s true that I’m 24. Francine: You don’t have your license, and you’re Parisian. Antoine: I still have a few flaws, there that makes two already.
Is there a question you would have liked me to ask you and that I didn’t ask you?
Francine: Not that one for that matter, no.
Do you think we forgot to talk about something? About an aspect of your parents, of the domaine?
Francine: No. Yes, but it’s for the consumer because they’re still people who are listening. You surely have great amateurs and people who are less common tasters, especially when you taste a wine or when you drink a wine, it’s being relaxed about all that. What we’re forgetting more and more I get the impression, when we do tastings, is we have fun or we don’t have fun. It’s managing to have fun, so that means having indeed a base of knowledge that allows distinguishing this or that flavor, or aroma. But it’s like a painting, you love it or you don’t love it. It can be painted by the greatest painter or by the most pitiful painter, it’s do you have an emotion in front of it. When you drink a wine there’s that side actually, there’s an emotion. And the same wine you’ll drink, you take a wine you drink it on Monday and you re-drink it on Friday, maybe you’ll have more emotions on Friday because you’ll be conditioned that way, because your day will have been better, being very relaxed about it and putting everything in a frame. I said I didn’t like yokes, that’s why I do Terres Affranchies, that I want to try to go out of certain frames. It’s the same thing in tasting, you have to be very humble. The consumer must also be humble. They can say: “I paid a price, I should”, if there’s a defect in the bottle, I agree. There’s the way we ourselves are made up that means we have an evolution. The mouth isn’t the same. We can have acidity that’s due to something else. The wine will be less easy to taste. Have fun before dissecting a label, have fun in what you drink and possibly analyze it after. That’s the question you wouldn’t have asked me, I don’t even know what question by the way but in any case to answer the way of approaching tasting.
You still manage to take pleasure precisely when you taste wines today?
Francine: Yes. I taste lots of wines that aren’t from the region. I find it nice, I discover lots of things and on the contrary when we go to the restaurant we take everything except Bourgogne. It’s discovering other things, fortunately. I’m not a sommelier, I don’t taste products every day. The discovery is potentially huge, so yes. Sometimes I find it bad, I have no emotions. Antoine: The message is delivered: take pleasure when you taste. With me it’s also passed. We’re coming to the end of this interview. It’s been almost 55 minutes that we’ve been talking together, it goes by fast.
I have three questions left that are quite traditional. The first is do you have a recent favorite tasting, a particular emotion?
Francine: It’s not so recent, I drank a Cahors de Ségou and his Amphore cuvée, 2017, and I’d really found it excellent, fruit. By the way they sell it, well they sell it in lots of places, but “La cave des climats” in the 7th at Franck-Emmanuel Mondésir, he has it. The last time I left there by the way, I’d drunk a bit too much but I’d come back by bike, fortunately. Really I’d loved this product. There, a Cahors. Antoine: The message is delivered. Cahors is very nice, very beautiful things are happening on site. Francine: It really evolved. As much as Cahors, 30 years ago, we had Cahors on the tongue, it was a bit raspy. But like everything, like the Terrasses du Larzac. They’re zones we should learn from, we Burgundians because we’re privileged. Maybe not questioning ourselves quickly enough means we’ll perhaps be the Terrasses du Larzac before being the Terrasses du Larzac today, in 20 years, or 30 years. I find that everything they did in those zones is quite exceptional. Me I take huge pleasure in drinking those red wines. White, outside of Bourgogne and Riesling, I’m still very Bourgogne, or Savagnin, my friend doesn’t like it but the reds, I find these products excellent.
Second question: do you have a wine book to recommend to me?
Francine: So it’s a comic book, the history of wine in comic book form. I don’t remember anymore who wrote it because I never pay attention to that. I find it exceptional and actually it’s the history of wine that’s told from the beginning, from 8,000 years ago to now. It talks about agronomists of the past. I can name them like that, there’s: Columella, Pliny the Elder, that’s a pretty name but that’s a century before Jesus Christ, even before, Mago for example, was the first. They’re people who, millennia ago, in an empirical way at the start and then with enormous observations, created all our vineyards. It puts things in perspective when you asked me earlier what we can do, but let’s ask ourselves questions especially. That’s what makes things advance. They asked themselves enormously of questions and it’s related in this comic book in a humorous way if we like comic books but everything is written and I find it brilliant. So it’s: L’Incroyable Histoire du Vin. There’s another one too, it’s the history of sex, it’s quite funny because it’s not bad, it’s where we learn that the bacchic festivities were quite extraordinary at the time. Antoine: Very good recommendation. Get at least L’Histoire du Vin and potentially the two comic books, in group purchase.
Buy the Incredible History of Wine
Who is the next person I should interview on this podcast?
Francine: I’d have, well you’ll choose like that, I have two different profiles and not so different but I don’t know if you’ve already interviewed couples? I find there’s a couple that’s quite striking. I work rather with, well they’re called Jean-Yves Bizot and Claire Naudin, two very well-known names on the Côte de Nuits, Côte de Beaune. They’re people who reflect enormously on tomorrow’s viticulture and what I love notably to work a lot with Jean-Yves, my Terres Affranchies project we look at it together too, it’s that actually he has a collegial vision and shares information. He’s involved at the BIVB, he’s involved on lots of topics. Outside the fact that he has 3.5 hectares of vineyard and that he sells without worry and lives very well from it. It’s that he works for the community with his pioneering vision and in exchange. Some people do it, there are others, but not that way. I find that really appreciable in addition to having very well-made wines obviously. His wife, Claire Naudin, also has a lot of reflections, perhaps a bit less on the community. Although she shares enormously on social networks, all the tests she does. Each can appropriate them and look at what it is. There, that would be a couple. And the other person, who’s on the Côte chalonnaise in Mercurey, is Bruno Lorenzon. I’d say he’s a jeweler winemaker. He thinks from A to Z, he’s meticulous and he has a complete vision and similarly in projection of the vine and it’s fascinating to exchange with him. It’s not to say we’re going to do exactly the same thing but everything is thought through and he transmits the information. If we want to discuss, he discusses enormously. He exchanges perhaps less collegially than Jean-Yves because that’s another choice. But when you ask questions he’s very open and they’re people who will make us advance on the vineyard.
OK. Stay tuned to this podcast. Maybe you’ll have the opportunity to listen to these next two interviews that will make me come back to Bourgogne in addition. That’s rather good news. I know I haven’t gone there enough. I’m happy to spend a bit more time here.
Francine: We have electric car rentals. Antoine: With pleasure but there I’m going to have to work a lot. Francine thanks so much for this hour of exchange together. It was a pleasure. Francine: Thanks to you for soliciting me and it’s super nice as an exercise. Antoine: We’ll see each other for episode 2 in a few years. For the people listening to us don’t forget to share this podcast with your loved ones. If you liked it leave a comment etc. You know all that. Thanks so much to those who do it by the way, you’re more and more numerous to do so. We’ve I think exceeded 100 reviews on Apple Podcast. Thanks and I’ll see you very soon.
