For this 12th episode of the Wine Makers Show, we take the train to Bordeaux and set off to meet Coralie de Bouard. Over the course of this hour-long conversation, you’ll learn many things about this passionate winemaker at the head of La Fleur de Bouard and Clos de Bouard.
Coralie, can you start by introducing yourself?
I’m Coralie de Bouard, I’ll soon be 40. I grew up in Saint-Émilion and I’m a child of wine. I had the good fortune to grow up alongside my father Hubert de Bouard at Château Angélus, where I learned the ropes. Fairly solid ropes for a woman in the wine world. I think I earned my stripes as a woman in wine, and by bringing my added value today to the properties I manage. At Château Angélus, my bedroom was next to the cellar. Even today I can still remember the pumps during the winemaking periods. My bedroom was my grandmother’s, which had direct access to the cellar because she was a winemaker too. So I have Proustian memories that are the smells of winemaking drifting through the plasterboard of my bedroom, or the smells of the brick cellar where I’d join my father when I got home from school. There was no question of me going to do my homework without passing through the cellars. In the same way, it was impossible to go to school without passing through the cellars.
From what age did you go into the cellars?
Very young. I learned to recognise smells while walking through the woods and the vines with my father. As I grew up, I started tasting. Very little, of course. I tasted every vat, from the juice stage all the way to bottling.
Is that how you trained?
Yes, I’m fairly self-taught as a winemaker. I earned my pocket money by the sweat of my brow. I knew how much you earned per hour working the vines. I was very proud to have my hectare of vines very early on. One day I did something a bit silly. For Mother’s Day, I made some salt dough. I put it on a sheet of aluminium foil that I put in the microwave. I went up to my room and so I set the kitchen on fire. We didn’t fall out, but I was told: on Wednesdays after your homework and at the weekend, you’re going to see how people earn a living and how much money it takes to repair what you’ve broken. I then wanted to keep going: I was proud to earn my money, to know how to manage my hectare of vines, from pruning to bottling. It’s the best punishment I could have had. I never felt it as a punishment, because wine is a passion I’ve had since I was born. It’s been passed down in my family for 9 generations. We were never forced, and ever since I was little I’ve dreamed of making wine.
How did your schooling go?
The goal was to have the best possible grounding. At first I wanted to be an interpreter. So I did literary studies. I liked it, but there was a real lack. I talked about it with my teachers and they steered me towards mathematics and the sciences. When it came time to do internships, I did them in oenology. I showed my ambition to make wine rather than do anything else. I understood that making wine was all well and good, but that you had to know how to sell it. In that sense, languages are important, because you have to be able to travel, to understand the philosophy of each continent. The vision of wine isn’t at all the same depending on the continent. In business school I did my internships with our importers, where I learned a great deal. The loyalty they have to selling our wines is down to the exchanges we were able to have. After my international business studies, I came back to the University of Bordeaux. I studied alongside great oenologists.
What do you do straight afterwards?
I go back to Angélus. My father suggests I handle the promotion of the wines and sell them. So I’d organise myself to travel, but never during the harvest. From 2002 to 2012 I work at Angélus. In 2013 I leave for La Fleur de Bouard. We have a property that’s magnificent and that serves as an experimental ground. I start to devote myself 100% to La Fleur de Bouard and take over the management of the property.
Why didn’t you stay at Angélus?
I love challenges. We’re in Pomerol with an incredible terroir. When you have a passionate winemaker, you can always make a great wine if nature allows it. These wines are incredibly pleasurable wines with accessibility both in their drinkability and in their ageing potential. And incredible accessibility in price: we take incredible pleasure in sharing these bottles. It’s great to have premiers grands crus classés in your cellar, but that’s not accessible to everyone. Today we make magnificent and accessible wines. At the end, at the end of a course there was a tasting. That time there was a Pétrus and another wine. We had to rate the wines. We all foolishly rated the Pétrus above the wine next to it, except they’d swapped the containers. The truth really is in the glass. The influence of the label is far from negligible.
What’s your first day at La Fleur de Bouard like?
There isn’t really a first day. I consider that I was part of the adventure from the moment of the purchase. I always travelled with bottles of La Fleur de Bouard. I also split myself: to be able to talk about a wine you have to have experienced it. There are only 10 km between Angélus and La Fleur de Bouard, so I often made round trips. We’re on the Pomerol plateau, so we’re ahead in the vine’s growth cycle. The harvest happens 10 to 15 days earlier. That lets us stagger our work and be fairly comfortable. With Château Clos de Bouard on top, that’s a lot of work: so you have to be able to spread it out.
Did your father give you a piece of advice when you took over the management of La Fleur de Bouard?
All these memories made it possible to develop a great closeness together. When we look each other in the eye, we understand each other right away. When I call him, I know he’ll be able to advise me. That said, he’s never let go of La Fleur de Bouard. Yesterday I was there and so was he, even though he broke his ankle skiing. Nothing stops him and nothing stops me either. Nothing stops me because a passion pushes you very, very far.
You then take over Clos de Bouard?
It starts in 2016. I’d dreamed of having my own vines ever since I was little, but it really starts from my arrival at La Fleur de Bouard. I was looking for 3 to 4 hectares to have fun and have my secret garden. One day I come across this property on the southern slopes of Saint-Émilion, I’m a neighbour of Fombrauge, of Troplong Mondot. La Barbanne separates me from Saint-Émilion. I’m told there are 30 hectares. I think it’s enormous, but seeing the terroir I couldn’t let it pass. So that’s where I make Château Clos de Bouard and Dame de Bouard. It’s a big challenge. I was never afraid. As soon as I knew I was going to buy this estate, I started working on the label. I wanted something feminine but I’m not a feminist. I want it to be a wine that makes you want it, a label that lasts over time. I collect cameos, so I wanted a bust on the label. The label catches the eye, it’s appealing. In the Clos de Bouard label I tell my story. There’s the church of Saint-Émilion, there are my barrels, the keystone of Saint-Christophe-des-Bardes, the crown of my family’s coat of arms, the lion of my family’s coat of arms that you find on all the properties, my dog who follows me everywhere, my children’s initials, and there’s my heart. Everything I do is done with passion.
It takes courage to link your wine directly to your own person
I’m not a rug merchant. I want to make something I like. You can’t please everyone. I make my wine with conviction. I’ve made the wine I want to share with you, but if it doesn’t appeal, I won’t be offended.
How do you manage the brand between the different properties?
Angélus is managed in a completely different way in terms of how it’s presented. We’ve developed a brand that can carry a whole meal through a food and wine pairing. Angélus isn’t in the same price category.
We were talking about China; are your wines distributed abroad?
The wines of Clos de Bouard and La Fleur de Bouard are distributed all over the world. It’s very important to me to have a wide-ranging distribution. Imagine my pride when I arrive in a foreign country and see my wine on a wine list or at a wine merchant’s. I don’t give exclusivity on my wines, so as to give everyone the chance to work with them around the world.
Where can we find your wines?
In restaurants as well as at a wine bar or a wine merchant’s. If people are looking for my wine but can’t find it at a wine merchant’s, my phone number is very accessible and I’m very available to answer those requests. You can also follow Clos de Bouard on Instagram and on Facebook as well as on our website.
How does the purchase of Clos de Bouard go?
I agreed to buy the property if I could take charge of the vintage. So I started in May 2016 and I spent the whole summer on it in my own way, with green harvesting, leaf removal, delicate soil work. I signed on 26 September and we started the harvest on 3 October. It’s an incredible vintage where everything arrived just when it was needed. It was magical.
Were there moments of doubt or difficulty?
No one is superhuman. I live with my doubts and they help me move forward. We always have doubts. The 2017 vintage was a frost vintage where we lost 70% of the harvest. I also obtained my HVE3 certification. I want to offer something beautiful and respect nature. I also want consumers to find their footing and for the wine to be accessible young with ageing potential.
Do you have any advice to give a young winemaker?
I’d tell them to have confidence in themselves, to believe in their convictions and to surround themselves with skilled people. Of course they’re passionate and we inevitably have doubts, but you mustn’t be afraid and you have to believe. You have to face your doubts.
What does your daily life look like?
I have children, so two lives overlap. I start by taking my children to school. Once that’s done, I’m on the phone with my merchants and my brokers, then I join the teams at La Fleur de Bouard or at Clos de Bouard. I spend more time at Clos de Bouard because we’re a very small team: there are 2 of us. I work with a few service providers there. Either I work in the cellars, in the vines, I do a tasting, I welcome merchants, I’m very close to my coopers. Otherwise I often travel to promote the wines. So I work a lot on the plane and I prepare these meetings well. I travel a lot because if you’re not there to promote your wine, no one will do it in your place.
Do you see a shift for women in wine?
I think so, yes, maybe I also hope for it a lot. More and more women are in the wine world.
Do you welcome people to your estate?
Of course, but I don’t stop working. If I’m doing topping up, the visitors come and do it with me. We have them make chromatograms that they can keep as a souvenir. I have them do maturity checks. We chat while we work. Everyone can come to visit and taste. We also organise tasting courses and blending courses. All of that is available on the website.
Do you have a recent favourite wine?
I have two favourites. On 31 December we opened a Bâtard-Montrachet from the Ramonet family. It was a 2015 and it was a real gem: an incredible moment. Last week I opened a Dame Brune from Domaine d’Embrun in the Ventoux. We’re talking about two wines that are opposites in terms of price and renown. It ties in with my way of seeing things: when you have great terroirs, you can do great things.
Do you have a wine book to recommend?
One day I pinched a wine from my father and it’s never left me. It’s “Le goût du vin” by Émile Peynaud. A classic that, however much I read and reread it, I learn something new about wine. He was one of my father’s oenology professors, and he was one of the first to support my father when he took the reins of Angélus.
Do you have someone to recommend to me for this podcast?
I love a lot of people. I’d point to Caroline and Ludovic Decoster of Château La Fleur Cardinale in Saint-Émilion. They’re people with real values and real conviction. They don’t come from wine and had the courage to come to Saint-Émilion. They’re perfectly integrated there and have lovely values.
