CEO / estate operator (Perrin family, manages winery & winemaking), Château Miraval
Interview with Marc Perrin
Andrew Baker meets Marc Perrin and talks to him about the Perrin family winery and their involvement in the Virgin Wines Virtual Winemaker Project.
About Marc-olivier Perrin
In a 2013 interview, Marc Perrin discussed the Perrin family's approach to winemaking, emphasizing the role of family collaboration in key decisions regarding viticulture, winemaking, and bottling. He stated that the family's wines are made by eight family members and that "wine is also about soul." Perrin also highlighted the importance of respecting terroir, describing the southern and northern Rhône Valley as "great places to produce wines" and expressing a commitment to expressing the soil, geology, and climate in their wines. Perrin noted that the family has been "pioneers into organic viticulture" since his grandfather began the practice in 1950, adding that they have not used chemicals or pesticides and do everything by hand. He explained that their vineyard practices aim to encourage deep root growth, which he said reduces dependence on vintage variation and helps vines withstand hydric stress. Regarding the Virtual Winemaker Project with Virgin Wines, Perrin said it is a way to bring customers into contact with the winery and create a closer link, noting the family's active presence on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Transcript (24 segments)
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Interviewer0:02
Hi Mark, thanks for speaking to us today. I've got some questions for you. The first of which is: you make wines that are commonly regarded as being among the finest in the world. What's the single most important thing that made your reputation, do you think?
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Marc-olivier Perrin0:21
Well, you know, I think first and foremost we are a family working together. So the wines that we make are made by your family – it sounds obvious, yeah, but it is rare. And so I work with eight of the family members, and so every key decision in terms of viticulture, winemaking, bottling is made by a family member. Wine is also about soul – all wines have a soul, and I think that's the most important thing. The other thing would be the respect for terroir. You know, we produce wines now everywhere in the world, but some places have been identified forever as being great places to produce wines, and we are lucky in the Southern Rhône Valley and in the Northern Rhône Valley also to be in such a place. And so we respect that a lot – the soil, the geology, the climate – and we try to express that in the best possible way in our wines. I think that's one of the reasons for the quality that we produce.
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Interviewer1:28
The next question is, which you've kind of partly answered, you can expand upon: what are the natural advantages that you have in making wine where you do? So what is that terroir all about?
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Marc-olivier Perrin1:36
Well, the Southern Rhône is a fantastic place to make wine. We are basically in a Mediterranean climate, so we have a climate that is warm enough to get ripe, but also we have a fantastic cooling down effect which is the Mistral. The Mistral is a north wind that blows maybe 120 or 130 days a year, and that's going to lower the average temperature. So we have the balance of great sunshine and a cool climate in a way thanks to the Mistral. Then the soil is absolutely fantastic. The Southern Rhône is a fantastic patchwork. You have a lot of different geologies, most of them are limestone and clay, but within this big picture you have a lot of nuances. And all our job with the Perrin family is to make sure to express these nuances. I would say that it's really one of the most suited places in the world to produce wines.
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Interviewer2:35
And what are the best assets that you have to make the most of these natural elements that make up this wonderful terroir? What assets do you use to turn that into something to express that in bottle, if you like?
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Marc-olivier Perrin2:51
Well, the first thing we really focused on is viticulture. And we have been pioneers into organic viticulture. My grandfather started organic viticulture at Château de Beaucastel in 1950. So since then we have not used any chemicals, pesticides; we do everything by hand. So that's quite pioneering – 1950 was an early adopter, that was really pioneering. But you know, when you do organic viticulture, you have a soil that is aerated, not compacted, porous, in which you have worms and bees, and it's a soil in which the roots will go deep more easily. And so that's very important because when the roots go deep, they interact with the complexity of the soil, and that will give the grapes its complexity and then the wine its complexity. So organic viticulture is absolutely key to us. And the other things that we do is we have great equipment, and we use two kinds of tanks: we use wooden vats for the reductive grape varieties, so that's mostly Syrah and Mourvèdre, and then we use concrete enamel tanks for the oxidative grape varieties.
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Interviewer4:09
And in amongst all of these things, how would you describe the Perrin family philosophy? What is your philosophy?
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Marc-olivier Perrin4:16
Well, philosophy is really, as I mentioned, the respect of the terroir. And then in terms of wines, what we are really looking for is balance. A great wine is about balance. If something is in excess in a wine, for us it is not a great wine – it can be alcohol, it can be oak, it can be whatever. If something is in excess, it's not a great wine. Balance is the key for us, and everything we do goes in that direction of finding the right balance for the wine.
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Interviewer4:47
So would you describe your winemaking, the viticultural aspect, as being, it's an overused phrase, 'minimal intervention'? I mean you allow the expression from the vineyard, you don't interfere with that expression that is there at the level when you pick the grapes?
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Marc-olivier Perrin5:07
No, we do interfere. We do want to control what's going on, but we do it naturally. So for instance, we plow the vineyards mechanically; we never spray any pesticides. And to come just next to the vine where you cannot go with a tractor, we do it by hand – it's called 'la picole'. And that's the only way to remove the weeds if you don't spray any chemicals. So we interfere, we want to control what's going on in the vineyard, but always naturally, and with only one will, if I may express it like that, which is to make the roots go deep. So everything we do is to make sure that the roots go deep. And when the roots go deep, they will find the water, they will find the nutrients that you need. Everything we do in terms of viticulture goes in that direction.
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Interviewer6:00
Does that mean you suffer vintage variation less than somebody who would be surface-rooting vines that are fertilized and irrigated and all of those things that you commonly see? So when they get an extremely poor vintage, your vines are more capable of equilibrium in those vintages?
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Marc-olivier Perrin6:22
Yeah, absolutely. When you have old vines with deep roots, you are much less dependable on the vintage. And the reality is that in the Southern Rhône, there is a lot of water in the water tables. And in some vintages we have very, very little rain, so the only way for the vines to not suffer from hydric stress is to have the roots deep enough to find the water where it is. That's something very important to us.
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Interviewer6:56
Another completely different question – although you have mentioned it before – what do you regard as the pros and cons, the good and bad things, about working so closely with your family?
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Marc-olivier Perrin7:08
Well, it's really... you know, in terms of wine, wine is not an industrial product. Wine is a form of art, it has a soul, and wine is not a recipe. Wine is a series of decisions, and you make wine that you like, that you love. And when you do that with your family, of course we have tasted together, we taste always together, we kind of like the same style of wines, and so we have a style which is a family style. And there are so many decisions when you make a wine – you know when to pick, when to bottle – so many that you need consistency, and working as a family allows us this consistency. There are of course some cons because we don't always agree on everything, but the good thing in the family is that we tell things to each other, and once we have agreed, there is no bad feeling about it. So we get on very well for that. And frankly, every day every morning when I go to the winery, I am very happy to be joined and to join my family there. It's kind of unique now in the wine world, and it's not easy, but it's our great pride to be able to work like that.
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Interviewer8:31
And would you see that generational thing continuing? I mean a lot of young people in France don't follow in their parents' footsteps into viticulture necessarily; they go to big cities. But a lot of them come back, of course, don't they? They go away and do their own thing and then they come back. But you would see the Perrin family continuing for the future?
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Marc-olivier Perrin8:55
Yeah, well, you know, we are trying to prepare that as well as we can, and we are doing new projects so that there is some room for every of the family members that want to join. And when you have such great terroir like we do, it's really a privilege to take care of these. So I'm sure that most of the new generation will be very happy to join us. And we are already training them although they are young – we are already smelling rosemary, smelling thyme, learning them how to smell, how to taste, because it's a long education. Obviously I might have sent my children down to you for a little while.
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Interviewer9:36
Yeah, I can tell you a few reasons why not, but anyway. I've got: what is your desert island wine? It's a very difficult question, but if you had to take only one wine, what would it be and why?
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Marc-olivier Perrin9:52
Well, if it was one of my wines, it would be one of my family wines. It would be the 1985 Château de Beaucastel, which for me now, if the desert island constraint was today, is one of the best Châteauneuf-du-Pape you can drink. And it shows all the beauty of aging wines also. We drink so many wines so young now. When you have a great terroir that produces wines that can age 30, 40, 50 years, it's a rare opportunity. But when you can drink one of these wines, it's just much more than what you get when it's too young and fruit covers everything.
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Interviewer10:42
And fewer people are making these styles nowadays than say 30 years ago. The styles that will be great 10, 15, even 20 years from vintage. It's a financial thing, right? Very few players do that.
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Marc-olivier Perrin10:54
Yeah, it's a financial thing, it's a cash flow thing. But you know, when you have a great terroir historically, you need to do that. You have no choice. That's your role, and going an easy way, short term, is not good when you have such great places.
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Interviewer11:16
And finally, we're really excited doing the virtual wine project with you, Perrin. It promises to be the best so far, without doubt. What do you like about this project personally?
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Marc-olivier Perrin11:26
Well, I think it's a great way to bring the customers in contact with the winery, and it creates a link, it makes the thing closer. That's what I like about it. Also, we like all the Twitter, blog, and Facebook – I mean, they always allow us to have a better contact with people who drink our wines. So this project seemed obvious for us. We are quite active on Facebook, quite active on Twitter, we have a website for all of our wines, it's updated, all that. So it's logical for us, and we are very happy of our relationship with you guys also. So it was a great project for us, and thank you for proposing it.
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Interviewer12:19
Oh, it's a pleasure. And thank you for your time, Mark. I think that's us now.
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Marc-olivier Perrin12:24
My pleasure. Thank you very much.