In the fourth of a series of series of extended interviews with leading wine growers marking 20 years of The World of Fine Wine, Véronique Sanders of Château Haut-Bailly in Pessac-Léognan explains how her life, her estate, and wine growing in Bordeaux have all evolved in the past 20 years.
Vignerons’ stories: Katharina Prüm
Vignerons’ stories: Eben Sadie
Vignerons’ stories: Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon
Automatic concentration
Véronique Sanders: The world offers far better wine today than 20 years ago. When I started, it was easy to find bad wines. The progress everywhere is quite impressive. I think it’s true in Bordeaux—particularly at Haut-Bailly, of course! But it’s also true around the world. Everybody’s very committed to evolve permanently and to improve every kind of technique.
In Bordeaux, the levels of ripeness are higher than ever. And that provides us with the most fantastic automatic concentration and the ability for our wines to last. In the past, you had many more ups and downs in terms of the quality of vintages. It is much more consistent now.
If you look at viticulture, many things have changed. There is a kind of premiumization in viticulture and in vinification. It’s a new era, with an obsession about fruit and the reality of the terroir. But the fruit is the voice, and the song of the wine. And if you hide the fruit, you hide the voice and the song.
Audacious pruning and patrimony
Véronique Sanders: When we think about viticultural techniques, of course we
This Article was originally published on World of Fine Wine