An Interview with Aurélien Valance, Deputy Managing Director at Château Margaux

Deputy Managing Director at Château Margaux, Aurélien Valance, embarked on his journey at the château with an internship in 2001, marking the beginning of his affiliation with the renowned estate. With EP in full swing, we caught up with Aurélien to find out all about his journey in anticipation of Château Margaux's upcoming 2023 release.

Following the internship, Aurélien's dedication and expertise led him back to the estate in 2006, this time assuming the role of Commercial Director. Over the span of a decade, his exceptional leadership propelled Aurélien to greater heights within the organisation, culminating in his appointment as Deputy Managing Director, overseeing both Sales and Operations at Château Margaux.

Starting from the beginning - would you mind sharing some insight on where you grew up? When were you first introduced to the wine industry?

I grew up in Paris and my father and grandfather loved wine, but I didn’t have much interest. My grandfather always wanted me to drink some wine for my birthday when I was a teenager and I never really wanted too. I went to business school when I was older to keep my options open, and although I wasn’t really interested in wine at the time, I still joined the wine society there. Perhaps inevitably, that’s where I really started engaging with wine. I remember the first tasting, an incredible vertical of Côte de Brouilly. To see how the wines evolved over the years blew me away, it’s how I became so passionate.

I then became the president of the wine society in my second year, and I was lucky to meet many owners of different châteaux. I worked hard to get into business school because I wanted to be able to live for my passion even though I didn’t know what passion I would end up with. If I hadn’t chosen wine, I think I would have been an investment banker.

Is there a bottle of wine you remember drinking that gave you that Eureka moment?

There was definitely a bottle which changed my mind and my life. Whilst at business school we were always trying to get Château Margaux to visit. They visited the year that I was president and so I was incredibly lucky as Madame Mentzelopoulos herself came bringing a bottle of Pavillon Blanc, a bottle of Pavillon Rouge and a couple of vintages including the 1996. It was my first real emotion with a bottle of wine and I was so shocked that I remember going straight to her at the end of the day and saying “I want to work for Margaux. Please give me an internship.” That’s really how it started.

You are something of a champion blind taster. How did you get into this, and how do you keep the practice up?

It started when I was a student. There was a competition organised by Jean-Michel Cazes and La Commanderie for business school wine societies around the world. One part of this competition was blind tasting. It’s funny now because I participated with Jean Garandeau who works for Latour and Antoine Donnedieu de Vabres who works for Eisele Vineyard, and we were very lucky to win! However, we didn’t practise often, and it wasn’t really my thing then.

I really got into blind tasting through friends in Bordeaux. I would go round for dinner, and we’d spend the evening blind tasting. This led onto competitions. I remember almost all the wines that I’ve had in my life and who I drunk them with and how they tasted. I have a large wine collection and so, in my humble opinion, I tend to drink wines that are better than the wines in the competitions.

There are two ways to find a wine blind. The first is to really analyse, looking at acidity and tannins for example. The second way is just recognising the wine and going “oh, I know this one, I’ve tasted such a wine before.” You have to completely clear your mind and if you’re lucky it’ll just come to you.

Can you share with us a brief overview of your journey in the wine industry? How did you come to take up your position at Château Margaux? What is it like working for such a high-profile property?

I completed my first internship with Château Margaux after asking for it whilst at school. Closely followed by a second because the first went so well. Jean -Guillaume Prats also helped me and gave me two internships at Château Cos d’Estournel. One was technical and one focused more on the business side. I also did an internship at Cheval Blanc and Palmer, so I worked hard to grow my network.

I also wanted to try and do something by myself, so I went to the US. There, thanks to Jean-Guillaume Prats, I met Michael Quinttus who was number two at Kobrand, one of the largest importers in the US. Michael was leaving Kobrand to create his own import company and he offered me a position as his right-hand man. I did that for two years and was very happy there, but I was still in close contact with Château Margaux. After two years Margaux reached out with a position taking care of all the commercial aspects at the château. I know that you do not say no to Château Margaux – if you say no, that’s it forever!

I decided to leave the US and come back to France. For the first ten years I was based in the Paris office where the family live and run the estate. My job was to take care of the commercial aspects and to travel the world to talk about the wines and meet the importers. When Paul Pontallier sadly passed away in 2016, I decided to move to Bordeaux to be closer to the vineyards. I’ve now been at Château Margaux for over 18 years…

I have a funny little story about my parents. My mother doesn’t drink wine much anymore, but she used to love red wine and her favourite wine was Château Margaux. So, when my father really wanted to treat my mother, he would open up a bottle from the estate. I really associated it with the best wine in the world, so it’s pretty incredible that I work here now.

Wines from Bordeaux have a huge trust from wine drinkers around the world. How do you think this trust was cemented and what do you think properties need to do to maintain this trust in a changing climate?

For me, the key is quality. Then ageing potential. I think that’s what Bordeaux, and in particular Château Margaux, is famous for. We’ve been making wine for five centuries and our wines are able to age sometimes for more than a century. When you’re able to drink a 1961 or a 1945 and they’re still in good shape – that’s amazing. Of course, you have age-worthy Burgundy, but that can be more temperamental.

Bordeaux is consistent with its ageability. It’s very important for us to focus on that. First to make wines which are incredible and secondly to make them age forever.

How do you ensure Château Margaux maintains its unique identity and quality?

There are two main things. Firstly, the wine itself. For me, Château Margaux is one of the most perfumed wines in Bordeaux. At the same time our wines are as tannic as the Pauillac wines, like Château Latour for example. The tannins are so soft that you forget them. Margaux is so powerful, but you forget this power because it’s hidden behind its charm. It is an extremely charming wine.

You don’t need to know a lot about wine to be in love with a bottle of Château Margaux. Even with a young Margaux, the tannins are so polished that it’s a pretty good bottle of wine. Although, of course, it will only get better with age. The second aspect is the Château itself. When people think of Château Margaux, many will think of the beautiful castle that we have, the property, and the fact it’s been around for 5 centuries.

What are your ambitions and projects for the business for the next 10 to 20 years?

This is tricky to answer as the quality of our wine is already so high. We want to improve the quality, but also be careful. On the one hand, people want innovation. However, you only want to innovate if it’s really making things better. You need lots of patience and to try for many years. That’s really our strategy and why we decided to open this R&D department and explore where we could push the wine further. Now it has two people on the team working full time as well as seven students per year. It's all investigational as we have over 10,000 experimental bottles in our cellars. Once a week we get together for a blind tasting where we compare what we do with these experimentations. We’ll never just experiment for one year because of climatic conditions and other similar factors, it’ll always be for at least five years. It’s a small evolution we implement in the cellars and vineyard.

If we start in the vineyard there are challenges with fighting mildew. Now we only use organic products. One plan is to carry out early and slight de-leafing. It’s as if you haven’t been out in the sun all summer and then you lie in the sun in August - you’ll burn. If in May and June you’ve been out in the sun when it isn’t too strong then in August, you’ll react better. It’s the same idea with the grapes. We’ve been experimenting and the results have been very good. Thanks to this technique you lose much less. But if the quality is the same after this concept as before then we don’t know exactly what happens. Maybe the skin gets thicker, and this might be good or perhaps bad for the quality. That’s why we need to be patient. It’s very promising but we just can’t draw any conclusions yet.

How is Château Margaux adapting to climate change?

We have more drought and stronger sun nowadays. Two years ago, we had someone join us for a year to analyse the best angle to replant all our vineyards to avoid the very strong afternoon sun. Replanting will take at least 60 years; it isn’t something we can do in 10 or 20 years.

In terms of drought, more than 15 years ago we took one plot which is very homogeneous and planted it with Merlot. The quality was not up to expectations so when we replanted it 15 years ago, we planted it in three parts with Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. Within each section of different grapes, we planted two different clones or massal selections and then within these subparts, we planted two different kinds of rootstock. For the first 15 years we were focusing on the difference in quality between them. Now we have the answers and can do the second step which is to compare the massal selection to the clones. Then in 15 years we’ll do the same with the rootstock.

What does ‘sustainability’ mean to you? What is your approach to sustainability as a business, and how important is it?

It’s always been key for Château Margaux because when you make wine on the same vineyard for five centuries, and you don’t consider sustainability, then you won’t be in business after a few decades. It’s a top priority and we have a scientific approach. We never do something just for marketing. We do it because we analyse and we’re sure it’s the best approach, for both the wine and for the environment.

We changed a few things and are now organic in our vineyards. We have been experimenting since the 2008 vintage with biodynamic viticulture, but we’re not convinced so far. In fact, we tend to prefer organic wine practises to the biodynamic. Three years ago, we decided to accelerate what we were doing so we hired Aurélie Dutreux who we put in charge of sustainability at the property. We started by measuring our CO2 emissions. Once we knew those we could start to improve and change the way we practised. We also looked at how we can use gas. We are also looking at how we can conserve and re-use water. The only difficulty we have is that Château Margaux is a classified monument in France so as soon as we want to change something we have to get authorisation. For example, we would like to have solar panels, but we can’t because of the classification.

Château Margaux is a big property, and we have 90 hectares of vineyards in total with lots of grassland and forests. We have a big project where we are re-planting our forest to move from pine trees to oak and other varieties. Historically, we also have cows which are helpful in ‘cutting’ the grass and in some areas, we have sheep. We’ve also been planting hedges around the estate to help with biodiversity.

What region, other than your own, would you be involved in if you could?

I’m not a winemaker but if I were, I’d probably choose Burgundy. I’d also love to make Pinot Noir and Syrah. Pinot Noir because you can make decisions that have such an impact. With Syrah, it is fascinating, plus you can play with Viognier. It’s also because I just love the wines!

The Mentzelopoulos family want to solely focus on Château Margaux as it is such a precious property. There will be no other projects for the family. We are unique because we don’t have any vineyards outside of Château Margaux. It’s been the same vineyards for the last 350 years. We don’t make cheap wine, we don’t have a negociant house, we focus only on Château Margaux and our four, soon to be five wines.

If you were sent to a Desert Island with one bottle of wine, what would you take?

It would probably be Château Margaux 1990. I love Bordeaux, but I also love Burgundy so it’s very difficult to make a choice between the two. However, Château Margaux 90 is so perfumed and so soft that you are in between these two regions and have the best of both. It’s a wine that almost doesn’t change. I have been lucky to taste it maybe 200 to 300 times and I’ve never had a bad or corked bottle… and I’ve never had a wine that’s more evolved.

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