Famous French oenologist Michel Rolland died at 78

Michel Rolland, the internationally renowned French oenologist and consultant to many wineries around the world, has died in Bordeaux at the age of 78. The announcement was made by his family, who pointed out that Rolland died of a heart attack.

Born in the heart of the Libournais, descendant of a family of winemakers for several generations, Rolland, considered one of the fathers of contemporary oenology and undoubtedly one of the most influential figures in the global wine world, was trained at the Faculty of Oenology in Bordeaux. In the 1970s, he began his career as a consultant in the Bordeaux region, before expanding his business internationally, becoming the figurehead of the so-called 'flying winemaker', with clients ranging from California to Argentina.

Nicknamed the "Spielberg of wine" by American filmmaker and sommelier Jonathan Nossiter, Rolland was close to the famous US critic Robert Parker and contributed to the globalisation of Bordeaux wines.
"Parker changed the world wine landscape with an approach to tasting that no one had before. He has devised a scoring system, perhaps criticised, but it is the only one that works,' Rolland had said on the occasion of the publication of his book "Le Gourou du Vin" in 2012, adding that Bordeaux 'should erect a statue or name a square after him'. Rolland's media notoriety probably peaked in 2004, when he appeared in Nossiter's documentary 'Mondovino', which deals with the globalisation of tastes and wine production.

In addition to consulting more than 150 estates in 14 countries, there are more than 400 wineries that use the 'Rolland & Associés' laboratory in Pomerol. In Italia, he has had long collaborations with Lodovico Antinori and the one, still very current, with Arnaldo Caprai in the Sagrantino di Montefalco territory. And Umbrian winemaker Marco Caprai remembers him as "the one who created modern wine".