The Contour of Luxury Spring/Summer 2020 Issue | Page 463

Q & A
AD
Nicholas, your family has been a part of the wine industry for quite
nearly a century. With a family heritage steeped in crafting supreme
wine, you have had the great fortune to garner first hand exposure and
assimilation of the relational significance and implication of allying
winemaking and nature. What aspect of the winemaking process would
you say resonates with you the most from your earlier years of learning
the art that you never veer from utilizing today?
Well first of all, thank you very much for the flattering question which
implies good confidence and esteem in what my family does, and what
I do in following suit with my own label. In considering the relational
significance and implication of allying winemaking and nature, ***what
I learned at a very young age was to respect the terroir of  a wine, which
includes it’s very own distinct cepage, or blend in that particular vintage.
People tend to think that Terrior is simply the place from which the
grapes and resulting wines are from, including the soil, climate, varietal,
clone, age of vines, etc……but I was taught that terroir is everything
that effects the wine before it is bottled, including it’s own elevage. This
is the raising of the wine; what kind of barrels, what size, what toast,
and for how long to barrel age, or not at all. Being that my family’s wine
heritage is in Bordeaux, France my winemaking/ wine producing legacy
is one of barrel aging and blending. After we take what God, the earth,
and our skillful farmers have given us from a particular vineyard and
have aged the wine, I will never underestimate the importance of taking
each component from each barrel, and then carefully and passionately
making the final blend to be the very best “complete” wine which will
be an expression of the wine’s terrioir, the vintage, and the winemaker.