Transcription

• Speaker #0

  Hello Xavier.

• Speaker #1

  Hi Antoine.

• Speaker #0

  Thank you very much for not really welcoming us because we are currently at Club Bataille but for being here in Hong Kong. So the full story is kind of different from the other person I interviewed because I think it's been five or six years that we know each other, something like that. Actually Emmanuel Coiffe was one of the first person I interviewed in this podcast put us into a in reaction and The thing is, you live in Singapore, so for me, living in Paris, it was kind of complicated to see each other. But we've experienced Couvant de Jacobin, which is your property in Saint-Emilion. Actually, Marine, my girlfriend, did the harvest, thanks to you. Oh yeah,

• Speaker #1

  we remember that.

• Speaker #0

  They all remember that.

• Speaker #1

  Oh, in a good way.

• Speaker #0

  In a good way. So if you take the 2021, I think, or the vintage, you can be sure that it will taste great. It will taste... Very, very good. So we'll definitely talk about a lot of things together. But first, can you start by introducing yourself?

• Speaker #1

  Sure. So my name is Xavier Jean. I'm the fourth generation owner of Couvent des Jacobins. So it's Grand Cru Classé in Saint-Emilion area. And it's been in the family for about 220 years. So my great-great-grandfather bought it in 1902. And I'm in Hong Kong today because we are doing a very unique vertical of large vintages of Kelly Sam, which is our new project that we started in 2015. So the family legacy wine is Couvant des Jacobins. It's been there for decades. And in 2015, we launched Kelly Sam and we are here to talk about it to the Hong Kong crowd.

• Speaker #0

  Amazing. So let's talk a bit more about Couvent des Jacobins. So for you, I think it was your aunt that was at Couvent des Jacobins a bit before. Did you still grow up in wines and like wine environment or were you kind of far from the estate?

• Speaker #1

  So it's very, very interesting story. So my great-great-grandfather had two wives. The first one is our lineage and the second wife is the grandfather. the other family branch of Rosette Borde, who was the owner of Courant des Jacobins. And I never really knew my grandmothers. They passed away when I was very young. And so I kind of, she became my grandmother by adoption. But the family has been in Saint-Emilion since 1810. So I've lived in Saint-Emilion. We were living in another chateau at the time called Chateau Trimoulé, who was purchased by Chateau Dassault.

• Speaker #0

  Okay.

• Speaker #1

  in 2015 but i spent my whole life you know at the chateau and in santa milia and it's the village in which i grew and i went to school there and i did the harvest and i did the vine works and been on the tractor and so on so uh yeah it's i'm very attached to the to the village okay

• Speaker #0

  so so you still uh you still witness that and so in was it 2014 or 2012 2012 so your your own passed away at that time and so you had the opportunity to to become the guy behind the Couvreur de Jacobin?

• Speaker #1

  So actually, it's a bit more... So she passed away in 2019.

• Speaker #0

  Okay.

• Speaker #1

  But I became more and more involved in Couvreur de Jacobin. So the first year in which I really became very involved was 2012.

• Speaker #0

  Okay.

• Speaker #1

  So 2012 is the vintage in which I can say that I contributed a bit more to the idea, to the winemaking, to the philosophy, along with our winemaker, Denis Pomerade. it was

• Speaker #0

  Because you wanted to be more involved at that time? So... Like, you came to see your aunt and were like, I would like to be a bit more... No,

• Speaker #1

  since I was a kid, I've always liked wine. And my dad was a winemaker as well at Pimoulé. He had his own chateau. And the family, all the family had estates because my grandfather was the mayor of Saint-Christophe-des-Bardes.

• Speaker #0

  Ah, okay.

• Speaker #1

  And he had lots of kids. and each kid had a wine property. So I've really lived in this world. And Rosette and her husband, Alain, didn't have any kids. So I became a bit like the kid by adoption in a way. Since the 1990s, early 1990s, since I was five or six years old, I can... remember being at Couvent des Jacobins and being with them during all weekends. And yeah, and it grew on me like that.

• Speaker #0

  The Couvent des Jacobins has a story also in your family, because if I remember well, it was acquired... In your family, so in the 19th century. But it was like, not by inheritance, but by hard work and by really wanting to buy this.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, so I think at the time, so very little is known about, you know, the family between the 1800s and late 1800s. But what we understand from doing some research about the family is, so when Guillaume Jean, so our ancestor, arrived in Saint-Emilion, he was... We think he was an agricultor, a farmer in the lower side of the village. And he probably did well for himself. And as he accumulated maybe a bit more money, he could start buying a bit more vines and doing a bit more wine. And at some point, they became fortunate enough to have enough money to buy the Couvent des Jacobins. But it was a complete ruin when he bought it in 1902. There was no winemaking. There was no winemaking facility. The house was in disarray. There was just so much work to be done. So it was in the middle of the village of Saint-Emilion, but it was just not livable in a way. And so the whole adventure of the past century has been to acquire the different plots and refurbish the couvent. which had a big history even before they purchased it. And yeah, we try to continue it today.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, and so you continued it when arriving, because you bought some vines for Calisem. You created also a hospitality project around that.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, so Calisem, it's really a great adventure. So with Couvent, Couvent has been existing as a label for... about 100 years. But you know, in Saint-Emilion, it's kind of difficult to create. So we are in the, Couvent is in the middle of Saint-Emilion, and so you don't have vine plots around because it's inside the village, which is making it very, very charming in a way. And so when my ancestors started building the vineyard, so they bought first plots on the plateau, just on the other side, the East Plateau. Then on the North Plateau, next to the roundabouts. And then the biggest block was on the slope and southwest slope and the foothill, not too far from Coutette, down of Chateau Coutette, Grand Main, around this area, not far from Angelus as well, on the other side of the road. And so over the decades, the vineyard became a bit bigger. So from zero hectare in 1902, now it's about 11 hectares. And then Calisem, how it came is, so one of our neighbors wanted to sell a plot, but we couldn't include it in the Couvent des Jacobins because Couvent des Jacobins is a classified estate. And you cannot buy another plot that is not classified and include it as part of your vineyard. And the plot was very unique anyway. It was very old clones of Merlot. They were planted in the 60s, early 60s, and they were never replanted. So you had a very homogeneous plot of old Merlot. Very, very nice. Very, very nice Merlot. And we got the idea of creating a specific cuvee for that because we wanted to maintain the uniqueness of it. So that's a very recent project.

• Speaker #0

  But so Calisheim is not... in the classified version of Saint-Emilion? No. Ah, okay.

• Speaker #1

  We are not in the classification.

• Speaker #0

  It's funny because when you compare that to other classifications in Bordeaux, like for example the 1855 classification, the game is basically you buy like a second great growth 1855, then you buy a shit ton of vineyards around this, you consolidate everything and you just like triple the volume that you produce with other vines. I didn't know it was not possible in...

• Speaker #1

  No, in Saint-Emilion, it's very controlled. And every 10 years, you have the classement, the classification. And so there's a lot of checks about how big your estate is. So you can ask, after a few years, to have a certain plot. to be included as part of your classification area. But with Calisem, we thought the plot was just too unique and too interesting to melt it or to incorporate it.

• Speaker #0

  It's not like Saint-Emilion style. If you drink Calisem, you drink Calisem specifically. Exactly. Even though it's from Saint-Emilion, but first it's Merlot, which is not the main... the main characteristic and it's 100% Merlot, so it's different.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, I think it's, well, we don't know how you will have tasted if you included it in Couvant, but it's the philosophy and the great variety, the place where it comes from, the way the berries taste and the flavors and so on is quite different from what you have at Couvant. and yeah it's The wine at the end, the philosophy is really, we are trying really to do the same, but the flavors and the intensity and so on is just not the elegance and the type that we have at Couvent. It's much more deep and rich and concentrated and intense.

• Speaker #0

  For me, when I discovered Couvent de Jacquemont, thanks to you, I was... super impressed by the the history that you have and so first for me is one of the most underrated wines of Saint-Emilion I feel because it's uh I don't I think I think it's like 35 euros per bottle something like that when you buy it buy them a primer and I'm like this is this is I think it's a still like uh at least it's a good value and I tell that uh not because you're here but like really for the audience I think it's a very good investment into Saint-Emilion if you want to to drink it um but apart from the wine you also have an amazing place like Couvent by itself is beautiful you have um you have a cellar that is absolutely uh stunning so you started renovating all of that um how is it going and and can you tell us a bit more about like visiting and hospitality or this no absolutely so

• Speaker #1

  Obviously, Couvent Jacobin is associated with the wine that we make. But we like to think that it goes beyond that. The story goes beyond just the wine that we make, which, of course, is a very big part of what we do. But we like to think about Couvent as a piece, like a real piece of Saint-Emilion, a piece of Saint-Emilion history. Because it's right in the middle of the village. So you were talking about the cave, so underground. 10 to 12 meters below ground. That's where we store the wine. It's just a wonderful place. It's full of history. You open the doors and there's no noise. You just forget about all your worries and you just step into a different world. And we were not maybe that visible for many, many years because, yeah, our philosophy is to be a lot more discreet. And because our winemaking facilities are in Saint-Emilion, You know, you can't do that much in Saint-Emilion. You can't build something bigger and bolder and grander and so on. So at that time where a lot of the chateaus were creating very vast cellars and so on, we kind of cultivated a bit our, maybe our uniqueness in terms of, you know, discretion and so on. And over the years, it naturally came to us that knowing our customers. Welcoming customers, in addition to working with the trade, of course, but really developing this link with people who enjoy our wines was just the future, one of the futures of wine. And so in 2020, we started thinking about what we could offer a bit unique to guests who would visit Couvent de Jacobin. And so for about six months, we tried to create an offer of, you know, interesting visits, interesting experiences. So it's only private. So that we maintain a bit the atmosphere and, you know, the uniqueness and the coziness of the place. But we have a tremendous amount of, you know, visitors that come for lunches and dinners and cooking classes and blending classes. And it's a very, I know it's in Saint-Emilion, but it's a very almost Burgundy style. very cute, very cozy setting. You can't welcome too many people as well because the place is really quite small. And so it adds to, it just adds to the ambience. That's really fantastic. And in 2024, so we bought a little house just next to the entrance where we have now our showroom. We never had a wine shop, our wine boutique. until 2024. And now we are able to welcome our visitors, not only to visit the cellars and the cave and just experience the history, but also, you know, come for tasting, just come from the street and then, you know, you can just look around. It's really, really nice.

• Speaker #0

  And that's amazing. It's been a few years. I haven't been to Saint-Emilion, I think two or three years. Sometimes people say that Saint-Emilion doesn't move and is boring and stuff, but you're the ambassador of it not being boring and not being all the same. Yeah,

• Speaker #1

  a lot of things are going on in Saint-Emilion. I think there's a lot of dynamism. Everybody's trying many different things. So you could see it also. So wine tourism has always been there, but maybe not advertised the way it should. be. And so you see more and more chateaus, including ourselves, offering cultural events, concerts. We were the first ones in Saint-Emilion to do a comedy club where you welcome a few humorists, stand-up comedians, and you open the couvent in the garden. So it's really very, very intimate, a very intimate setting. And you have, you know, theater. You have branches, you have cinema in the different chateaus during summer. So I think the appellation is super active, trying to, you know, just get people to come to Saint-Emilion to enjoy the wine, but also to experience the city and just live interesting cultural experiences.

• Speaker #0

  So on yourself, you're mostly based in Singapore. where you have a full-time job and a daily life. How do you manage this relationship with Couvent? I guess you must call Denis and the team almost every day, I guess.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, so Denis is our GAM, general manager, and our winemaker. So he's been with us since 1998. And most of the team at the vineyard and in the Couvent is... between 8 and 15 years or 20 years. So they've been with us for a very, very long time. And the fact that you have a great team on site, it just makes me very confident that you don't necessarily need to be there or even call them every day just to make sure things are going well.

• Speaker #0

  You call them because you want to have news and because you want to be involved, but not to check on their work. No,

• Speaker #1

  no, no, because they know what they are doing. They will decide, you know, on the major things like, you know, harvest date. With Denise, I discuss a lot more about, you know, the planning, what we want to do, investments. the commercial aspects as well, where we should try to focus our activity, where do we want to discover new clients. We also exchange a lot about the winemaking philosophy, but we've been working together for 15 years now. And I've known him since he arrived in Couvent, so we've known each other for 25 years. And so it's a lot more about what more can we do. to make our wines, you know, even more interesting, to talk to amateurs and wine connoisseurs about it. And then with Calisem, it was a complete white page to write because we didn't have the plot, we didn't have the label. We didn't really quite know what type of wine we wanted to make until we made the first vintage. But, and obviously during the harvest, it's... I'm always there during the harvest. I'm always there during the primaire, generally during Christmas, and generally also one or two weeks during summer. But it's been a very... symbiotic relationship that we have together. And I trust him, you know, very, very much.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, I spent one day with Denis a few years ago, and it was amazing. I learned so much. So it was really early in my wine journey. And I feel like he, you know, he unlocked so many knowledge and things in just one day. So that was amazing. So you've been in Asia for like, what, 15 years, 20 years now? about uh so i arrived in 2009 in hong kong so that's about 16 years 15 years yeah um so since since day one uh being here so you were already owner of uh of couronne jacquemin and you had this uh this attachment to it um did you start from day one trying to bring the wine here and and trying to to taste it like did you arrive in hong kong with a few few bottles in your suitcase

• Speaker #1

  So, Emmanuel Coif, whom you know, we've known each other for a very, very long time as well. And he knows our wine very well. So, Couvent, just to let you know, from one year to another, it's between 30 and 40,000 bottles per year. So, the quantity is not really that much. And the way we've distributed our wines, if we try to... We tried to identify markets or customers who are looking for chateaus with a relatively smaller volume of production. And Emmanuel introduced me to the Hong Kong market. And he'd known Lyndon from the Fine Wine Experience, who are hosting us today in their wonderful club, Club Batard. And we got acquainted. And he came to the Chateau in, I think, 2013 or 2014 with Lyndon. And Lyndon discovered our wines. He discovered Pouvant. He discovered Calisem. And then the fact that I was in Asia really helped develop the relationship. But in Hong Kong, actually, I was working quite a lot for my other job. So I didn't really have much time to do a lot of wine promotion and talking about Pouvant. But I started doing this when I moved to Singapore. So when I moved to Singapore in early 2011, I came with a few bottles in this case. And then I started meeting people and Emmanuel Coif. So this guy again introduced me to a distributor there. And then we started developing the market. And it was very important to be there because at the beginning, I think when you open new markets, when you discover new clients. As the winemaker or as the owner, you have to be there. You have to talk about your wine. You have to meet the people. And you just have to be very active rather than just expect the wine to be sold. It doesn't happen like that.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. We were discussing that with a GM of an estate in San Estef like two weeks ago. And he was like, yeah, you know, if you expect your wine to be sold in some places, you need to have boots on the ground. and like You won't sell wine just by being there once. This is good for you to start the connection. But the thing is, you need to come regularly or have people present. But you need to have dinner with people to show your wine, to talk about it, to show it again. And it just makes it more and more present in the environment. And then you will start selling your wine. Especially if you want to do this. on a long period of time. Like if you want to sell a 5,000 bottle one year, maybe you can succeed with a few meetings. If you want to do this 5,000 bottle per year forever, then you need to maintain this market and really... Yeah,

• Speaker #1

  in Bordeaux you have this concept, which is not very nice, of a one shot. So one shot is when a chateau is going to sell a lot of wine in one go, generally for just one market. But with Couvent, because the quantities are not really that significant, and we want to hold back on stock so that we can offer many different types of vintages to our different clients. We've kind of taken the strategy of developing things on the ground slowly. And, you know, it takes time to go meet the restaurateurs, go meet the private clients, the trade, know the right people.

• Speaker #0

  You can only do two dinners per day. Yes. The third one is complicated.

• Speaker #1

  Exactly. And, but, you know, you talk about dinners and lunches, but it's, you know, it's very, very important to showcase your mind. Yes. And we are super lucky. So you might remember when you came, and Marine, I'm sure, remembers as well. You know, when you go down in our cave, you have all the back library of Couvent des Jacobins. So we have wines from the 40s to today. And one of the great things that we do when we do the wine dinners and when we talk about Couvent and when we exchange is the ability of having many different vintages. Because wine, aged wine, is oftentimes something that people like a lot. And you can see how wines evolved, how different vintages evolved over time. And that was a great way to introduce our wines to Hong Kong and to Singapore.

• Speaker #0

  And the ability to taste old wine is, I think it's amazing, not only for the taste aspect of it, because sometimes it can be a bit disappointing or a bit more like most of the time you don't do it for the taste, but for the experience of like opening a piece of history of, some place. Oh,

• Speaker #1

  totally, yeah.

• Speaker #0

  And it's amazing.

• Speaker #1

  Especially when you know that, so today, I think today we are, everyone in Bordeaux and in Saint-Emilion is you know, very attached, very obsessed about you know, like super highly precise wines and a lot of micro-vinifications and you know, the hour at which you're going to harvest. But when you think about some of the wines we've tasted, you know, from the 80s or 70s or 50s even, there was no thermoregulation. They didn't have machines to separate the stem from the berry.

• Speaker #0

  Even malolactic fermentation was not a standard.

• Speaker #1

  It was not very understood. You used oak when you had money. Otherwise, you would keep your oaks for two, three, four years just to give it a bit of a taste. And maybe those wines didn't taste very well for the first 15 or 20 years of their lives. But now you taste them and you're like, wow, they just taste amazing. And you compare how much work we put today into the winemaking and how much work they were doing. And they didn't really bother with a lot of things. I mean, they tried to make the best wines they could, but the technique was so little. Yeah,

• Speaker #0

  they were over-intellectualizing some easy choice. Like, yeah, we harvest everything today and that's it. And we won't be that precious. yet.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, I think we have to be careful not to over-intellectualize the exact word.

• Speaker #0

  But you know, it's marginal improvement stuff. I think I'm not doing wine yet, but I think if you do the basics very well, meaning you have good grapes, good harvest date, and you do things in a proper hygiene environment. You've done like 80% of doing a good wine and wine that will be good to drink. But if you want to do the 20% remaining, then it's not like the 20% quality remaining is not 20% of work remaining. It's like 1,000 times more work than what you did so far.

• Speaker #1

  You're totally correct. But then I'm not even sure this is even the more difficult part. I think to me the more difficult part is trying to determine the type of wine that you want, the philosophy of your wine, so that, you know, the taste still reflects the vintage effect, but the underlying philosophy is about the same. So when you drink a bottle of Calisam, it's going to be different, of course, in 22 versus 21. Because the weather was different, because the alcohol is different, because the berries are different.

• Speaker #0

  Age of the vine is different. Many,

• Speaker #1

  many different reasons. But you will know what the winemaker wanted to do, and you've tasted that philosophy in the previous vintages. And I think that's also what has been difficult with Bordeaux, and now we are trying to get back from it, is if you change the way... If you change your philosophy too often, one year you're going to make a very oaky wine and then another year is going to be a very fruity wine. And then another year is going to be super concentrated. And then another year is going to be much more light.

• Speaker #0

  It's not very visible. And so trying to know what you want and try to stick to it over many, many, many years, I think is the more difficult part.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, having a proper identity and not just identity of the region and not just identity of the year, but like something that is a bit more standing. So from Singapore, how did you see the market evolved for Saint-Emilion border wines over the last 15 years? It seems that there were up and down moments where Bordeaux and French wine in general were at the top and then decreasing a bit. How did you feel that in Singapore?

• Speaker #0

  So there's been cycles. So in Singapore, just after the global financial crisis, so in 2010, Singapore welcomed two very large casino resorts, so integrated resorts, they call them. And that kind of was the beginning of a real boom in food and beverage industry in Singapore. So you started seeing a lot more interest for food and diversified international foods, a lot more interest for wine as well, because when you have food, typically you will have wine. And so you had this decade running up to COVID of, you know, great expansion of the industry. a lot more interest, a lot of very interested younger crowds as well, who maybe they were in, you know, in their mid-twenties and they were having their first job and they wanted to, you know, go out once in a while with their wives or girlfriends or partners. And so the wine business in Singapore just boomed. And then you had COVID, which kind of put a bit of a halt to the trade. But it's, you know, the market is relatively resilient despite some of the issues that the F&B industry faces in Singapore. In China, it's been a bit different because in 2013, you had this corruption clampdown. Yeah. That kind of triggered a bit of a decrease in the wine sales. But then the market probably is coming back on a better ground. So it was like in Japan, they overbought in the 90s. And then it took about 20 years to kind of rationalize, normalize, understand the distribution channels. And I think this is going to happen in China within the next 10 to 20 years.

• Speaker #1

  I think it's a market that to me looks a lot like the US at some point. It's like, you know, we start getting into wine. We overbuy and we buy overpriced bottles. then We realized that we can do wine ourselves and we start planting. Then decrease in consumption of wine because we were kind of fooled by the other wine countries. And then consumption becomes a bit more normalized and goes to better ground like value wines. Not just the big labels, but more precise stuff. And people being more and more into it. but like in the not in the In the sense that, yeah, I want to show that I drink big bottles, but in the sense I'm actually enjoying it and I want to discover it. So I think it's just a market maturing.

• Speaker #0

  Exactly. And it's oftentimes you need a big crisis in order to clean up some of the excesses of the past. But, you know, we have a lot of Asian visitors in Saint-Emilion. You were talking about wine tourism. So Saint-Emilion, we receive about a million and a half visitors per year in the village. It's really a lot.

• Speaker #1

  When you see the village.

• Speaker #0

  So best season actually to visit is May, June, April, May, June. And then if you want a bit less crowds, it will be a second half of September, October. And then maybe early November if it's not too cold. But you are seeing more and more interest from Chinese visitors. They will come to Saint-Emilion. They will love it. They will not necessarily bring back wine to China because it's a bit difficult for them to do that because of the import taxes and all these things. But at least they understand, they see Bordeaux. And typically that's the first step in appreciating a product and appreciating an experience is you have to go to the heart of it and you will feel good, you will enjoy, and you will remember. And then when the opportunity in the future comes to drinking wine, then they might remember their experience in Saint-Emilion or in Bordeaux, wherever they go. And they will think, oh, maybe I have another experience. Maybe I'm going to buy a bottle for a special occasion. And little by little, that's how it develops. But in China, it went too fast. After the global financial crisis, within five years, they had just bought too much wine. And at some point, it had to go down.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, it was, it was, it seems to me that it was like really gold rush and everyone says selling a lot of bottles. It seems amazing, but I was too young to enjoy that. But I would have loved to be in China at this point, for sure.

• Speaker #0

  Oh, it was, it was, well, I have great memories about it. You know, you were, we had this distributor and, and you were going from, so it was between yeah, 2009 and 2011, about two, two and a half years. and then you would They would take you from city to city to meet a lot of customers and do a lot of dinners. Every night you had a different dinner and you were in a different city. And then the day after you had to fly to another city or take the train or take the car. And it was really like a roadshow. And you were with many of the other wine growers in Saint-Emilion or in Bordeaux. So it was very fascinating. But it went maybe too fast. And the market at that time was not necessarily so mature. And now it's going to mature like every other market has matured. There's no reason.

• Speaker #1

  How do you... So as I told you a bit before, for me, Couvon des Jacques Coman is kind of like a jewel from Saint-Emilion, but that is not very well known. How do you cultivate this? I know you want people to obviously know about Couronneur Jacobin because when you do wine, you want to share with people. You want to sell the wine, of course, with it. But it feels like your branding and your work on that is like you managed to keep this identity that you have, this authenticity that you have around not being exuberant and stuff. How do you, like, is it conscious from you or do you just go with the flow?

• Speaker #0

  I think it's just the way the family has been. I think what you drink in our wine reflects very much the way we live, right? So we don't like to make noise. If you know the press, if customers love our wines, we're just super happy. But I think we just don't want to do things that are not part of who we are. Everybody has its own way of talking about the wines, showcasing the wines, making wines, pricing wines, being out there in the press or whatever. And it's not that we don't need it because it's always very nice to be recognized and so on. But we have a following of customers. They buy Couvent because they've been buying Couvent for a long time. they know exactly what our philosophy is. They know that when they buy a bottle, they will find, you know, a taste, an identity that they recognize. But I remember it was a bit tough. So in the 2000s, so in the US, it was very difficult for us to sell wine because we never made wines that were on the very oaky side, very concentrated, very punchy. We never made wines like that. And so the critics didn't really... taste our wines because it was not necessarily the taste of the wines that they liked. And so, yes, it was tougher in the US, but then we could still continue, you know, providing our wines in Belgium or in the Netherlands or in Switzerland or in other markets that were less sensitive to those tastes. But I would say we're discreet, but what is important is, I think it's important to be discreet, but not static. And the whole wine, you know, visitors and tourism that we've developed over the past five, six years, I think it's also showing to our customers from the trade and the negotiation and the Bordeaux and our distributors that we are just not, you know, quiet and tired and lazy. We are, you know, we cultivate this discretion, but we are trying to be innovative. intelligently innovative, not like big bang innovative. I think it's like constructing your distribution. You know, it takes years and you do it step by step, small step by small step. And that's also the way we've kind of cultivated that.

• Speaker #1

  It's an amazing approach saying discrete but not static. I believe that a lot of people in the wine world and especially in France and in like old regions, uh make the confusion between both and they're like no no but i i like i do wines but i don't talk about it and you know we are super prestigious and we are we don't need uh whatever marketing and and events and whatever uh so yeah it's a it's a good approach i think for for people listening uh having vineyards and stuff uh to to make this distinction um I had a question, but I just forgotten it. But it was a really good question. Let me try to remind me of that.

• Speaker #0

  Maybe while you think, one of the things we have noticed with Big Bang things is it can work, but you need to do it very frequently. Because if you do something big, like a big marketing stunt or, you know, a big wine or you have a great grade from a journalist. I mean, it's going to create a lot of dynamism and activity. But then if you don't keep it up very often, then, you know, it's just like a big thing and then it blows out. It kind of fizzles out. And so we've kind of preferred going the other way around. So you do small things, small things, small things, and then you build up, build up, build up, build up. And then you get to that level where people start. you know recognizing you and understanding you and understanding what you're trying to do and and uh and you don't have to kind of keep on doing big things uh because then people they move you know the news flow people they move to other things because somebody else is going to do something bigger than what what you're doing so yeah and like when

• Speaker #1

  we see uh when we see new estates uh communicating on their new share i don't know how to say in english but like like the new winemaking facilities. You're like, yeah, okay, it's amazing, but you can only do that once every century.

• Speaker #0

  And we can't compete with that. So I think that's also a very interesting thing that we kind of thought a lot. So because our terroir is a bit more scattered than the other chateaux at Couvent. So Calisam is very homogeneous. So it's a bit different, but at Couvent, so we have a bit of the plateau. We have a bit of the slope. We have the foothills. So it's, you know, limestone and clay. It's clay, it's sandy clay. so It's not as homogeneous as a lot of the other chateaus. And then for a long time, I thought, ah, that's a pity that, you know, we don't have the same kind of homogeneity in the soils that we have. But then you notice that, you know, in a given year, maybe in one plot suffers a bit more from drought or frost or whatever. But then the other ones are going to compensate and balance. and the fact that you have all these different plots create some sort of consistency in the wine because of the diversification of the locations of the plot. So something that you think would be a weakness, in a way, it's kind of turning into a strength. And so we, you know, we kind of sometimes we just don't see all the strengths that we have because either it's business as usual for us or we just don't think that it could actually be a strength. and and So we only started the wine tourism, you know, five years ago. We've always, you know, had people visiting the Chateau, but we never really thought, oh, maybe we can open it more broadly. And now, you know, it was so usual for us that we didn't even think about doing that. And now we are doing it. So you see, this is the kind of approach that we take sometimes.

• Speaker #1

  So I remember the question I wanted to ask you. So that's great. Thank you for taking the time here. So you're in Hong Kong for like 36 hours, something like that. The goal for you is to showcase Calisem, especially here at Club Batar and with your importers here. What is the playbook that you follow or the main things that you have to do to present a wine and to get to know the trade in a city i think it's a just to give you the background of the of the question the the question i'm asking myself is is i have a wine estate that i have to develop and i want to get into a market like that i will obviously spend 24 hours in some places what's

• Speaker #0

  gonna happen and what do i need to do in in this in this moment i think in 24 hours is the the the good thing that you can do in 24 48 hours is you can start trying to get a vibe from where is the wine sold and what is sold? So do you see it in restaurants? When you go to a restaurant, do you see a lot of different wines or not that much wine? So even before, you know, thinking, what are the big buyers? What are the type of wines that they like? And so on. It's just trying to get a feel from, is there potential for just wine as a product, wine as a beverage in a given city? And so obviously Hong Kong is very dense. There's a lot of different places for eating and so on. And it's part of the culture as well. But so what I would do is I would just walk around, especially in relatively crowded or places where you have lots of restaurants. I would just look at the menus. What they offer, I would just look at the wine lists and the extent to which wine is something that could actually be interesting. And then you have to do your research. You have to, first of all, you have to understand, do you want to distribute directly to the buyers, to the local distributors? So that can be a bit difficult if you maybe don't have a strong brand or if you have a lot of volumes. Do you go through an intermediary? So in Bordeaux, we have the Negos, who's historically been... very, very good at developing outside of France. And then there's some distributors who are more suited to distribute your wine than others. It depends where you want to sell your wine. So if you have, let's say, a slightly less expensive wine and you want it very widely distributed, then maybe a distributor with contacts in... wine shop chains or, you know, the chains of restaurants or even supermarkets or distribution like that would be the perfect idea for you. If you produce a wine, which is maybe smaller quantities and you don't have that much volume, but you want to maybe be a bit more selective or you're targeting specific demographics or customers, then you will maybe choose a distributor. that is specialized in this kind of thing. So we work with the Fine One experience for more than 10 years now. They were the first buyers of Calisem actually in the world. So Lyndon and Mike, you know, they trusted the project. They just tasted 2015 and they liked the wine. And they were not so big for Bordeaux wines. They were much more famous for Burgundy. but they had this client base of... of uh of amateurs who are very interested in discovering new stuff and calisam was very new at the time it's just merlot from very old vines and vinifind in a very bourguignon style in a way quite powerful but like very unique very unique taste and uh we didn't have the volumes to distribute it everywhere we just had a couple of hundred bottles uh for hong kong i think there was about 150 or 200 bottles So you have to really select the distributor based on, you know, what you are, the story that you're telling and what your wine is telling as a story.

• Speaker #1

  Okay. And then in what you do during the day. So I think this afternoon you're like having masterclasses with sommeliers and trade agents and that type of thing. So it's basically like showcasing your wine again and again and again the whole day, trying to get. to make sure people know what they talk about and the experience that they have behind the wine.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, so we noticed with the trade, it's important to just to go, you know, they may like your wine or they may just like another wine, but it's important to go meet them and then just, you know, say hello, understand how they work, understand their clients, you know what their clients like. It's also a good... it's also a good way to understand what they think about Bordeaux in general. Because obviously Bordeaux has its ups and downs.

• Speaker #1

  Especially on sommeliers.

• Speaker #0

  Exactly.

• Speaker #1

  You have some sommeliers that are against Bordeaux, and I don't know why, and then sommeliers that are...

• Speaker #0

  But there are great stories to tell in Bordeaux. I mean, it's such a diverse region, and yes, there's been issues and so on, but like everywhere. And one thing that... that the trade has blamed Bordeaux for is not going to see them often enough. We had this, you know, this interaction via the trade, via the trade in Bordeaux. And the winemakers maybe didn't necessarily go on the road enough. I mean, we are doing it a lot more now. But just meeting people is just very, very important. Understanding what they do and even having them taste your wines. But there's a lot of competition, obviously, but that's okay. At least you are out there and you are talking not only about your wine, but you're also talking about the region.

• Speaker #1

  That's essential. That's essential. And it's a good way for people to put a face on the bottle and to remember stuff also. Because when you talk to your sommelier or when you're working in wines, obviously you're selling wine, but you're selling an experience. And when you are at the restaurant, It's not the same someone saying, yeah, it's a Saint-Emilion with a distro and distro. Whereas this is the Jean family. They've been into it since sixth generation. And this is a couvent nestled in Saint-Emilion. And, you know, with all the information around that, and then you can picture the things. And you're like, yeah, of course. I ordered this bottle. The story is amazing.

• Speaker #0

  It's much easier for them to talk about it. And that's why we are doing a lot of work. So in Saint-Emilion, I know a lot of chateaus are doing that as well. You're trying to do a lot more work with the sommelier, with the trade. you welcome them to your place. Sometimes you even have them work a bit during the harvest, you know, do the sorting, do the cutting. Maybe they stay a day or two, and then they observe how the winemaker is doing it. They taste the different, you know, vats. And they can talk about the chateau after. And if more chateaus do that, then I think Bordeaux has a great card to play.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. so so Don't think Bordeaux is not moving or anything. And, you know, just go there, visit there, and you will find amazing places. Of course, there are some wines we also don't like, but we won't say who today. Xavier, thank you very much for all of this. I think it was a super dense and interesting podcast. Thank you very much for taking the time this morning to do this.

• Speaker #0

  Thank you, Antoine. I'm sorry.

• Speaker #1

  I'm super happy that we finally do this because we've been texting and following each other for years now. But never had the chance to properly take the time to do this. So thank you. Thank you very much. And for people who are watching or listening, definitely go visit Couvent de Jacobin. Xavier told you it's just open. There is a shop in Saint-Emilion. You can sleep there. It's an amazing place. Before ending this episode, I have three last questions. The first one is, do you have a book recommendation for me?

• Speaker #0

  Oh, so I don't know if somebody else on your podcast has recommended that, but I read recently Wine and War.

• Speaker #1

  Okay.

• Speaker #0

  So it's about how Bordeaux, Burgundy, and I think Loire, the life during the Second World War. So that's very interesting. And there's a lot of testimony from different people at the time. You see how the Germans kind of dealt and how the Borderlands and the Burgundy people dealt with, you know, the wartime and so on. It's a fascinating recollection of what happened at that time.

• Speaker #1

  Definitely. So we will put a link in the description if you want to check this book. I don't think someone ever recommended this one. So I will definitely...

• Speaker #0

  It's in English, I believe.

• Speaker #1

  All right. I will definitely check this out. Do you have a recent tasting that you loved? Something that you tasted that was amazing?

• Speaker #0

  Actually, yes. so There's two. Yesterday, I was treated to a wonderful bottle of, it's a border wine, you can't escape. It was a Saint-Julien Léoville-Barton 1985. And it was a half bottle. So, you know, you never really quite know with half bottles. Sometimes they are a bit old, but this one was just so fragrant. And it's very, very fresh in my mind because I had it yesterday and it was just very, very unique. In Cladbata, actually.

• Speaker #1

  Amazing. And the other one?

• Speaker #0

  The other one, it's a bit controversial. So I went to what I thought was an absolutely wonderful wine pairing between a collection of different wines and ice creams, homemade ice creams, very interesting. So you had Burrata ice cream, you had pistachio ice cream, and then they paired with many different types of wines. and I've seen a lot of things actually popping up about ice cream and wine, and maybe that's just a fad, but I thought it was something very unexpected, and I really quite liked it.

• Speaker #1

  I love it. We'll definitely try to check this. Actually, I think that food and wine pairing is definitely something we want to work on a bit more that we haven't done in this podcast or in the content that we're doing. And I'm really... Starting to get more and more into it. And this is something I want to develop. And like wine and ice cream, it's kind of the sexy trash stuff that I want to, you know, do. Like I want to, like wine and nuggets or, you know, this type of things. I want to also unlock a bit more this type of...

• Speaker #0

  But you have to, I think you have to break some of those ideas. I mean, yes, probably wine and steak or wine and aged cheese is just... the best pairing you can get but i think just not trying something because it sounds stupid it's not a great way of being open-minded so you try and maybe you like true um and finally last question who is the next person who should interview Well, we are in Club Bata and that place is really amazing. And I think if you have the possibility to interview the great minds behind that. So Mike Wu and Lyndon Wilkie. So I've known both of them since they've been, you know, we've been working together. And they did this wonderful place that we are here today. And they have a self-partner, Randy, who is more on the restaurant side. And I think they're just extraordinary people. They are wine lovers. They love France. They love everything about hospitality. They know their customers. They have amazing ideas. They're super innovative. And they created this extraordinary place in such a short time that I think they deserve a spot on your show.

• Speaker #1

  Definitely, we'll make sure. So it's easy for us. It's easier than the centenillion people because it's literally at 15 minutes, 20 minutes from where we live in Hong Kong. So that's perfect. Thank you very much, Xavier, for this. It was an amazing conversation together. I wanted also to thank Club Bata for welcoming us today. You've said it, but it's an amazing place in Bordeaux for wine lovers. It's a crazy experience. I think it would be nice for us to do a... We'll see with the owners if that's possible. But I think doing, of course, a podcast with them, but also a tour of Club Batar with them would be absolutely crazy because it's the type of place that you wouldn't expect to have here. It's like three stories, three floors of wine, basically, and of the most amazing wine selection that you can think of. I think it's at an amazing price, even though I'm not a member of Club Batar, but I think it's super well-priced. And from what I hear from the people here, it's really a type of place where they open wine every day, every night. It's just like selling wines, drinking and being in a place where you have this type of art de vivre and of amazing things. And I think they have like Chinese restaurant, French restaurant, cafe, everything. So anyway, we'll put the link in the description if you want to check. And we'll make sure to make you guys discover a bit more Club Bata. since we're in the thanking section we need to thank the Fine Wine Experience as well so you're working with them we had dinner with them yesterday yesterday evening and our amazing people are working in the wine industry here Xavier thank you very much again thank you let's make sure you discover Couvent des Jacobins if you're still here go check Couvent des Jacobins share this episode to at least two people put a like or share whatever You're used to it, but please do it. It's very important for people to help them discover Couvreur de Jacobin. And I think it's okay. And you're welcome to Saint-Emilion. Thank you very much, Xavier. And see you soon, guys. Thank you.

• Speaker #0

  Merci. Merci beaucoup.