One week before the world’s most celebrated wine consultant, Michel Rolland, died last winter, we had an animated chat about a recent project: an $8,000-per-bottle red from Napa called Triniceros. He’d collaborated with three of the region’s top winemakers, including Benoit Touquette, Philippe Melka, and Thomas Rivers Brown, who contributed the wines that Rolland spent two years blending into the final blend. By the end of it, he confided, “I feared those winemakers would hate me! Maybe they’ll kill me!” He was, of course, joking. Rolland and his collaborators emerged from the process alive and well, still very good friends.
The wine was one of several Rolland worked on for the new ultra-premium wine brand, Fairest Creature, launched several years ago by Chinese entrepreneur Jayson Hu. Of the hundreds of wines Rolland had been involved in over the past 50 years, working in 23 countries, these wines were among the most exciting he’d worked on, he said. The project was especially audacious, he said, blending three wines from three very different winemakers to create something brand new. “We have three winemakers, each with his own style, and then one crazy guy—me—making his own blend,” he said.
I had interviewed Rolland a few years earlier and found him equally charming. Back then, he’d been working on another first-of-a-kind blending project, collaborating with South African winemaker Travis Braithwaite on a global blend, Pangea, which combined wines from around the world “as a testament to the terroir of planet Earth,” as he described it.
That project began with a yearlong investigation into the regions where each grape variety performed best. In the end, they settled on Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa, Merlot from Bordeaux, Petit Verdot from Spain, Cabernet Franc from South Africa, and Malbec from Argentina. Rolland blended top wines from each region into his global blend, which he bottled in Napa, where he’d been consulting for years with many top wine estates.
Triniceros and Pangea were equally bold projects. “With Pangea, we sourced the best grape varieties from five countries,” he said. “With Triniceros, I sourced wines from three great winemakers.” For the Fairest Creature bottling, he said each winemaker’s personality came through in the wines he selected. “Benoit’s wine is the sexy beast; Philippe, being from Bordeaux and working in Napa, combines the best of California and France, and Thomas’ wine is fleshy, opulent, and hedonistic,” he said.
He described his process. While working on the blend, he’d travel to Napa from his home in Bordeaux three times a year, spending many hours tasting and blending on each visit. The final blend was then poured into French oak barrels for aging before bottling.
Rolland shared his blending secret. Great wines are all about structure, he said, referencing texture, tamed tannins, and mouthfeel. “When we are making a great wine, we are always looking for structure,” he said. “A young wine might have a very good aroma, but by middle age the aromatics change, and in an old wine they change further.” Structure, he continued, is even more important than aromatic character. “If you put a wine with bad tannins in a bottle, 15 years later you still have bad tannins,” he said.
The three Napa winemakers who contributed to Triniceros each produce top-rated wines under their own labels: Sine Fine from Touquette, Polyspline from Melka, and Perihelios from Brown. I asked Rolland which he preferred. “Which one is my favorite child?” he replied. He paused for dramatic effect before admitting that Touquette had edged out the rest.
After my phone call with Rolland, I drafted a story about his $8,000 Triniceros (sold in magnum only, in a limited edition of 500 bottles). I closed the piece with details about Rolland’s new wine bar, which he’d opened in Argentina, up in the foothills of the Patagonian Andes in Bariloche. He’d been chatting from the country when we spoke and was excited to share details about the bar’s opening. “We will have wines from around the world,” he said. “Many of them will be mine.” I thought I might share a glass of Triniceros with him there one day.
But it was not to be. The very day I finished my story, an email arrived notifying me of Rolland’s passing.
He was a man of great charm, warmth, and infectious humor. At the end of our call, he thanked me for the conversation and invited me to visit. “This talk was nice, very nice,” he said. Rest in peace, Michel!
4 Fairest Creature Wines to Try Right Now
Triniceros 2021 ($8,000 in magnum)
Michel Rolland’s final blend, combining the wines of the three renowned winemakers: Benoit Touquette, Philippe Melka, and Thomas Rivers Brown. With extraordinary complexity, this 100% Cabernet has aromas of red and black fruit, toasted spice, tobacco, and lead pencil and is rich and opulent with polished tannins. Drinking anytime in the coming 20 to 25 years.
Below wines priced $250-$400 for a 750ml bottle, upon inquiry at fairestcreature.com
Sine Fine 2021
Named for inseparable birds sharing wings, a classic symbol of intimacy in Chinese culture, this luscious 100% Cabernet Sauvignon by Benoit Touquette shows vibrant black and blue fruits and a darker core of roasted herbs, dark chocolate, graphite, and tobacco. It’s full bodied with a great mid-palate, elegant and pure. (Received a 100-point score from critic Jeb Dunnuck.)
Polyspline 2021
With its label art depicting a nine-tailed fox, an auspicious, precious sight in a Chinese legend, this wine is made by Philippe Melka. A blend of Cabernet Sauvignon with 3% Petit Verdot, Polyspline shows great structure and concentration and has aromas and flavors of red and black fruit, baking spices, chocolate and a hint of iron. Needs four to five years of bottle aging and will last for three decades. (98 points from Jeb Dunnuck.)
Perihelios 2021
A Chinese Taoist philosopher described a gigantic sea creature that transforms into an equally immense bird, a symbol of incredible strength and magnitude. With the sea creature jumping from the ocean on the label, this highly expressive wine by Thomas RiversBrown leaps with perfumed aromatics—notes of violets, spring flowers, blue fruits, cassis and dark chocolate. (98 points from Jeb Dunnuck.)
