Michel Rolland: The Man Who Gave Wine a Global Voice

Michel Rolland believed that great wines could be made anywhere. Then he would add – just make sure you consult him first.

That was how the French vigneron Aimé Guibert spoke, with some irritation, in Mondovino, the celebrated 2004 documentary. His target was the “flying winemaker”, but also Rolland’s closeness to the Mondavi family, which was then planning to clear a hill near Guibert’s land and plant an enormous vineyard.

– Wine is dead, just like cheese, fruit… – Guibert concluded, unable to find an answer to the approaching globalisation of the wine market. On that market, large wineries such as Mondavi’s were playing an increasingly important role, with annual production of 120 million bottles, a market value of more than half a billion dollars and over 200,000 visitors a year.

In that same world, Robert Parker was, for many embittered “authentic” French winemakers, the man who had “discovered the music to which Bordeaux dances”. His entire philosophy could be reduced to a simple thought: what I like is good, and what I like most is the best.

Hubert de Montille, another memorable figure in Mondovino, summed up the globalisation of wine, to which Michel Rolland and Parker had contributed so strongly, in a single word: “vanillisation”.

– Let us conceal the lack of terroir with the flavour of new oak, de Montille would say.

Yet amid all those disputes and accusations, the Rolland remark that lingers most deeply from Mondovino is almost boyishly playful: he cannot wait for someone to plant a vineyard on the Moon – so that he can be its first consultant.

At the time the film was made, he advised more than 100 wineries in twelve countries. Today, after decades of work, that number has risen to more than 250 wineries worldwide. Despite criticism and labels such as “Rollandisation” or “Parkerisation”, his influence did not diminish – quite the opposite. He sometimes called his opponents “ayatollahs of terroir”, but behind the polemics stood a man who, above all, loved wine – and understood it in all its forms.

Of particular importance to us is that Michel Rolland was a close friend of Ernest Tolj for years and one of the key figures in Saints Hills’ rise in quality. His influence was quiet but decisive – guiding rather than dominating.

It was in that spirit that Frenchie was born – a Sauvignon Blanc from Sonoma, and also the Saints Hills wine of the same name. Tolj’s bottle bears a caricature of Rolland in profile, while its back label carries an almost manifesto-like message: “We dedicate this wine to all THE ROLLANDISATION, GLOBALISATION, PARKERISATION, and other B.S. stories.”

To avoid any confusion – “B.S.” means exactly what we all think it means.

– Oh, those are grand global tales of nonsense that people bang on about just to have something to bang on about, Ernest Tolj said, making it clear that wines are created not by labels or ideologies, but by people, knowledge and instinct.

Indeed, nobody drinks Saints Hills wines because of Rolland. People drink them because they are good. But Rolland provided that small, decisive shift – the tipping of the balance that encouraged many to try something new: Dingač, rosé, Plavac Mali, Nevina… or Frenchie.

– Frenchie is a Sauvignon Blanc that we originally planted to go into Nevina. But it turned out so well that we decided to make a single-variety wine, which I dedicated to Michel Rolland because of his enormous involvement in its production, Tolj said.

Today, that wine exists in just two thousand bottles. Each, in its own way, carries part of the story of a man who believed that great wine could be made anywhere – if approached with understanding, knowledge and courage.

I also remember an old story from Tolj’s Saint Anthony vineyard in Radovani, Istria. Alojz Ivetac told it:

– Ernest was in France, in a Bordeaux cellar. He tasted a blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon. He was so astonished that he ran outside and called me: Alojz, get the excavators organised and prepare the vineyard for five thousand Sémillon vines! We are going to blend it with Sauvignon Blanc. I have never drunk anything like this in my life!

Perhaps that sentence – that moment of pure fascination with wine – also contains the essence of Rolland’s philosophy.

Because behind all the debates about terroir, globalisation and styles, the simplest thing remains: a wine that moves you, that makes you pause and say – this is something special.

Michel Rolland spent his entire life in precisely that space.

That is why this story is no longer a debate about “Rollandisation”, but a quiet expression of gratitude to a man who, whether people liked it or not, gave wine a global voice.