Beyond Classification: Château Quintus, Wine Passion, and Reimagining Saint-Émilion's Legacy: Nils Vaincot

We should go back to the basics and just remember to everyone that wine is all about pleasure, just opening a bottle with the good people at the good moments. We don't care about the price, we don't care about the classification, the label or how prestigious it is. It's just a simple project crafted by humans. Sit back and grab a glass. It's wine talks with all kids. Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul Kay and we are in studio today in beautiful Southern California. Let's have a conversation with Neal's Van Gogh. Actually a surprise guest just heard he was in town last week and so we're able to schedule this morning's podcast. He is the National Sales Manager for Chetro Quintas. Quintas. Right. And Santa Million, welcome to the show. Thank you. Good to have you here. What a pleasure to be here. Yeah. Yeah, well you're in this fancy studio, you know. That's good. That's good. Yeah. I got your question. Tomorrow morning at 6 o'clock I go to the gym. That's my day Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. You're obviously going to the gym. A little bit. You know, I'm spending a lot of time at the wristbands. Well, yeah, that's hard. That's what they ask you. Like how do you do it? And then in America, anywhere you go, there's a gym, right? There's there everywhere. And most hotels have a gym. But in France, that's not the case. Yeah, you're right. That's why you're spending time here in the US. That's all the hotel of the best gym compared to France. Yeah, it's much different. It's a good break, particularly when you're traveling. Yeah. Just to, you know, separate all the way there. Just to turn off the brain. Yeah, yeah. Making care of itself. Yeah. So what's this trip about? You're here for two weeks. What are we doing? Yeah, I'm here for two weeks. In fact, the main purpose of my trip here today is being the official partner of the Oscar ceremony. I mean, Quintus. I've been delighted yesterday night. I had a Academy Awards, which I've been. That's crazy. Such a beautiful thing for. So for the listeners in. What did you say, Oscar? Oscar, Simon. Yeah, Oscar, Simon. Yes, French accent, Oscars, right? But is that your first one? Yeah, it was the first time actually. But that was for us in the group in general, the fourth time in the role. So what does Quintus have to do with it? I mean, Prince Roberto Luxembourg is the actual owner and chairman of the company. And each year, we try to change the wineries we highlight so that we can benefit from, yeah, beautiful. So you were a sponsor? They pour the wines at the Oscars? Yeah, that's it. That's it. One of the parties. All the parties linked to the Oscars ceremony have been poured some Quintus wine this year. That's amazing. Beautiful. And did you go to the parties? I've been there, yeah. That's all right. I mean, that was quite an amazing. Quite an amazing. for us, because I'm Armenian by National. I heard a lot of people hear our Armenian. Yes. I've been to mission, you know, but mission-one in spirit. I have coffee with the most Tuesdays. Great. All right. I was in Glendale. I've been to Sherman Oaks as well. I heard they got to shop as well in Pasadena. Yeah, right. I'm going to visit them tomorrow. The sinners movie that won the Academy Award or a few. One four awards, I think last night. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's an Armenian. Michael Bejord and I've been awarded for that. Michael, the producers are a meeting guy. So we were very excited for him, because name was Seville Hanyin, that he won, so we're excited for him. So tell me, you know, when Duke Lowe, the negotiations in Los Angeles, called and said you were in town, you only came for the Oscars. No, not primarily. Yeah, primarily. But as you may know, the Oscar ceremony is hosting several different events before the ceremony. But then I took the opportunity to visit some accords, just say hi to some clients, doing some tasting, stuff training as well, masterclass. So yeah, I'm hidden down just to highlight quintus, share the patient, drink some wine, open some bottles. I mean, it's a rough life. Yeah, not so good. I mean, I think you must be passionate to do this life. You have to be fascinated with wine for one. But it's a product. I have these conversations. We'll talk about it right now, that it's so unique. And you don't know how unique it is until, for instance, you go to a place like Wine Paris. You see 6,000 vendors. It's crazy. You see all that passion there that's going around. Tell me about what's happening with Septuquintas, with this environment in the wine world. Yeah, I have my opinions of it. Generally, Bordeaux is complaining about the wine sales. How is Chateau doing? Or does it affect a level of quality like quintages, even matter? Oh, naturally. Actually, I mean, to talk about Shadow Quintus, I could be interesting to just go back on how it's have been created, first of all, because Quintus is quite new in the wine industry, because it has been created, totally created in 2011. Well, that's very young. Yeah, which was the very first vintage. In fact, Shadow Quintus belongs to Domain Clavins Dillon, company, which owns and supports Shadow Hobrillon, Shadow La Mission Obrillon. And you received, I think, a few years ago, maybe two years ago, Guillem Alexandre Marx, which is the sales director of the company. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Happy to be there. Now, it's my turn. So, yeah, Shadow Quintus belongs to Domain Clavins Dillon, owning Obrillon, La Mission Obrillon, and now Shadow Quintus. Quintus has been created by the idea of Prince Roberto Florent, by acquiring not one, not two, but three different states, three different Grand Cruecklassé, located in the village of Saint-Emilion, with just how sending Theroux, and the goal was to create a kind of patchwork of this beautiful Theroux, made a fusion of them to create Shadow Quintus. So Quintus is the purest expression of a Saint-Emilion wine, crafted by Obrillon Hans. That's a pretty interesting thing. For the listeners, you know, the Shadow Minion being on the right bank, and then Shadow Obrillon, the Mission Obrillon, and on the left bank, Shadow Obrillon, of course, being a classified first growth, basically, 55. That's fairly pedigried history there, and then you take that technology to the right bank, where I don't know what the sipage here is, but it's Merlot and Cavalier-Frauc, I'm guessing. Yeah, of course. Quintus is absolutely not the Obrillon of the right bank, or the little brother from Obrillon. Quintus has its own singularity. It's, it's, of course, different blend. Then the one we can find on the left bank, and first of all, because of the Theroux. As you may know, left bank in Bordeaux is mainly driven by the Gravels. Gravels means more Cabernet Sauvignon. On the right bank of Bordeaux, you've got much more limestone and clay. It means you're going to find more Merlot, but also some Cabernet franc this time, that Sauvignon. So yeah, Quintus is a perfect blend of a dominant of Merlot, which drives the wine, but also some delicious Cabernet franc, growing on the top of what we call the plateau, the highest part of Saint-Emilion, the soils of 100% limestone, and gives to the wines. The beautiful fishness, good minerality, good tension. And even if the Cabernet franc is not like the, the, the, the, the mayor Gravelier-Frauc, in the blend, it drives the Conver from Saint-Emilion. It's so interesting. So you're up by the Chivabranx side or the Gaffi Gaffliere side. We are exactly located at the top southwest of the plateau from Saint-Emilion. So if you've been to Saint-Emilion or Bordeaux in general, you know that Bordeaux is quite a very flat area. And once you come to Saint-Emilion, you see kind of big hill, or big hill, come on. I mean, we are not the rune valet, but the hill forest is the rune. 62 to 75 meters. But that's a hill forest. It's the kind of, we call it Le Plateau. It's a limestone rock, the Moser rock on it. And on this limestone plateau, you can find the top 10, 12 of the pests, château from Saint-Emilion. So the neighboring estate of château quintus or directly château belère mornage, château ozone, château angelus, we've got château canon as well. We've got bau-sigeurbeco in front of us. Yeah, we've got some. When you walked into the studio here, there were three bottles of a song that some just ordered for me. For the listeners, I just wanted to say that when you do visit Bordeaux, it's a very large swath of land, and left bank is very long, and takes a few hours, actually, to go from one side to the other, a couple hours. But if you were to say, what village would be in your mind if you think of Bordeaux, and it's Saint-Emilion in my mind? If I was the picture as an American, what Bordeaux might be, I would envision Saint-Emilion. The quaint town, the cobblestone roads, the quaint village around a wet wine is grown. Whereas in the left bank, you have a long road, and you've got all these little villages in between. Yeah, you're right. There is the Houdde Château on the left bank, and you can cross all the beautifulest and most famous appellations starting from the city centre, Bordeaux, then crossing Margot, after that you've got Saint-Julyan, after that you've got Poiaq, and you've finished Percentestep. Right, thanks for four days. Yeah, you take an hour and half to go to the top. So yes, Saint-Emilion and the right bank is much different. Saint-Emilion, of course, is, first of all, classified UNESCO place in the world, which benefits, of course, of beautiful highlight, the village, a small medieval village, it's just beautiful downtown. I mean, the centre of the village is just crazy. Beautiful to see. But Saint-Emilion is so small, and I'm sure you've been there, and you know that there are so many producers, so many on the very edge. small place. So each 50 or 100 meters you've got a new producer. So this could be probably a bit difficult to understand as a foreign consumer. But yeah, the classification is also here for that. But we just talked previously just before to start the podcast, talking about this. Nowadays the classification, I'm not going to say it means nothing, but some of the main and most famous estates have left the classification. Quintus actually is a centimillion grand crew and I have to be honest with you. We don't really care about the classification today. Now the classification also integrates some specificities that are not directly linked with the quality of the wine. We have to don't forget that wine is about patient first, creating something from the berries, creating something from the land and adapting our methods to the global warming coming. So I mean, classification doesn't mean a lot actually for us. And I think that's some of, or if it's not a lot of estates in centimillion, I understand that. So now some people left. It's interesting. It's interesting thought that this kind of pound on that a little bit. The classification of Bordeaux 1855 Napoleon III, we talked about Eugènei having participated in that. It was really sort of a marketing thing in the first place. It was a commerce-driven exposition that Napoleon wanted to put on. He told the negotiations to rate the wines. Absolutely. And what's interesting to me about the classification of 1855, it wasn't about the ground. It was about the Chateau. And in Saint-Demillionaire or the on the right bank, the original classification dealt with the ground. So it's the quality of the ground, correct? So then, but then he fast-forwarded the wine business a little bit. And you know, Napa Valley has this, you know, you go up there, you get a hotel, you tour, you go on the buses, you do all the stuff, and you didn't really do that in Bordeaux before. No, we started. We are a bit late, but of course, California is far behind this. Well, now, California is suffering greatly because of the cost of doing that. I can tell you now that tasting room traffic is down 30 or 40 percent, because it's too expensive to go there. If you go there, it's a couple, you know, it's $45,000 a weekend just to show up, you know, to drive even if you drove at six hours. But the point I'm making is the classification of the right bank, which I think started as an idea to sort of support the idea of classifications, 1855. Everybody pointed to that classification, the right bank didn't have it. They did it in 1955 in the Grover region. They have their own. But then it looks, it sounds like recently, and this is why several bronch left and Zulu left probably others, is it became a commercial classification? BTS. I think now, I mean, nowadays there are too many classification. You've got the ones from Saint-Emilien, the concrete class A, B, and then you've got the first course classifier, 1855, then you've got the Criburgeois, the Criburgeois exceptional. Yeah, so it's going to do well. But then there's also, though, there's always been a discussion in America to do something like that in Napa. In fact, if you go up the road, like just as you go from Pouillac to Saint-Grilyont, keep going up, the same thing happens in Napa Valley. You go from Oak Null, and you keep going up in Napa Oakville, then you end up in Rutherford, and you keep going up. And they're talking about maybe cutting those in half, or they've discussed it, and making you separate it as the West. And maybe the consumer doesn't care. I think so. I mean, we should go back to the basics and just remember to everyone that wine is all about pleasure, just opening a bottle with the good people at the good moments. We don't care about the price, we don't care about the classification, the label, or how prestigious it is, or the last rated I've been rated. I mean, it's just a simple project crafted by humans. Do you think the rating system has defeated itself? In other words, do you think that it has run its course, and it's less important, or is it still sort of a viable retail? We still have some markets that are interested about the classification, and that where the classification helps, but it's probably less than it used to be. I think so. When I was selling wine a lot, they used to ask, in particularly the early days of my father's business and my business, there weren't any classifications. There were no ratings anyway. And then, if they came out, when Parker started doing the big Napa cabs and things, a lot of the vendors would come and say, "Do you want to know the ratings?" And I would say, "No, I give it my own rating. Shouldn't every consumer just give it their own rating?" And I think you're right. I mean, you're going to trust the palette of someone else, but wine is very subjective. You're going to like something, I'm going to dislike it, and you know, it's very personal. It is. It's very interesting, because I sell a lot of my, my, my, my, stinuating clients that stuck with me after I sold the company. They've all settled on the regulars, right? So Austin Hope, which is a big giant pastoral bliss cabernet, they, I sell a lot of it, because they just remember it, and they, they associate themselves with the bottle. And I think that's what it's about. Some of that keen toss. It's only 14 years old. How has the market received it? 15 years old. It's a market received the idea of, of the wine and the personality of the wine. Quintus, as a thing to, to Obrillon and La Mission Obrillon, benefit it their for beautiful light, worldwide. Yeah. Yeah. Which is a pretty good thing. Then, as I said previously, Quintus is in the, the, the, baby of Obrillon or the Obrillon from the right bank. So it have to fight amongst the, the best one. And for that, I got a good anecdote for you, because as Prince Robert and the Thames are totally convinced, as I am of the quality of shot to Quintus, we all decided in 2022 to do big blind tasting that have been made in Oswald's private club in London. And this blind tasting, used to put in a position, Chateau Quintus against, probably the big monsters of Saint-Emilion, like Chateau Fijax, Chateau Paville, Chateau Ozone, Chateau Angélieus and Cheval Blanc. And this blind tasting was a contest from 2011, vintage to 2018, to have a global opinion and a very objective wine. So you know what? Only four wines. So we asked the people during this blind tasting to rate the, the, the wines on hundred points. And you know what? Only four wines at the perfect score of 100 and 100. And three of them were Chateau Quintus wines, 15, 16 and 18. Wow. That's pretty impressive. Yeah. In a blind tasting with educated palettes. Absolutely. People knew what they're doing. Yeah. It was among the, the people tasting the wines, where some outstanding journalist famous wine buyers from all over the world, critics. Yeah. So that's pretty interesting. You think, good samples. Yeah. You think people, in this group, for instance, very educated palettes, they understand the complexities, they understand structure. And so sometimes I used to find when I had ratings come in here, just by wines that they were, they were on my level, excellent, but not necessarily the fan favorite because you know, let's say, let's face the American palette. For instance, like it's a little, our residual sugar in there, the little opulence you don't think they used to. But if you, if you think three of the four top marks from educated palettes, you're talking about some serious structure and some serious fruit balance, acid balance, and just crafting nice wines. You're right. Quintus is a lot of that. I think is, I mean, Quintus is a kind of modern wine that I've all year it age from the left bank from Obrillo and La Mission Brillo. But what I like with Quintus is that we don't have to, we don't must respect all the tradition and authenticity from the past like we must do on Obrillo and La Mission Brillo. As Chateau Quintus story is quite new in the wine industry, we can permit us to be a bit more modern in the way we communicate, in the way we shape the bottle. Look at this. Here is the bottle of Chateau Quintus. Oh yeah. It's so squirely. Like a typical border wine. As you can see the shoulders are larger. Even the bottle. You've got heavy glass. Got it. There's a five pound bottle right here. It's not like that on the shape of this bottle. You know what? The oldest bottle of Chateau Obrillon, even found, was found by a diver. Really? Deepened the Indian Ocean in a ship that sink. Yeah. And then this guy came up at the surface with a bottle. With no label, no cork, no wine inside. But on the top we could read Chateau Obrillon. So we bought this bottle on the auction and then we probably stored it at the Chateau for a few years and then once the project Chateau Quintus was born Prince Roberto Flux on was the great idea to shape the bottle of Chateau Quintus, as actually it's the same as this oldest bottle of Chateau Brion over front. That's amazing story, great story. So the ball on display at Chateau Brion? Now yes. Yeah, and you're probably the first to know it. We're going to open, in fact, a new hospitality department just being created like few weeks ago. So now people can visit Chateau Brion. We're going to bid for them some crazy experiences around one history and all the past. And things we still watch Chateau Brion, because maybe you know it, but Prince Robert is big fan of history, mythology as well. And he used to buy many things linked with Chateau Brion. But not only so I mean, I can't spoil everything. Yeah, right. I hope you can come and visit Chateau Brion. Well, we're going to be coming for sure. It's interesting because it wasn't that long ago that we were on the left bank. And just for fun, because I knew better, we started to walk up the road, starting in Puyac. And just to see what if we could get in anywhere. Yeah. You couldn't. I mean, we'd knock on the door, you know, Fermi, kind of thing. Now, the bottle is opening more and more its doors. I think the Chateau have understood that hospitality is very important as well. We are facing a challenging context. Well, let's put this way. On the sale. So hospitality is going to be part now of the sale strategy. Let's put this way. And I think this is really important. The success of my father's company early on, which lasted, you know, the value of what we did lasted probably through 2010, 2012. And I just wrote a little article this morning on the subject when they started bringing in this 50 cent of leaders stuff from Europe and putting in a bottle and making it look nice. And then the consumer wasn't fooled, eventually. But the point of that club originally was the experience of this guy selecting wines for you, having tasted everything that was available new that month and finding the best values. And there was a relationship between my father and myself later in the years between the client and the vendor. And in fact, I shook the hands of almost every customer I ever got because I was at a booth somewhere. And I always believed that the success of the company was because we had a relationship. Yeah. And, you know, Napa does that. Not successful today because it's not as busy. But I believe the wine business needs to go that direction. Because-- That's a very interesting point. Because I totally agree with you. And mostly for Bordeaux that I represent, the estate have to rebuild relationship with their consumers. We've been too far from them for years. And Bordeaux, I've seen some beautiful years in the past. But nowadays it's going to be more and more challenging for everyone. For many reasons context prices. For many different reasons. But yeah, the key point, I think, will be to create some new links with our consumers and to build again some relationship of trust between us. And then-- It's very slow. I mean, here you're doing a master class. Maybe there's 12 people in it, 15, 20 people. Yeah, 12 to 20. Yeah. And then that person-- It's kind of an interesting thing. It's really social networking before social networking. Today's social networking, one tells 10 tells 10 tells 10 tells 10. You've told 100,000 people, which is the premise of social networking. It's the same thing as a master class. If you tell 20 people about Shadot Kitas, Kintas. And they go back to the restaurant or the store and somebody walks in and they see this cool bottle. They left us ambassador. Yeah, of course. And then that person then has to tell someone. By directly, they will talk to their friends, to their family. Yeah, this is how you build the brand as well. That's slow. Part of the job. That's not the only thing to do, but this is part of it. Yeah. I firmly believe, because what's in the bottle is what's telling the story. And that has to obviously be very good or at least be associated to the people to tell the story. But one great example of my opinion is Shatou Bayi. The way they've handled their visitor center, the way they've changed the fermentation room. Beautiful. I've been lucky to visit here. And so when I opened a bottle at home and my friends that were on this trip the last time we were there, their brain goes back to that day. And that could happen anywhere and anytime with any wine. Right? That that memory is made. Yeah. That's why we decided to also open a nice, I mean, a very high-hand, hospitality center in Shatou Obrion. We're getting curious now to see what this is going to be about. You're going to come. Yeah. You need to come and visit. Yeah. So you showed up in the doors maybe next year for the season. Yeah. So you're at Wine Parish. We were there. I was a feeling very good, but you know, it's an incredible show. I guess it's fast becoming one of the great wine shows of the world. I hadn't been to one like that since 1993. We went to Vin Expo in Bordeaux. Yeah, it probably was. We went to Vin Expo. But it's a different group, right? I think so. Yeah, it was Vin Expo's job. Yeah. So when you're there, what are you doing as a job? What's the relationship you're building? When I'm on the booth, you mean? Yes. There are two things. First of all, creating link with the B2B. So with our negation, you know, by the way, to distribute the wine is a bit unusual compared to the other part of the world. We, the Shatou, sell wines to the wine ration, then the wine ration, sell it on the national network all by the importers over the world. And then these importers are going to share it with the cavies, with the rest of the hotels, seeing like that. So we're quite far from the last consumer. Yeah. So being able to meet them directly in wine Paris, first of all, you earn maybe six months of appointments because everyone's there. Yeah, right. Yeah, that's true. It's not so bad for everyone, I think. So first of all, we meet the professionals, the negation, our first client. And then we have the opportunity to meet also the client from our negation, the sommelier. First of all, we can see the importers as well. So yeah, it's a beautiful place where everyone's meeting, sharing its patient for wine, doing the business and making, I mean, things go ahead. The thing, it seems to me, and I wrote this up after I left. Let me see if I can articulate this properly because it is like the consumer having that moment at a restaurant where the somm explains a wine or that they had visited. And when they taste that wine again, their memory gets triggered. It's the same thing at a show like that at a different level. But I came away saying, I don't care how much AI, how much social networking, how much content you're creating on the fly. Nothing replaces that handshake. You're right. That's you made at the booth. Wine Paris as well is also kind of speed dating. So you have to be ready for that because people have generally long journey in front of them. So yeah, you have to be precise, quick, and yeah. It's hard work. Oh, I mean, you're saying the same. No, it's not really a hard word. I would say it's very exciting to be there. You'd say. Were you pouring in the Bordeaux booth where you could taste? Yeah, absolutely. I didn't see it. We were located. In fact, we had two booths. One for Wine Martian Company, Clarence De Lundwinez, and another one where I was located on the second floor with the champion, the region on the PFV premium family Vini booth. Not the area. The group we are part of. I was telling one of my collector clients. I said, he goes, I want to go next. I said, it's really from a consumer standpoint, it would be overwhelming. But man, when you walked into that one Bordeaux booth where all the left mostly left bank, that's why I asked the question. Everybody was there and you could taste whatever you wanted. I mean, if it was Obron or Shuttobai or Lafitte or Mouton, it was all there. It was like a candy store. You know, I have to tell you, in LA, the people that vend these, and I said, I want to just for the listeners point out that the Ninocian methodology has been around Bordeaux since its inception as a wine merchant. Many, many vendors in Los Angeles carry the wines of Bordeaux France, and they can all carry the same stuff. Lafitte is carried by many people. Obron's carried by many people. It's an open market, so it's a little bit. Compared to a Napa wine where once you sign on with a distributor, they're usually exclusive. And that's the end of it. So it's kind of interesting deal, but that's different. Yeah, that's what I said previously. Bordeaux, way to distribute the wine is an open market. Yeah. It's really interesting. If you're some of you, for example, you can have, I don't know, 20 negotiations coming to you, sitting you the same wines. So the way, when I choose, when somebody asks me for a small brioche, for instance, and I choose the vendor for them, I tend to explain to the client that I want to make sure that we're getting authentic wines. And so it needs to be the most direct route from the winery to their cellar. Yeah. we know we can protect the provenance that it came from Oveano Quintas to the Goseon to their seller and that's the most important feature. This used to be a big problem that the fake bottles but no worries with the technology we have some specific things that I can tell, of course, on the label, on the bottle, on the glass to make sure and to identify the bottle once you get it. You know you're in the neighborhood of Rudy, you know Rudy, Kerawan, the guy, the famous profiteer from fake wine. Of course, of course. He was right here. You're literally two miles away from it. They found his house here and the windows were covered with foil and they found his recipes. Have you ever hosting him? No, but my friend had dinner with him and he's back in Singapore or something. Anyway, it's not what I was here. Let's talk about this. So it's interesting to me that you can, well, I can understand the backing of a shuttle over on the Missy Ono Barone, you know, going to the right bank, starting a winery. But it still takes time. I mean, you still have to find your footing, find out what you want to represent, find out what that terroir is going to be. Are we still in the early stages of what this wine is going to be? Oh, in my opinion, starting from 2015, Quintus is something absolutely serious. The wine is just outstanding. On the very first win stages, the wine have been really well-produced by the teams, but I can tell, starting from 2015, wow, that's something else. On another level. That's a great vintage, anyway. Yeah, I think it was good. 16 as well. I took a bottle of 16, sorry, with me. So if you want just to share a glass, I'd be delighted to. Yes. I'm delighted to say something. Yeah. What was your personal track to get this? Were you in the wine trade before this job? What were you doing? Yeah. I grew up in the vines in the middle, on my father's side. Some of my family were involved in the wine industry. So I grew up in the vine, and then, I mean, from a year to another, I finally decided to make that job. So I started my journey in the wine industry at the fantastic Chateau de Reignac, maybe about this one. Oh, yeah, of course. So I played with my family, and there's some content, if they're in Los Angeles, anyway. So I started there as an apprenticeship for Yannal, something like that. Then I switched in Chanel group. Some people know that Chanel owns Chateau de Reus en Seglars, Chateau, Cannons, Chateau Berlique as well. And most recently, the Domain de Lille in Porca Roll, small Iceland in South of France. Anyway, and I was working four years with them, not with the estate, but for their one merchant company, the name is Ulyse Casablan, it's a negation. Then I moved to Dort group, an iconic group in Bordeaux owning eight estate in total, four years as well. And more recently, two years ago, Domain Clavans didn't as sales manager for Chateau Quintus. Well, congratulations. That's a pretty fast track to do all that in a drive-in by passion. By passion. Let's talk about that for a second. I had to miss your QA on the show. I was a Chateau de Reus en Rancan, got to sit with him and have lunch in the vineyard, which was amazing. But I also had a gentleman named Zaya Unan here, sitting where you're sitting. And I wanted to get into the luxury brands of the world. So he has his own Cuban cigar line. He has his own Scotch line. And he bought, and I thought this was very interesting. He went right to Santa Maria. Now he has Chateau Zaya. I heard about it. That's why I mean, I heard more recently, because I didn't really knew about that estate, but all the wine shop and legal shop I visited during my trip here, I seen this label. It's a real one. Got it black, yeah, I think. Okay, that's so interesting. I'll tell you why. I never tasted this estate. Yeah. Well, it's new to America, and it's distributed by a very young, small group of an important distributor. Okay. But here's two things, one. I thought it was fascinating that he wants to build a luxury brand of everything like LVMA or Chanel. I see. So that's his goal. Now, he's very wealthy. He's made a lot of money in engineering. So the first thing you do on the wine side was go to Santa Maria, and I forgot how many hectares he has, quite a bit, three different properties. And then it's a garage and all that kind of stuff. But his point to me was, because of my background, his background, he created jet engines, you know, for general electric stuff like this. Right. Well, as all I had to do was pick up the phone and call anybody I want and say, you're going to get my wine. So when you tell me you saw them here, I didn't. I've never seen them on the shelf. But shadow quintus. No. Oh, sorry. Shatosia. Of course. So that's why that was the question like, how did you you would have heard of it, which is pretty fascinating. But anyway, the point I make of it. I see that mission wine chop way again. Yeah, he would go to mission for sure. Remedy probably somewhere else as well. I remember maybe at Walees. So why do you think the Chanel's and the LVMA's of the world? Are they still pursuing wineries? Because I heard that some are selling off because the sector is just not that profitable anymore as profitable as it was. Or is it part of the bigger picture of a luxury brand to have a set to like this? Yeah, probably. I mean, I'm not in that strategy, but I mean, it's also an investment buying in the state, developing it. And once you get money to help yourself, your team underground on the field to produce the best wine as they can, most of the time it works. You know, wine is just all about time as well. We have to be patient. Quintus, for example, Quintis have been born in 2011. That's fascinating. So you in the wine industry. So we have to, we must have a very long term vision. We just to step in this wine industry. So I probably going to be there for, I don't know, the next, the 30 years in the wine industry, 40 years maybe. But then I mean, the shadow still here, you know. So we continue. We must have a long term vision. So I think that for this big and main group like Chanel, you say it or I don't know LVMA, they have this long term vision. They have this long term vision. You know, there's no other, I think of this all the time. There's no other product. The reverse of what consumerism is. If you ask out any global that group out of the throne who's working on, you know, helping wineries meet the demands of the modern consumer. But wine is to be a representation of its time and its place always, right? And so you don't look at the market and say, oh, they want sweeter. They want dry. They want this. They're going to make some small adjustments, but your job is still to. And so the consumer has to react to the product rather than the product reacting to the consumer. In my opinion of an honest wine, there's a whole segment of the market that doesn't do that. And for us, we need to listen to the market. Good. Yeah, we do. We try to, I mean, being first of all on the market here on the field, on the ground, doing the master class or meeting some summary all over the world, help us also to understand the needs of each market, sometimes from Asia to Europe or from Europe to US can be very different. So we have to adapt ourselves. Then we don't have to forget where we form. We don't have to forget what we want to create as well. So, you know, wine is also, it's a philosophy, but it's also all about creating a motion. And when you create a motion, it's also the feeling of the wine maker most of the time. So this is what we try to do in general for three estates. And for that, but I'm sure Guillermo must told you this a few years ago, but in Chateau Obrillon, we have the Fabulous family Delmas, actually represented by Jean-Philippe Delmas, which are among them since a very long time. The way here, I mean, the grandfather of Jean-Philippe was in Chateau, Priéon before Clarence Deelin came to chase the estates in 1935. 75, so that's been a while. Interesting. Yeah, that's amazing. The emotion part is critical. It's a critical term. And you've done this a long time. I've done this a long time. And there are some wines that you just put to your nose and you go, "Oh my gosh, this is extraordinary emotional." And I think the novice wine drinker understands that, it does not have to express it, but we'll get that sensation and go, "Wait a minute, there's something very powerful here." So, but here's the challenge I see. You must like football or soccer. Sure. Right. Baseball is probably not part of your regular. Yeah. It doesn't matter. Whether it's football, American football, baseball or lacrosse. If I go to the local stadium in Sanctomy on a watch a game, a match. And there's how many? 50,000. I'm not sure. With all due respect, I'm not sure. [BLANK_AUDIO] enjoy your time. (laughs) And you know what? You know what? So Swiss of France is more driven by the Rigby. - Okay, well, okay, this call it rugby, then. - The sport. - The sport really is kind of insignificant. The reason I bring it up is like, okay, Dodger Stadium here can hold, I think, 55,000 people. Well, those 55,000 people, all of them got in their car, drove, put up with the parking problem, walked to their seat and sit in the sun for nine innings, three hours to watch a baseball game. And every one of them has a different perspective on that game. Some don't even care, some go for the hot dogs. - You're right. - Some go for, some go and analyze every single play and every single player and every single pitch. So how, this is sort of a rhetorical question, but how do we get all the people in the stadium? - Yeah, good question. I mean, - I mean, - I have a different opinion. - I don't have a higher view. - No, I think we don't have to be, to be snob with the wine. Of course, people know a lot, some some liaisons, some passionate people, but wine is also just to drink to share at the beginning and to give emotion as we said, to give pleasure to people, to do wine and food pairing as well. So if people just enjoy the wine by itself, it's fine. - Just take it down to that level. - Yeah, that's it. - And that bottle up and just like-- - Yeah, and that bottle and enjoy it, take your seats. - I feel like a glass right now, as soon as we're done with this, you're gonna open it. - Yeah. - But you said something important, just done about the knowledgeable Psalms, et cetera. I went to lunch the other day with Lorenzo Pasqueini of Chateau de Kim. - Yeah. - And-- - He wasn't telling recently. - Yeah, right. And there was a gentleman across the way, and I don't name any names, and he won't bring his picture out. But I thought to myself, he's the exact reason why people are intimidated. Little older than me, but one of those guys that just will bore you to death. - I think you have to adapt yourself to the people you're talking to. I mean, I used to walk at the all beginning of my career in hospitality, so I used to do the visit, the tours and everything. And from a group to another, we can have passionate people that know much more than you. And the next group, I mean, on the afternoon, could be just like, - Yeah, you're just gonna make you do - You're experiencing it during the place with the children on the back, you know? So you have to adapt yourself. And the more simple you are with people, the more easy it will be to them to understand your mind. So yeah, I think one is-- - So you have to live this sort of difference every time it happens. I mean, that you are in a room, and you never know what level you're gonna be. - I'm gonna speak to. - That's sometimes the more challenging during the master class. That's why I'd like to start by asking people where they're from. - Oh, that's a good idea. - What are the different knowledge of everyone? So that I'm not gonna be burying for them, or I'm not gonna give, I don't know too many specific and technical explanations. - Find out who you're talking to, right? - Yeah. - I'm gonna just-- - I want them to have a good time to understand for sure. - We need to get a couple of glasses. So this is-- What's the surprise? What's the blend of this? - Typical from the right bank. As I said, it's right bank is mainly driven by Clay and Lime Stone, and this is what we have in Shadow Quintus. Quintus, in fact, oh, I'm gonna try to explain it as the best because some people gonna watch us, but some people just gonna hear me. - That's true. - So people is located-- Shadow Quintus is located on a promontory at the top southwest of Santa Milion. So it means that this shadow is located on the top of the hill and it creates a kind of pyramid where the two expositions belongs to Shadow Quintus, which is a pretty good thing for us compared to the state. Both on the northern area and the southern area, which is very nice because nobody is with the global warming. You know that we are facing some crazy challenging vintage, 22 have been so hot, 24, much more rainy. So it permeates the team of Shadow Quintus to adapt theirself and to pick sometimes a bit more of the northern part to get the freshness, the minerality, the tension on a very hot and warm vintage and on the other hand, for the rainy vintage, picking sometimes a bit more of the thousand pounds to get some, I call it a degree to get some, I could say, poor fool and more, full budget part in the blend. So Quintus blends, the Groenvin, and especially the 2016 is 70% Merlot and 30% Cabernet from, it aged for 12 months in oak powers with around 35 to 39% of new oak. And here is 10 years now. - Well, let's see what you got. That sounds very enticing or delicious. - Oh, that's nice. - Yeah. Wow. - Quintus 16. - Is it 16? - Yeah, look at the color, how deep it is. - Well, the complexity in the nose is amazing, but it's still showing a lot of youth from that. - That's a one which is perfectly drinkable now, but which. - The color is beautiful. - But you can keep in the set up for a few more years. The Groenvin, especially, I picked with me two bottles, but decided to open the Groenvin. The Groenvin, especially, is a one which is dedicated for gastronomy in my opinion. That's a one we need to pair with something. - You know the acid in the Cabernet, the front is perfect at the end. - I'm from one of that. - Yeah, with the baby. - The acidity shows pretty well here. - Sure. - Thanks for bringing that up. - Cheers, thanks for hosting me. Pleasure to meet you. - That's fascinating. Well, it's satisfied my desire for a glass of wine, that's for sure. It was funny, I have collectors and you know, it's not too many burgundy collectors, but mostly Bordeaux collectors. And that's why you show that there's cost-destro now out there. There's also not there. - Nice. - Ready for pickup. There's something about the Bordeaux side of the world that just creates this enthusiasm. And maybe it's the emotion, maybe that's what it is. - Absolutely, I think so. I think we also need to tell the people that once they get traveled to France, they should come and say hi to us, come and visit. They don't have to be, I mean shy or whatever. They can just knock at the door, to gain appointments and make a tour with us. I mean, that's the only way to really understand the project, the philosophy of the wine makers, but also the philosophy of the Domain Clavansil and in general. - You know, that's a good point. And we'll wrap up with this, we're already out of time after I actually have this question. But, you know, tourism, you know, wine tourism is on the rise. And it goes back to that experiential idea that we are talking about where people need to have this experience, but all over the world it's on the rise. There are groups in Armenia where my hair tiges putting together wine tours. And it seems to me that that, like when I travel, of course I'm in the industry, but my friends that travel with me expect to go visit a winery. - Yeah. - It's just, and they'll do whatever it takes. We are in body in the, in the Poulier. And I ran out of an, I was like an hour and 25 minute drive to get this little tiny winery with this little room and taste wine with the winemaker. And they loved it. Three hours worth of driving just to taste an expression of this area. And I think that's an important part of what's gonna be happening here. - Yeah, I think it's part of Bordeaux mood. I mean, there are so many things to do in Bordeaux, of course, and around. We are very close to that Atlantic Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, which is, by the way, beautiful. We've got the land area with the beautiful forest. We've got the Basin d'Arcation. But of course, you can't come and stop in Bordeaux without visiting an estate, without visiting Shredo. We are lucky to have some beautiful estates, where the wines are such outstanding and beautiful. But we also lucky because mostly Shredo Obrillon and La Mission Obrillon are located very close to the city center now. In the past, it used to be in the countryside. Now, as Bordeaux has grown. And according to the high range, now that the estate's also running by the city. - Okay, here we go. Now, I'm gonna remind you that nobody-- - It's gonna be tricky for me. - I'm gonna give you three questions. - I'm gonna try my best. - It'll give you three answers. (laughs) And so far, basically, and I can only do this with French folks, because all the wines are French. - Do someone speak English? - It's a French doctor. But anyway, mathematically, you have a 33% chance of getting it right. - 33% or right. - And that's basically what happens. (laughs) - I'm ready, let's go. - Okay. So, this is a list of human ailments. In this case, we're gonna pick nervous depression. - No, it was depression. - Can you imagine that nervous depression with wine and wine's gonna fix it. So, there's not only a wine that goes with it, but it'll give you the three choices. There's a dosage, like a doctor would give you a prescription. - Yeah, absolutely. - Okay, so you could either have a Medocard, a glass of champagne or a coat de bomme, which one of those would help you with nervous depression. And why, it was really the question of why. - There was depression, I always say, "Champagne, champagne is a party wine." There you go. See? That's a good that's a good reason. Yeah, I think so. The wrong answer. Oh, man. Is the middle? It's the middle. Yeah. Here's what it said. Because the glycerin that contains combines in the intestine with the phosphates of the fermenting grape juice. You didn't know this did you? To form glycerol phosphates of natural lime, which have tonic virtues in which do not interfere with the functional integrity of the nervous system. Did you know this? I heard about that. And the dosage is one or two glasses before and during meals. So consider that a bottle of day, race basically two glasses, three meals. Well, that's a bad question. Of course, you're going to feel better. Of course. Yeah. You're not kind of nervous. Niels is such an honored, heavy here. And so wish you luck on the rest of your trip and that we accomplish the things that we're trying to do here. Yeah. With alerting the public to wines like this, a gorgeous, uh, Quintas, Quintas. Quintas. Quintas. Yeah. Why do I say that? Quintas? Quintas. There is another anecdote about Quintas. You know, as we purchase it three different states to create shuto Quintas, they used to have previous names. It was difficult to do a mix of these names, so we decided to rename the estate for Quintas. A long time ago, the Gallo Roman that used to create the village of Saint-Emilion, they also used to name their fifth child, Quintas. And for us in the group, yeah, for us in the group in the range of wine, we've got Chateau Obrion Red, Chateau Obrion White, La Mission Obrion Red, White and the fifth child, Quintas. So it gives a tribute first of all to this Gallo Roman. So as a summary, if you want to show up the bottle and just explain to you, to your consumers, you come, you explain this story and then they know where they put their foot. The village of Saint-Emilion because of the Gallo Roman story, but it's also directly linked to the two big puzzles from the left bank, Obrion and La Mission Obrion. Well, that's a really fun story. And then the other bottle you brought was the second label. Yes, the bottle that took me is the dragon of Quintas, which is the second label, actually, such as now standing wine and in my opinion, probably one of the best value for money you can find in Bordeaux. And it's younger vines, Barreaux Select, what's the hadn't you found? There's a different brand altogether. Young vines, not only in fact, as I told you, as Quintas is located on the kind of commentary, we have a kind of burgundy way to produce the wine. As you know, in Burgundy, in the valley, you get the Chablie village and then the more you go to the top, the more you get the beautiful of swines. So it's quite the same for Quintas, not because we want to compete the burgundy wines, solidly not, but because of the topology of the soil, the more you go to the top of this hill, the more you have the Moser Rock limestone, where you can have some beautiful expression of the Cabernet-Franit. So it means that on the lower area, we have a third wine, which is the centennial in Quintas. Anyway, that's an exclusivity of distribution. On the slopes, we produce the dragon of the Quintas and on the top, you've got the Krona. Okay, so it is a separate brand with a separate mission and a separate purpose. Yeah, absolutely. It's not only two different prices, it's also two different moments to taste them. Me, the 2020, which is perfectly drinkable now, 2020 Chattac Quintas is a bit young in my opinion. So it's also different ways to open different ways to enjoy them. Dragon is more like the easy one. You've got people, friends coming, last million at home. Don't know what to open, just pop up the bottle. That's beautiful. And you look French and Chateau and you got a board dough and school. Again, pleasure to have you here. And I'm going to break some in. And I'm going to recommend this to my collector clients that would round out their collection and provide wines. They're very peculiar about what they pour their guests, and they could be proud to pour this. All right. I mean, thank you for asking me. It was pleasure to meet you. Pleasure to share the patience of the wine, the bottle, but also talk a bit about Chateau Quintas here. And once again, if people want to come and meet us at the Chateau, anytime they come and stop in France. I thought I'll be the mutation. Come on. Cheers. Cheers.