Patrice de Méritens — How does the United States resonate in your imagination?
Corinne Mentzelopoulos — It’s not something that is said but almost shouted out: America! America! If I had not had my feet so solidly anchored in the land of Bordeaux vines, I would doubtless have moved there. I was 10 when I crossed the Atlantic for the first time for a stay in a summer camp where I returned every year until I was 18. There I became a counsellor (my first job ever!) in swimming, canoeing, horse-riding and I even have my American lifesaving certificate; in other words, that country raised me through sport! I also learned there the sense of effort and competition. I feel good there. People are warm, kind with strangers and very welcoming. Over there, I made lifelong friends and, above all, I discovered another universe. My first shock as a travelling child: the highways with their huge junction infrastructures, the gigantism of the buildings, the vast open spaces of a country-continent that is so far from our European scale. I had the feeling of arriving in an extra-terrestrial world. A first memory: my first electric kettle, an unknown object for me, that I started out by putting on the gas! The same confusion, for phoning, when I found myself confronted with a touch button keypad … That is how, from my first moments, I realised the huge lead that the United States had over us. Have we caught up? I doubt it.
P. de M. — For you, America is first and foremost a family story …
C. M. — Yes. My Greek grandfather Alexis Mentzelopoulos was the first to leave Patras in his native Peloponnese at the end of the 19th century to help build the American railroads. I can imagine his emotion at the approach to Ellis Island, as for all immigrants, on seeing the Statue of Liberty … Returning to his home country after being injured in the eye, and being illiterate, he made a point of teaching his children English, French, Italian and German. My father, André, lived a similar adventure by settling slightly before the Second World War in Burma to join his sister and then, a few years later, in Pakistan. This was a logical development and even a natural one, given that for 3,000 years the Greeks have sailed the seas – remember Odysseus! My father became quite wealthy so that, when he met my French mother in the early 50s and settled in Paris, he bought the chain of 80 Félix Potin stores. By the time he passed away, there were 1,600 stores.
Where is the United States in all this? It was to be a determining factor in the conduct of business that I inherited from him. His final great undertaking, a true stroke of genius, was the purchase of Château Margaux in 1977, while Bordeaux was going through a deep crisis after a series of disastrous vintages. My father died when he was only 65 in 1980, a year when, after having finished my studies in 1976 – preparatory classes at Normale Sup, a bachelor’s in the classics and Sciences Po – I took over the management of the estate.
My father’s vision proved right when the American miracle happened. I was 27, I arrived just before the explosion of the Bordeaux wine market when our vintages were getting better and better. And it was in 1982 that the American wine critic Robert Parker declared urbi et orbi that 1982 was Bordeaux’s greatest ever vintage! This applied to us primarily, because we had the good fortune to be a Classified First Growth in Medoc and Graves. It was then, after that memorable 1982 vintage, with, to follow, a succession of magnificent vintages, that Bordeaux was to gather a new international fame, thanks also to an American from Baltimore, a lawyer by training in love with France and its wines. We know the rest of Robert Parker’s career: he became a worldwide reference in wine criticism, famous for his wine guides in which he commented on his tastings marked out of 100.
P. de M. — How important is your presence in the American market?
C. M. — It’s our third market behind China and Hong Kong now, but it used to be our first. The key to our success across the Atlantic comes from the taste of the American elite for the best vintages. I have seen over there extraordinary cellars of Bordeaux wines whose refinement was not just the result of wealthy collectors fantasies. They are aware that our constant and unique quality is due to the fact we have terroirs which have the capacity to resist everything because their very conception and the mastery of their making are the fruit of an age-old science. That is what fascinates that very young America. From the 16th century, our ancestors marked out the best land – that, for example, that was protected from hail and frost. The same was true for exposure, the quality of the soil, the choice and orientation of planting etc. In the light of the ageing capacity of our vines, you realise that each decision today will have repercussions for the 50 years ahead. If you are mistaken, it will be up to your grandchildren to rip out the vines to replant the right grape variety.
Thomas Jefferson, when he was just the ambassador to
France, said there could be no better wine than the Château Margaux 1787! That was the view of a forerunner who was to succeed George Washington and John Adams as President of the United States! I have been received at the White House three times in my life and served Château Margaux there. In my office, I have the photograph of Ronald Reagan thanking me for a bottle of Margaux, an exceptional moment with a head of State who deeply marked his century. No one has forgotten his call to the master in the Kremlin: ‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!’ … I also have the photo of Joe Biden’s hugging me before he became President.
P. de M. — Tell us about Margaux Hemingway…
C. M. — Ah, you know that? And, yes, I can confirm it, it’s thanks to us! Named ‘Margot’, she changed the spelling of her name when she learned that her parents had consumed, perhaps more than they should have, Château Margaux at the time of her conception. She is the daughter of Jack, the elder son of Ernest Hemingway, who himself particularly liked our wine. An international model and actress, she was superb with a natural, very American, beauty. She would have liked to be the muse for Margaux and my father would ponder this with a slight smile. As a shrewd owner, he preferred to keep the image and the promotion of the Château for someone in the family … We had much the same age and I really had fun with Margaux because, despite the core of despair that was to lead her
– like her grandfather – to suicide, she knew how to be funny. She would often come to see us and it was a joy to host her. The touching imprint that she left on this Earth is that more and more young girls in our day are named ‘Margaux’ like the château! The attraction for French excellence among American stars is a constant: a number of actors have come from the United States to the south of France to produce rosé wines.
P. de M. — Do you cultivate anything American on a daily basis?
C. M. — Of course. I am very Americanised as much in language as in reading. I read a great deal in English for the intellectual enrichment that it brings. For example, taking another look through the American prism at the history that I may have learned from French authors is fascinating: the revolution in thinking of Robert Paxton on the Occupation and the Vichy regime is fundamental: a biography of Napoleon would not inspire the same values depending on whether it was written by a Frenchman or an American.
That said, since we are talking about the mentality of peoples and their sentiments, I see a love-hate relationship between our two nations. If the Americans of the older generation are eternally grateful for La Fayette who helped them free themselves from the grip of the English, the French of all generations generally fail in their thanks for the U.S. intervention in the two world wars. As for me, I grew up during the Cold War and will never forget that we benefited from the American umbrella.
P. de M. — What can the two countries bring each other?
C. M. — The United States has transformed our daily lives with fast food, Coca-Cola, clothes, music and cinema right up to a vocabulary from across the Atlantic. They also impact our society through the angle of wokism and other theories and philosophies of deconstruction that I would be hard put to describe as contributions in a positive sense; on the other hand, you can’t but admire their way of working in management and observe the breath of freedom that drives their greatest entrepreneurs. Bill Gates, through Microsoft, revolutionised work on a planetary scale. The same is true of Paul Allen, a pioneer, visionary and co-founder of Microsoft, of Elon Musk with Tesla and Space X or even of Jeff Bezos, with his inventory of 12 million items, and some 350 million more on marketplace seller list. It was also America, with its creative genius, that attracted Albert Bourla, a young doctor from Salonika, who became managing director of the Pfizer pharmaceutical multinational. With a Greek accent that you could cut with a knife, an exceptional business sense, an iron will and a drive to succeed, all qualities that could not, just as we do planting vines in the right plot, find a better soil than America. Pfizer discovered the vaccine against Covid. There is over there a recognition of the value of work, an admiration for those who succeed, from which some of our compatriots could seek inspiration.
P. de M. — In return, what can France bring?
C. M. — Its first contribution is of a historical nature. The American Republic as well as the Constitution of 1787 drawn up by James Madison were inspired by the great English thinkers of the 17th and 18th centuries as well as the values of our Enlightenment. Apart from that, it brings its luxury and the excellence of its products, its huge culture, its artists, and a number of the brilliant brains that are to be found, among others, in Silicon Valley. What makes up the unfailing political and intellectual alliance of our two countries remains the attachment to democracy, the protector of our common future, even if it is, as Tocqueville analysed it, the theatre of a constant duel between freedom and equality. That said, from a historical point of view, I sometimes experience some regrets …
P. de M. — Which ones? Of what or of whom are you thinking?
C. M. — Of Napoleon I who, in 1803, to finance his campaigns, sold Louisiana to the United States for $15 million, the equivalent of $381 million today. What a tragic mistake! An immense territory that, at the time under the name of Louisiana which continued as a little state on the shores of the Atlantic, stretched from the south to the north over 13 current American states – Arkansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Minnesota, North and South Dakota etc. – reaching to the edges of Canada, Alberta and Saskatchewan. A quarter of America! When, in 1763, Louis XV undersold Canada to the English, Voltaire applauded with a sneer: ‘a few acres of snow’. Can you imagine today North America, Canada and the United States having preserved a major space for French language and culture? We can’t remake history, but I can’t get over it!
P. de M. — There remains, to comfort you, the idea of a common future …
C. M. — More than ever, in these times where the concept of cold war might be coming back. The future, here and now, is the defence of democracies against the power of empires while meditating, first of all, on what cycles of history mean, by learning notably from that saying of La Boétie drawing on the wisdom of centuries: ‘Tyrants are only great because we are on our knees.’