BALANCE AND RESPECT
FOR PEOPLE
AND NATURE

As consultant oenologists it is our job to find the right balance and measured appropriateness in our interventions for each individual property and wine. Since it was founded, Hubert de Boüard Consulting and Oeno-lab have always striven to provide the best advice, relying on in-depth oenological analyses to help the estates produce the truest expression of their wines.

Our vision is based on Man and the balance of Man surrounded by Nature, striving to make wines that are the Expression and the Reflection of their terroir; wines, which respect their terroir and their environment, and which express purity, brilliance and balance.

As we progress in quest of this appropriateness, we apply the necessary discipline in making and ageing the wines, based on our team's reliable scientific skills acquired through training and the analytical power of our oenological laboratory, 17 Grande Rue in Montagne. The La Fleur de Boüard estate is a hive of research activity, where we carry out a wide range of experimental trials for the properties which subscribe to our consulting services. Our "Oeno-Lab" provides classical and/or specific analyses in order to identify solutions for the issues that arise on the properties throughout the year.

ONCE UPON A TIME...

In 2001, a visit from the new owner of Clos des Jacobins in Saint-Emilion decided Hubert de Boüard's future in consulting. Gérald Frydman came to ask for advice for his freshly acquired property; Hubert de Boüard accepted and the adventure began.

Gradually other properties followed suit: Château Haut Corbin, which has since become Grand Corbin, Châteaux Chantegrive in the Graves appellation, Fieuzal in Pessac-Léognan, Lamothe Bergeron in Haut Médoc. Then came La Pointe in Pomerol, Clos La Madeleine, Laroze and Villemaurine in Saint-Emilion, and amongst the last to join Châteaux de Ferrand, de Pressac and Trianon in Saint-Emilion, Cambon la Pelouse in Haut Médoc, then recently Château Siran in Margaux, the vineyards of CA Grands Crus and Châteaux Meyney in Saint-Estèphe and Grand Puy Ducasse in Pauillac, to name but a few.

HUBERT DE BOÜARD
PASSIONATE AND COMMITTED

Winegrowing is in Hubert de Boüard's genes.
He grew up surrounded by his family's vines
at Château Angélus in Saint-Emilion.
This childhood is the single most influential
experience in his life. For him winegrowing
is simple: it is a question of balance,
respecting people and Nature

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His father bought him his first pair of secateurs, when he was 7, so he could go out and prune the vines. He spent his holidays working in the local vineyards and wineries. Hubert de Boüard is a graduate oenologist from Bordeaux University. His teachers were Emile Peynaud and Jean and Pascal Ribereau-Gayon. At weekends he worked in the vineyards of Château Thieuley in La Sauve-Majeure or on Patiras Island across from Pauillac. His first study periods took place at Château Figeac with Thierry Manoncourt in Saint-Emilion, in the Beaujolais region and Burgundy.

At the beginning of the 1980's thanks to Michel Bettane, he began exploring Burgundy, met Henri Jayer, Denis Mortet, Dominique Lafon and many others. He came to understand that protecting the environment is an essential part of winegrowing and that oenological good practice is based on common sense: tilling the ground, gentle extraction of polyphenols, ageing wines on their lees, etc. And scientific logic has its role to play also.

When he returned in 1985, he took over the family estate at Angélus and has never stopped putting his observations into practice. He is a pioneer and an innovator, who brushes aside past certainties and has challenged a number of established techniques, using methods that protect ecosystems and focus on authenticity in the wines produced. He did all this twenty years before some, who realising that there was an impact on wine quality and expression, started to do the same. Hubert de Boüard is a close friend of Michel Rolland, who contributes to his projects and helps him set up many experiments, which will ultimately move modern viticulture and oenology forward.

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PHILIPPE NUNES
INTUITIVE AND RATIONAL

Wine is made in the vineyard.
You need to feel those vines to understand.
Only this noble communion between the work
of a winegrower and the soil is what
reveals the gifts of nature.

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A different story, but a similar career explains the attachment between the two men and Philippe Nunes's love of the winegrower's profession. Born in Libourne to Portuguese parents, who were agricultural workers, Philippe Nunes also grew up in surroundings where life was orchestrated around work in the vines and the cellar. He grew up amongst vines and developed 20 years' experience in the Medoc, where what counted for him was effective pruning.

He was destined to become a wine grower and chose to enrich his experience with a scientific education. He won a higher diploma in wine growing and oenology at Blanquefort agricultural school, then studied for his oenology degree at the Bordeaux Faculty of Oenology. His career and the quality of his work have left their mark at Châteaux Cheval Blanc, Margaux, Chasse-Spleen and Clos l'Eglise for Michel Rolland. His technical approach backed up with his scientific knowledge enlighten his understanding and enable him to define precisely all the concerns of an estate.

Philippe Nunes really blossomed when he moved to the right bank of the Garonne, where he was able to unite all the values dear to him: a parochial focus, the importance of family and the rich variety in the terroirs on this bank. In 1998, he joined Château La Fleur de Boüard in Lalande de Pomerol as technical manager and started working for HB Consulting in the mid 2000's. In 2008, Oeno-Lab a scientific laboratory was founded in order to go further in the quest for purity and balance in the soils and wines.

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BRYAN DESSAINT
CONSCIENTIOUS AND ALTRUISTIC

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Born in Epernay, Bryan is the grandson of vignerons from the historic part of Champagne in Dizy in the Marne department. At an early age, he accompanied his grandfather in the vines, where he lent him a helping hand in carrying out different jobs in the vineyard. Throughout the growing seasons, performing such tasks as the pruning, the tying and training of the shoots, crop thinning and harvesting enabled him to hone his vine-growing skills. Having an initial interest in business studies, he signed up for a university course in international commerce. Keen to maintain the link he had acquired with wine-growing, he did an internship at a wine estate in the Colchagua Valley. Subsequently, with this solid experience behind him, he studied for a degree in Wine and Spirits International Commerce at Reims University and also at the Lycée Viticole in Champagne. He carried out his internships at wine estates in France, (at Domaine G&Y Dufouleur in Nuits-Saint-Georges in Burgundy) and abroad (at Bodega J Miquel Jané in Vilafranca del Penèdes).

In 2010, Bryan felt that the commercial side of the sector was taking him away and separating him from what he really wanted to do: be present at the first stages of the product and at the very essence of it -in other words, winemaking. He therefore decided to re-direct his career towards wine production and signed up for a BTS viticulture diploma course, during which he was able to gain work experience at Château Angelus. His course and his training were carried out in close collaboration with Hubert de Boüard and his team, alongside whom he became acquainted with the vine-growing and winemaking practices of a First Classified Growth. In 2012, Bryan acquired his diploma, and Hubert de Boüard took him on as manager of winemaking at Château de Francs in the Côtes de Bordeaux appellation. Convinced that he had found his true calling, he then studied for the Diplôme National d’Œnologue, which he passed in June 2015. It was in September of the same year that he joined the Hubert de Boüard consultancy team.

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MAXIME TACH
RIGOROUS AND PRAGMATIC

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Maxime Tach grew up on the family wine estate. Over ten years, he gained experience in the Graves wine region, where he learned the basics of vineyard management working alongside his father. His fondness for white varieties led him firstly to Château Haut-Brion, where he developed a knowledge of the special ecosystem of the white variety terroirs and most particularly of how to manage the soils’ water reserves. Having followed general subjects in his studies, Maxime graduated in 2011 with a degree in biology and then in 2013 obtained his Diplôme National d’Œnologue at Bordeaux’s ISSV. His professional career began at Château La Fleur de Boüard in 2012 working alongside Philippe Nunes, where he learned the values of rigour and precision in the wine cellars.

Maxime’s career continued its development on Bordeaux’s right bank when in 2015 he was taken on at Château Grand Ormeau in Lalande-de-Pomerol as technical manager. Over the following two years, he deepened his knowledge of the right bank, before joining the Hubert de Boüard and Philippe Nunes consultancy team in 2017 as a winemaking consultant. The desire to make his own wine with his family remained close to his heart, and his wish was subsequently fulfilled. His attachment to the family-run vineyard has provided him with an intimate knowledge of the technical and economic challenges faced by vignerons.

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