INTERVIEW WITH GILLES NICAULT, HEAD WINEMAKER AT LONG SHADOWS VINTNERS
4/12/2019
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Long Shadows Vintners, one of the premier wineries in Walla Walla, is a unique partnership that brings several of the world’s most prestigious winemakers to Washington State, with each winemaker making a single wine from Washington-grown fruit. Gilles Nicault has been the head winemaker for Long Shadows since its inception in 2003 and is also responsible for making the winery’s Chester Kidder, Cote Nicault, Shoup and Julia’s Dazzle wines. Seattle Magazine named Gilles its Winemaker of the Year for 2016. The always-gracious Nicault was kind enough to sit down with us for an interview in early April.
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WALLA WALLA WINE LIMO: Let’s start at the beginning. When did you first start tasting wine?
GILLES NICAULT: That’s a great question. It’s been so long ago, I barely remember (laughs). Basically, my dad was selling wine so each time we went on a vacation or a road trip somewhere, we’d visit the different wine regions and stop at vineyards and wineries. Being a kid, I really enjoyed being in the vineyards. At first it was more about the vineyards for me than the wine. Then, being inside the winery and seeing all the barrels and the tanks, the smell was amazing. I grew up with it and I’ve always loved it. My dad was working in Champagne at the time and I grew up in Avignon, which is where Côtes du Rhône and Châteauneuf du Pape are from. There was a school there for viticulture and winemaking and that interested me. So at 17 years old I started on a four-year degree there. Then, not long after I finished school, I came to Washington State – in 1994, twenty-five years ago.
WL: You were just 21 years when you came to Washington. How did the opportunity arise for you here in Washington?
GN: After finishing the four-year school, I was looking for a one-year internship. I was thinking about Australia or Napa Valley, but I got an offer from Staton Hills Winery -- they're no longer around -- in Yakima Valley. At the time I didn’t know anything about Washington wine or about the Yakima Valley. There was very little Washington wine making it to France then. I knew of Seattle and had heard of the Pacific Northwest. But once I got here I fell in love. I just love the diversity between the oceans and the mountains and the quality of the growing season.
WL: You also fell in love with a young woman – you met your wife [Marie-Eve Gilla, winemaker at Valdemar Estates] very early in your time in Washington.
GN: Yes, Marie and I met on either Day One or Day Two actually.
WL: How did you two meet?
GN: When I came to Yakima, she was already a winemaker, working at Covey Run and someone at one of the wineries said they knew a French lady winemaker and suggested that we meet.
WL: What an amazing story. At the time the two of you and Christophe {Baron, from Cayuse) probably made up 75% of the French winemakers in Washington State! How long have you and Marie been married?
GN: We’ve been together 25 years, married for 20 and we have two children. Our daughter is 15 and our son is 17.
WL: Any chance either of them will follow in yours and Marie’s footsteps and make wine?
GN: I don’t think so. Maybe my daughter, but she’s too smart to be a winemaker (laughs). But it’s probably too early to know for sure.
WL: So how did this winery in Yakima, Staton Hills, find you?
GN: There’s an organization in Seattle called Experience International and they find places for internships and they find interns from different countries, so basically my school was in touch with Experience International and that’s how it came about.
WL: Tell me about some of the first wines that you made.
GN: Back when I was still in France, I did an internship in Champagne and I also did an internship at Chateau Revelette aix-en-Provence. The winemaker at Chateau Revelette was Peter Fisher and he was starting to experiment with Cabernet Sauvignon and blends of Cabernet – because there was not really appellation regulation there. I loved it and eventually that became the inspiration for the Chester Kidder wine I began making with Alan Shoup when we started Long Shadows.
WL: You were the winemaker at Woodward Canyon from 1996 until 2003, when you left to help Alan Shoup start Long Shadows. What an exciting project to be a part of!
GN: It has been. It's a very unique project with seven prestigious winemakers from all over the world. For me it has been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with some of the world’s greatest winemakers in Washington – making wines from Walla Walla and Columbia Valley fruit.
WL: Who were your mentors in your winemaking career?
GN: I’ve worked with quite a few mentors. When I was at Woodward Canyon, Rick Small was great. I loved his passion to make wine and I respect that he never cut corners in his quest to make pristine, concentrated wines. From the grapes to the barrel selection to the winemaking, Rick wants to make the best wine he can make. I think that’s where I carried my passion from once I started at Long Shadows. And then at Long Shadows I began working really closely with Michel Rolland from Bordeaux, who was like a God for me. He’s been making wine since the 1970’s and he’s worked in twenty different countries around the world.
WL: With all that amazing winemaking talent at Long Shadows, have all seven of the winemakers ever been in the same place at the same time?
GN: It’s never happened that we’ve had all seven together. The most has been five and that’s happened twice. Once was on a Long Shadows cruise in the Mediterranean – we were missing just Michel Rolland and Augustin Huneeus. And then we did a beautiful dinner in Napa with everybody but Agustin and Giovanni Folonari.
WL: Tell me about tasting wine at the young age of 16, 17. To us here in the US, that seems quite odd.
GN: For French people it’s not that odd. We don’t consider wine as an alcoholic beverage, it’s part of the culture, part of our everyday life. The French enjoy wine as part of the meal, not as a means to get drunk. Seventeen was definitely a very young age to pursue wine as a career, but for me, I was like, “Why not?”.
WL: I’m sure being exposed to fine wines at such an early age had a positive impact as your developed your love for wine.
GN: Certainly. I was able to try some very special wines at an early age and it helped create a passion for me. I love vineyards. I think it’s very important for a winemaker to be attached to the viticulture side of it, because when you make wine, everything starts with the grapes. If you don’t get the right grapes to make a certain kind of wine that you want to make, that’s when you have to correct the wine, when you have to do more manipulation to the wine. When you get the grapes that you want, then you just let the magic happen, you don’t have to touch it as much. So you have to make sure you have the right grapes and from there you can make the wine you want.
WL: What’s the best thing about being a winemaker?
GN: The lifestyle and the opportunity to transform grapes into fine wine. It can be a really hard job, especially during harvest when you’re working seven days a week for two months. It’s really rewarding, but at the same time there’s stress because you don’t want to screw it up – you just have that one chance each year to make wine. One thing that that has been amazing to see is the growth in the wine industry in Washington State, from 75 wineries in 1994 when I first got here to over a thousand now.
WL: Hypothetically speaking, you’ve got 24 hours to live. What wines in your cellar do you have to open?
GN: I’d try to open up as many bottles as possible and drink as much as I can. I’d probably start with a champagne and end with a champagne – with a lot of wine in between!
WL: Do you have a favorite varietal that you like to drink?
GN: Not necessarily. What’s so exciting about wine is the sense of place, the sense of vintage. But I suppose if there’s one wine I’m attached to more than others that would be Cote du Rhone. So maybe a beautiful bottle of Cote Rotie. That would probably be my go-to, but there’s so many other amazing wines.
GILLES NICAULT: That’s a great question. It’s been so long ago, I barely remember (laughs). Basically, my dad was selling wine so each time we went on a vacation or a road trip somewhere, we’d visit the different wine regions and stop at vineyards and wineries. Being a kid, I really enjoyed being in the vineyards. At first it was more about the vineyards for me than the wine. Then, being inside the winery and seeing all the barrels and the tanks, the smell was amazing. I grew up with it and I’ve always loved it. My dad was working in Champagne at the time and I grew up in Avignon, which is where Côtes du Rhône and Châteauneuf du Pape are from. There was a school there for viticulture and winemaking and that interested me. So at 17 years old I started on a four-year degree there. Then, not long after I finished school, I came to Washington State – in 1994, twenty-five years ago.
WL: You were just 21 years when you came to Washington. How did the opportunity arise for you here in Washington?
GN: After finishing the four-year school, I was looking for a one-year internship. I was thinking about Australia or Napa Valley, but I got an offer from Staton Hills Winery -- they're no longer around -- in Yakima Valley. At the time I didn’t know anything about Washington wine or about the Yakima Valley. There was very little Washington wine making it to France then. I knew of Seattle and had heard of the Pacific Northwest. But once I got here I fell in love. I just love the diversity between the oceans and the mountains and the quality of the growing season.
WL: You also fell in love with a young woman – you met your wife [Marie-Eve Gilla, winemaker at Valdemar Estates] very early in your time in Washington.
GN: Yes, Marie and I met on either Day One or Day Two actually.
WL: How did you two meet?
GN: When I came to Yakima, she was already a winemaker, working at Covey Run and someone at one of the wineries said they knew a French lady winemaker and suggested that we meet.
WL: What an amazing story. At the time the two of you and Christophe {Baron, from Cayuse) probably made up 75% of the French winemakers in Washington State! How long have you and Marie been married?
GN: We’ve been together 25 years, married for 20 and we have two children. Our daughter is 15 and our son is 17.
WL: Any chance either of them will follow in yours and Marie’s footsteps and make wine?
GN: I don’t think so. Maybe my daughter, but she’s too smart to be a winemaker (laughs). But it’s probably too early to know for sure.
WL: So how did this winery in Yakima, Staton Hills, find you?
GN: There’s an organization in Seattle called Experience International and they find places for internships and they find interns from different countries, so basically my school was in touch with Experience International and that’s how it came about.
WL: Tell me about some of the first wines that you made.
GN: Back when I was still in France, I did an internship in Champagne and I also did an internship at Chateau Revelette aix-en-Provence. The winemaker at Chateau Revelette was Peter Fisher and he was starting to experiment with Cabernet Sauvignon and blends of Cabernet – because there was not really appellation regulation there. I loved it and eventually that became the inspiration for the Chester Kidder wine I began making with Alan Shoup when we started Long Shadows.
WL: You were the winemaker at Woodward Canyon from 1996 until 2003, when you left to help Alan Shoup start Long Shadows. What an exciting project to be a part of!
GN: It has been. It's a very unique project with seven prestigious winemakers from all over the world. For me it has been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with some of the world’s greatest winemakers in Washington – making wines from Walla Walla and Columbia Valley fruit.
WL: Who were your mentors in your winemaking career?
GN: I’ve worked with quite a few mentors. When I was at Woodward Canyon, Rick Small was great. I loved his passion to make wine and I respect that he never cut corners in his quest to make pristine, concentrated wines. From the grapes to the barrel selection to the winemaking, Rick wants to make the best wine he can make. I think that’s where I carried my passion from once I started at Long Shadows. And then at Long Shadows I began working really closely with Michel Rolland from Bordeaux, who was like a God for me. He’s been making wine since the 1970’s and he’s worked in twenty different countries around the world.
WL: With all that amazing winemaking talent at Long Shadows, have all seven of the winemakers ever been in the same place at the same time?
GN: It’s never happened that we’ve had all seven together. The most has been five and that’s happened twice. Once was on a Long Shadows cruise in the Mediterranean – we were missing just Michel Rolland and Augustin Huneeus. And then we did a beautiful dinner in Napa with everybody but Agustin and Giovanni Folonari.
WL: Tell me about tasting wine at the young age of 16, 17. To us here in the US, that seems quite odd.
GN: For French people it’s not that odd. We don’t consider wine as an alcoholic beverage, it’s part of the culture, part of our everyday life. The French enjoy wine as part of the meal, not as a means to get drunk. Seventeen was definitely a very young age to pursue wine as a career, but for me, I was like, “Why not?”.
WL: I’m sure being exposed to fine wines at such an early age had a positive impact as your developed your love for wine.
GN: Certainly. I was able to try some very special wines at an early age and it helped create a passion for me. I love vineyards. I think it’s very important for a winemaker to be attached to the viticulture side of it, because when you make wine, everything starts with the grapes. If you don’t get the right grapes to make a certain kind of wine that you want to make, that’s when you have to correct the wine, when you have to do more manipulation to the wine. When you get the grapes that you want, then you just let the magic happen, you don’t have to touch it as much. So you have to make sure you have the right grapes and from there you can make the wine you want.
WL: What’s the best thing about being a winemaker?
GN: The lifestyle and the opportunity to transform grapes into fine wine. It can be a really hard job, especially during harvest when you’re working seven days a week for two months. It’s really rewarding, but at the same time there’s stress because you don’t want to screw it up – you just have that one chance each year to make wine. One thing that that has been amazing to see is the growth in the wine industry in Washington State, from 75 wineries in 1994 when I first got here to over a thousand now.
WL: Hypothetically speaking, you’ve got 24 hours to live. What wines in your cellar do you have to open?
GN: I’d try to open up as many bottles as possible and drink as much as I can. I’d probably start with a champagne and end with a champagne – with a lot of wine in between!
WL: Do you have a favorite varietal that you like to drink?
GN: Not necessarily. What’s so exciting about wine is the sense of place, the sense of vintage. But I suppose if there’s one wine I’m attached to more than others that would be Cote du Rhone. So maybe a beautiful bottle of Cote Rotie. That would probably be my go-to, but there’s so many other amazing wines.
