Gérard Depardieu defines himself as actor and winemaker. The passion for the wine sector has taken him to go aboard in the adventure of investing, making and exporting wines elaborated in the Denomination of Origin Toro, with Bernard Magrez, proprietor of the biggest distribuitor companies in wines of France and of several cellars distributed in countries like Morocco, Chile, Argentina and, of course, France. A small cellar seated on the way to San Román, in Morales de Toro (Zamora), Domaine Malesan Espagne, CO.LTD. is the new project in which Depardieu and Magrez have gone aboard, impressed by the evolution that has experienced the Denomination of Origin Toro in the last years, situation that you can extrapolate to Priorato, where they have also started a new cellar.
The association between Depardieu and Magrez is governed by the philosophy of elaborating wines of great quality, like Antonio Tomé explains,who has taken charge of materializing the projects of Toro and Priorato. The cellar that Depardieu and Magrez have acquired in Toro formalized its inscription in the Council Regulator in the year 2003 and already during the last campaign it elaborated 10.000 liters of wine, although the intention is to increase this production until the 60.000 liters during the next campaign.
Tomé assures that the pretense of this new cellar is «to get big qualities, using material pointer and with very taken care elaborations», like demonstrates the fact that during the last vintage the grapes were threshed manually and «one by one». As for the future wines of this industry, Tomé emphasizes its «extraordinary quality because Toro allows it», broths that, by the way, they have been elaborated by the enóloga Silvia Tomé and also highlights that «it is not necessary to leave to the big vintages since with four or five months of cask we obtain wines of extraordinary quality and, in fact, the wines of Toro are being recognized among the best wines in the world».
The actor Gérard Depardieu began his own wine career 30 years ago when acquiring a hectare of vineyard in Burgundy. His passion for the wine took him, in the year 1989, to acquire a land of 110 hectares in Anjou, the Château of Tigné, where he prodeuces between 500.000 and 600.000 bottles a year. In the year 2001, Depardieu associated with the distributor Bernard Magrez with who has started a cellar in the Denomination of Origin Toro, attracted by the landing in the area of the best cellars in Spain like Vega Sicily, Mauro or Bodegas Riojanas.
The first contact of Depardieu with the Spanish wines took place during the filming of the movie Christopher Columbus and for this actor the elaboration of the wine is «a question of love», for what hopes to be able to elaborate in Toro wines that are worthy of the terroir and of the palate of those who love wine.
Another of the reasons that have taken to Depardieu to invest in Toro is the fact that «France is importing wines from Toro. This is as putting a pike in Flanders», Antonio Tomé assures.
His partner, Magrez, has already visited Toro to supervise the starting of this project and it is possible that Gérard Depardieu travels to Bull in October or November to participate in the official presentation of the cellar, although it is not still closed the date of the inauguration.
(Source: Norte de Castilla)
