We were sent a query the other day by a German journalist who had read the entry on crop thinning (vendange verte) in The Oxford Companion to Wine. He wanted to know whether this quality-oriented viticultural technique that has become so popular throughout the world had been pioneered in Bordeaux by Christian Moueix, then in charge of Petrus (widely known at the time as Ch Pétrus), or by the consultant oenologist Michel Rolland.
I asked them both for their recollections and thought you might be interested in the replies I received.
Christian Moueix replied:
I practised...