Michael Paetzold is an entrepreneur and designer who has a hint of Miele about him – with an aversion to built-in obsolescence. Paetzold is the name, marked incongruously on the corrugated sheet metal of a grey shed in wine country, alongside the A62 motorway. It’s the name of a wine-industry inventor. The man from the Sarre, six feet four and affable in manner, explains why he invents oenological procedures that never distort the wine.
Michael Paetzold was born in Saarbrücken, Germany, very near the French border. His wonderful story, which is so important for the present and future of the French vine & wine industry, began when his brewer parents moved to Fontainebleau in France. He did a French baccalaureate at the international high school, then studied oenology under Pascal Ribéreau-Gayon in Talence. Theoretical oenology did not appeal; given his temperament, he wanted to do more than consulting – but he already loved wine, and dreamed of preserving all its qualities along the perilous path to bottling.
Wine is an amazing world. Every day, its diversity casts a spell. On my most recent trip to the South-West, in Madiran, I didn’t regret my day with winemaker and négociant Lionel Osmin. What a dynamic young man he is! He and his chum Damiens Sartori, an engineer and oenologist, had no vines but were mad about wine. Influenced by the epic tale of Vins de Vienne, the two mates decided to reinvent the South-West – supporting several estates in harvesting, production, bottling, and sometimes even selling their wine.