Grape & Grain | With his two Bordeaux wine estates, oil baron Alejandro Bulgheroni is taking his time to get things just right
Argentina’s richest man and a serial vineyard buyer, Bulgheroni is making sure his Chateau de Langalerie and Chateau Suau properties produce the best quality wines while building a sustainable business
Alejandro Bulgheroni, or Don Alejandro as he is more usually known, is low-key, soft-spoken and charming. Chatting during a recent garden party he was hosting in Bordeaux, he casually picked up and carried away my empty plate in a manner that was very much the opposite of what you would expect from an oil and gas baron worth nearly US$4 billion.
That figure doesn’t make him the wealthiest chateau owner in Bordeaux – that accolade that goes to LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault, worth US$53 billion, at Chateau Cheval Blanc – but he is certainly right up there, and notably worth a good deal more than the Rothschild family at Chateau Mouton Rothschild.
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Not that he will be the one to tell you this. His arrival in Bordeaux is entirely in keeping with his modest persona. Bulgheroni is the wealthiest man in Argentina, owner of two private jets and two helicopters who, besides his oil and gas interests, has wineries in Uruguay, Argentina, Australia, California, Tuscany and Patagonia. Yet almost nobody in Bordeaux seems to know he bought his first chateau in the region back in 2013 and a second one the following year. Overseeing both properties, as wine consultant, is influential oenologist Michel Rolland, who also works on Bulgheroni’s flagship Napa winery in California, the Alejandro Bulgheroni Estate.
I know Bulgheroni’s wines from Napa and Uruguay, but not those closest to my own home in Bordeaux. To familiarise myself, I drove out to meet estate manager Franck Noguiez at Bulgheroni’s Chateau de Langalerie near Sainte-Foy-la-Grande.
Located in the Côtes de Bordeaux appellation – as is Bulgheroni’s other property, Chateau Suau – Langalerie was bought after a dispute that saw the previous owners move out in a hurry. Their furniture, even their books, are still in place, as Bulgheroni has concentrated on fixing up the vineyard before turning his attention to the possibilities of the chateau itself.
