Yoyo Maeght - Knight of Tastevin

"Mr. Grand Constable, Ladies and Gentlemen, Colleagues of the Knights of Tastevin, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is for me a real honor and a great joy to be among you in this majestic and prestigious place that is the Château du Clos de Vougeot and to preside over this Chapter of Arts ,

I would like to thank Caroline Parent-Gros and Corinne Robert-Béthune who sponsored me as well as Françoise Grosbois and express all my gratitude to Louis-Marc Chevignard, Grand Constable, who was kind enough to invite me to chair this Chapter, I admire the excellence with which he has led, for many years, the activities of the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin.

How I would like to say "good evening, my Burgundy", alas, I am only a stateless person! Raised between Paris and Saint-Paul-de-Vence.

It was in Saint-Paul that Prévert and Malraux taught me to write, that I was pampered by Yves Montand and Lino Ventura and awakened to art by Miró, Braque and Chagall. Ah but no, I'm wrong, it was the painters and architects who pampered me, the actors who taught me to read, write and... to play poker, the writers who offered me hits of color, or something like that, or perhaps the opposite, but certainly in a joyful disorder so Dadaist or surreal and incontestably always in the demand which characterized my brilliant grandfather, Aimé Maeght.

Wine is a subject of choice for painters, attracted as much by the beauty of the bottles, which have in common with women the sensuality of their shapes, as by the symbolism of intoxication, pleasure and conviviality. The geniuses of art history and particularly those of the 20th century have punctuated their works with bottles of wine. Derain, Cézanne, Le Corbusier, Morandi, Dufy or Juan Gris and, of course, the masters of Cubism Braque and Picasso.

I have drawn up a curious list which may surprise: Giacometti was Swiss, Modigliani Italian, Francis Bacon English, Picabia Spanish, Foujita Japanese, Brancusi Romanian, Chagall and Kandinsky Russian, these masters are now inseparable from the history of world art , but everyone had chosen France to live and work. Well, well, it’s curious, they were all lovers of great wines!

Would France have attracted so much foreign talent without Burgundy wines?

We can ask ourselves the question.

These creators are undoubtedly great epicureans. It seems that the best wines flow through their veins and guide their talented hands.

Often, if not always, exhibitions, books, projects are born around a good bottle.

My Grandpa and the artists wanted me to know everything that nature and man are capable of creating and sublimating. They made me want beautiful and good things. Very early on, I had a taste for wine. My grandparents' cellar was full of masterpieces whose velvetiness delighted my taste buds. I was the only one of Aimé's grandchildren who liked to raise elbows with him. I also knew every corner of another cellar, famous among celebrities, since that of my godfather's inn, the famous "Colombe d'Or", in Saint-Paul-de-Vence.

On the hills of the south, my Grandpa produced a piquette which he called his couillotin and which he served to us under the pines and oaks of his farmhouse which dominates the now world-famous and recognized Fondation Maeght. I quickly found the escape to put up with this gut-wrenching, I excelled at peaches in wine, fragole nel vino, raspberries in their red dress and other apricots in couillotine. In short, I ate this wine rather than drinking it.

By chance and love of art, this sunny wine also gave my grandfather, of course, the opportunity to associate artists with his passions. This is how, from 1958, painters were asked to create original lithographs for the Mas Bernard wine labels. Braque, Ubac, Steinberg, Miró.

My father continued the adventure and the artists of a new generation adorned our bottles with their magnificent lithos, Aki Kuroda, Jan Voss, Folon, Arroyo and, the one I continue to mourn, Wolinski, assassinated a few days after waking up. at our place in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. That he would be proud that I was here tonight. How many lunches ending at night have we spent together, pretending to remake the world in order to stay seated at our HQ in the 14th arrondissement, our dear bistro: "Le vin des rue"?

Prévert gives me my first name, my maternal grandmother makes me play with the wine and spirits labels that she had kept from her old bars that she ran at Les Halles de Paris, Grandpa entrusts me with the keys to his cellar, too, At the age of 24, it was obvious that my wedding list had to consist exclusively of great wines. I admit that Burgundy had a privileged place there, an obligation to celebrate a “Saint-Amour”.

All I needed was today's event to definitely fall head over heels in love with Burgundy.

I have often flown over it by helicopter to reach the Côte d'Azur. Curiously the performance of my machines, which I like to describe as the fastest provided I am not in a hurry, these performances dropped suddenly in this region, because no more straight line, here I am winding from one hillside to another, starting again to the east to admire this vineyard, returning, attracted by this bell tower emerging from the vines. I live in a total work, I fly in the most beautiful Cubist painting where the lines follow one another in a clever tangle.

Which talented artist drew the plan?

This marvel is an ancestral and collective creation which requires so much attention, work and even chance to exist and continue.

The seasons, the years that pass, the white stones and the blessed earth, the whims of nature, the solar star which enhances the colors of the vines, madame the moon which punctuates the cold nights so that the grapes emerge in the mist in the morning.

But more than anything, this region has been, and continues to be, shaped by passionate men and women: winegrowers, crop managers, cellar masters, wine merchants, harvesting owners, producers, oenologists or simple grape pickers, all contribute to making this territory an emblem of French quality, this incomparable exception, envied by the planet which can only envy its reputation.

I thank them for pursuing their passion with such conviction. If it is a question of passion, allow me to close these few words with a word from Saint Augustine which guides my life.

He who loses himself in his passion has lost less than he who loses his passion.

Yoyo Maeght

November 28, 2015