Wine: Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin has added fizz to his life
Jonathan Ray - Telegraph.co.uk
September 5, 2008

Yannick Nézet-Séguin has a full diary until 2013, but he still finds time to explore wine. Jonathan Ray reports

The Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin has the world at his feet. Not only has the 32-year-old just made his debut at the Salzburg Festival (conducting Gounod's Roméo et Juliette to sensational reviews), he has also recently started both as music director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and as principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He is nothing if not in demand and his diary is full until March 2013.

Top performers: Yannick Nézet-Séguin savours a glass of Laurent-Perrier rosé, one of his favourite champagnes

"I am busy, " he says with a modest smile. "But I feel so privileged that the great orchestras want me. My work is emotionally and physically draining, especially conducting Bruckner - my goodness. But I am young, optimistic and love both the music and the travel." He also loves his wine and, it must be said, his beer. Nézet-Séguin is about as far from being the overbearing, demanding maestro as it is possible to be. Yet he is firm about one thing: there must be an ice cold beer waiting for him in the dressing room after each concert.

"At that point, it's the only thing I crave," he says. "I'm exhausted, dehydrated and very thirsty. In Rotterdam, they've started handing me an ice cold Leffe [the Belgian beer] the second I come off. Such a glass is the perfect reward and a fine new conductorly tradition, I think." At his suggestion, Nézet-Séguin and I are sharing a bottle of Laurent-Perrier rosé as we chat. As he points out, in his line of work there is never a shortage of champagne.

"At the end of each concert it's everywhere," he says. "This is one of my favourites, as is the Laurent-Perrier demi-sec. I also really enjoy Billecart-Salmon. I make sure I share a very special bottle with family and friends as I celebrate the important steps in my musical life. It was 1996 Dom Pérignon for the Rotterdam appointment and 1994 Roederer Cristal for London." Wherever Nézet-Séguin travels, he makes sure he seeks out the local wine, however humble. He is the only man I know who admits to having drunk Dutch chardonnay.

"It wasn't at all bad," he says after a pause. "It tasted of green apples and was quite similar to another wine I'm fond of, Argentine Torrontés." Other, perhaps more enjoyable, recent treats include 2006 Ata Rangi chardonnay in New Zealand ("a coup de coeur for me"); 2005 Kilikanoon Oracle shiraz in Australia ("the Sydney Symphony Orchestra's principal cello owns the vineyard") and both the 2003 Herder pinot noir and gewürztraminer from his native Canada ("exquisite wines, produced in tiny quantities"). He also conducts in Toulouse and is already a big fan of Languedoc wines.

Nézet-Séguin reckons that he came both to wine and to conducting the wrong way round. He discovered champagne before still wines, Berg before Strauss and Bruckner before Brahms. He is still very young in conducting terms and relishes the prospect of rediscovering pieces as he matures, just as he looks forward to returning to favourite wines.

"When I come to conduct a piece again, I am able to go deeper and find different facets of truth within," he says. "It's just like a great wine you taste young tasting different once it's aged. For me, a second encounter always offers more. I think it was Schumann who said he was suspicious of pieces he liked at first, preferring those he took time to know."

Nézet-Séguin says that he doesn't drink on the day of performance, but makes up for it afterwards. "It's my proud boast that I've never done a concert without following it with a good meal with plenty of wine," he adds. "It can be lonely doing what I do and it's almost the only social life I get. But when I come off stage I'm so fired up with adrenalin that good food, good wine and good company are the best way to unwind." The conductor found an initial one-off concert with the London Philharmonic so special that he fell in love with them. He is aching to get started properly and is looking forward to discovering London's restaurants, too.