Jean-Yves Thibaudet has never conformed to expectations. The pianist, who boasts multiple Grammy nominations, performs an eclectic classical repertoire on the world’s greatest stages. He also plays jazz and has recorded extensively for films, including Pride and Prejudice and The French Dispatch. He’s well-known for eschewing humdrum concert attire in favor of dazzling haute couture (his current wardrobe is designed by Dame Vivienne Westwood). He’s been openly gay for decades.
And Thibaudet’s passions extend to wine, which he learned to love early, during family trips to Burgundy. With violinist Gautier Capuçon, he pairs wine and music as an artistic advisor for the Festival Musique et Vin au Clos Vougeot, a festival in Burgundy that combines classical music concerts and wine tastings.
Thibaudet’s latest album, a collaboration with Michael Feinstein, celebrates the centenary of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, which he will perform at this year’s Festival Napa Valley. The festival’s Arts for All Gala, a major wine charity auction, will be headlined by Lionel Richie, and lots up for bidding include a bespoke electric Maserati built to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the super Tuscan Tignanello.
Thibaudet spoke with assistant editor Kenny Martin about growing up in France, the magic of wine and music, getting to know the Mondavis and more.
Your parents were musicians. Were they also wine drinkers? Was wine part of your family life growing up?
Extremely so. My father was from Burgundy. He was born in St.-Romain, a beautiful little village that produces delicious wine, especially white wine. When you’re born next to Meursault, Volnay and Pommard, obviously you drink wine from the beginning of your life. He did, and so did I.
I grew up in Lyon, but we were in Burgundy on weekends and during summer vacation. I’m a Burgundy boy if anything, and wine was part of my education as much as anything else.
When I was growing up, my parents entertained a lot, and of course, my father was always serving wine—always from Burgundy. He had quite a collection of wines, and they were all from Burgundy. He would always give my sister and me a little drop and explain to us what it was. And then we would go to see the winemaker. They were all our friends. As much as anything, wine is a very big part of me. It was part of how I was raised, and it’s part of the person I became.
Tell us about your wine collection. Do you have any bottles you’re especially proud of?
I’m proud of every bottle I have. They’re like children. You have to be honest and good with them, and you can’t pick favorites! The cellar is in Burgundy—originally it was my father’s. When my father passed, I took over the cellar and started taking care of it. We had some really old wine that my grandfather and father collected, including wines from 1929, my mother’s birth year.
I live mainly in Los Angeles now, but I still have my place in Paris, where I also have a cellar. And in Beaune, I’m a member of the Club 1234, where I have a special place to keep some wines. Everywhere I go, I can visit my bottles, take some out and drink them—that’s what they’re there for!
I have quite a good selection of California wines, including almost an entire wine cooler full of wines from Napa. There are some good ones from festivals, from friends, some that I buy. I take buying wine quite seriously. I’m also lucky to have lots of generous friends and winemakers who give me some bottles, and I take this as a very precious gift.
Do you get many occasions to drink those old wines that your father had?
Not really. We keep them for very special occasions. When my mother was alive, we would open something when she had a special birthday—and at the end, every birthday was special. She lived to be 93. Those wines are for when we all get together for an anniversary or something like that. They’re not bottles you open every day to eat with your eggs.
I also feel that those wines don’t belong to me. Wine is one of the very precious things in life. I think they are to be passed on, just like my father passed them on to my sister and me. I don’t have to drink it all. I drink them when it’s the right occasion, and I share them mostly with my family because it’s part of their heritage too. Wine is to be shared with family, with friends, with people you love.
As a musician, you’ve never limited yourself to the traditional classical repertoire. As a wine lover, do you find yourself returning to Burgundy, like your dad, or do you like to explore?
I drink all kinds of stuff. I think it’s a generational thing. Being of his generation, my father was just so much about Burgundy. He didn’t travel as much as I do. Wherever I go, I’m always the first one to ask for the local wine.
There are now a lot of wonderful wines around the world in completely different regions, whether you’re in South America or South Africa, all across Europe, and of course Napa, which I discovered in the 1980s.
In 1985, I played with the Napa Valley Symphony. They asked me if I would be OK staying with a host family, and I stayed with Nathan and Nellie Fay [who grew Cabernet Sauvignon in the Stags Leap District appellation]. They were wonderful winemakers, and very close friends of the Mondavis. I got to meet Margrit and Robert quite early, also in the mid-eighties. We stayed friends, and I got to know so many others, and that was how I began to love Napa.
I have to say, specifically, that Margrit Mondavi was just the most fabulous, fabulous lady. I have such good memories of good times with her. She was so touching. Think about what the Mondavis have done for California wine. They’re the ones who put it on the map and started the entire thing.
Were the Mondavis music lovers?
I first met them through the concert I played with the Napa Valley Symphony. Robert liked music, but Margrit especially loved music and was very supportive. They have the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts at UC Davis. She did a lot for the arts, and music in particular. She was from Switzerland—she was educated in Europe, and she loved the piano.
She was such an incredible lady: so intense and so powerful. She had that incredible power and charisma. She was quite small, but she had that amazing drive and presence. She came every time I would play at the Mondavi Center, and I came there many times. We stayed very close. A big part of my heart is in Napa.
I’ve also seen Napa’s development since the mid-eighties. I’ve seen so many things that have happened and how it’s grown. It’s fascinating to think that it’s a rather young territory compared to Burgundy or Bordeaux. What they’ve achieved is amazing. I think they can be very proud of it.
What are you most looking forward to about being back at Festival Napa Valley?
It will be a special concert because we’re celebrating the centenary of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, which is a phenomenal piece of music that changed the world. Everybody in the world knows Rhapsody in Blue.
When I get to visit Burgundy, it’s magical, but that’s rare. But when I visit Napa, I feel that I have a little bit of that joy. I feel they’re very close. We know the wine link between the United States and France—when we had phylloxera, we got rootstock from the U.S. There’s a real, enduring connection there. When I’m in Napa, I feel a little bit like I’m in Burgundy. It makes me very happy.
People worry about the decline of classical music. There’s also increasing concern about young people not drinking wine. What do you think?
I was born optimistic. I see more young people coming to concerts. I think it starts right from the beginning, with education, and not only for music. A good general education is the most important gift that can be given to you, and music should be part of education as much as everything else.
I’m all for sports. But music is also very important. More and more, we try to go to schools, speak with the kids, bring them to rehearsals. We also have to think about the format of the concert and ways to entice younger people. To get a kid to sit in a piano recital for two hours, that’s hard—it would be hard for anyone.
I’m doing a fantastic project with the San Francisco Symphony that involves multiple senses. It’s a piece by Scriabin for piano, orchestra, organ and chorus, plus lights. It evokes a synesthetic experience. We’ll have color and music, and for the first time we’re adding a third part, which is smell: an olfactive score. People are going to be sitting there hearing tremendous music in their ears, seeing incredible visual effects with the eyes and at a few key moments in the piece, they will suddenly have something in their nose.
That reminds me of the experience of listening to music while drinking a great wine.
Exactly. I think things are so much better in wine now. In the early ‘80s, lots of places outside of New York or San Francisco did not even offer wine on the menu. It wasn’t part of the culture—instead, it was beer, vodka, all kinds of other alcohol. But wine wasn’t really the thing.
I have lots of younger friends, and they are really interested in wine. Now, when they have a meal, they will ask for wine, and they’re knowledgeable about it. The growing interest in wine is not just a trend anymore. It’s become organic, and the embrace of wine culture is really growing in the younger generation.
I think we have to be grateful for the gifts we’re given. I’m so lucky and privileged to be able to do what I do. In a normal job, I’d be in the office all day long and then on the weekend, maybe I could sit at the piano and do what I like. Well, I can do it every day, and I get paid for doing it. How wonderful is that? And I can drink wine too.
