What Can Jules Chauvet Teach Us Today?

Of course I said yes when the Cher valley vigneronne and publisher Marie Rocher asked if I’d translate the works of the wine scientist Jules Chauvet. It’s like asking a film buff to translate Truffaut. For natural wine fans, Chauvet is the figure of legend who conducted experiments in winemaking without added sulfites as far back as the 1950s. In the decade before his death in 1989, Chauvet mentored the Beaujolais vigneron Marcel Lapierre and his collaborator Jacques Néauport, laying the groundwork for today’s natural wine scene.