ANOTHER WINE, by Valentin Morel
On my new English translation of Jura vigneron Valentin Morel's 2023 memoir Another Wine. Plus: interviews with Morel, Doubs vigneron Sylvain Messager, L'Auberge de Bellevie's Zoe Boinet, and more.
Jura vigneron Valentin Morel surprised quite a few wine lovers in 2023 when he released a memoir, entitled Un Autre Vin (Flammarion, 2023), detailing the climatic challenges of his profession and how they led him to take an interest in hybrid grape varieties, which notably require no vineyard treatments and prove significantly hardier than vitis vinifera in the face of contemporary climate disruption.
I’m happy to finally announce the release of my new English translation of Morel’s book, now entitled Another Wine, and available (or soon to be available) via Paris-based publisher TTC Editions and various distributors throughout the US, UK, the EU, Canada, Australia, and beyond. It’s also available at Atheneum in Beaune, and my own shop, La Cave du Centre in Chagny.
I’ve been working on the translation over the past year, never without the nagging feeling that I might be conducting the Last Human Translation Ever an in age of ubiquitous and instantaneous AI translation. Morel’s choice to employ a human translator was, I hope, not purely idealistic. In practice, serious wine writing tends to flummox AI models, for containing a profusion of local dialect, lieu-dit names, and industry jargon. (This is a good time to thank Morel’s excellent proofreader, John McCarroll of Disgorgeous and Coeur Wine Company, whose oversight greatly helped with the readability of the finished work.)
There is, however, almost no serious wine writing out there in the world. This is why I sent Valentin Morel a brief message of congratulation, when I finally got around to reading his book in French back in 2024, and why I felt quite honored when, a few months later, Morel asked if I’d be interested in translating the book to English.
I had opened the book expecting something simplistic and / or self-aggrandizing, in the established style of the limited genre of books by (or about) renowned vignerons. What readers of Another Wine will find instead is a searching, well-researched reflection on the social and political values underpinning the practice of small-scale organic grape farming and natural winemaking.
Morel’s is a vision of winemaking that, critically, extends beyond subjective notions of wine quality and “greatness,” to encompass the quality of life in the zone of production, both for vignerons and the surrounding community.
“Certainly,” he notes, “the traditions of 20th century viticulture have caused enough damage to our lands to not prevent other interpretations from expressing themselves today.”
I know niche works of this sort will never find a wide audience. And I have no idea how many readers out there are highly curious about the genetic degeneration of vitis vinifera. If Another Wine still feels worth sharing with the Anglophone world, it’s because I can think of no other contemporary work in English that deals honestly and bluntly with the hard work of being a peasant vigneron. It is to Morel’s immense credit that he refrains, throughout the book, from indulging in any wine sales blah-blah. There are almost no tasting notes, no extended odes to his own terroir. Instead, Morel memorably illustrates the motivations for - and the implications of - his decisions to farm organically, to vinify naturally, and to plant hybrid grape varieties.
It has taken a long time, but nowadays enlightened wine lovers tend to understand the ethnical necessity of organic farming. Enlightened natural wine lovers tend to understand the ethical necessity of natural vinification (which represents acceptance of responsibility for how farming choices affect fermentation and, ultimately, wine aesthetics). The day may be just around the corner when we acknowledge the ethical necessity of grape hybridization, too.
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With the Jura in mind, here are a few related new reports for subscribers:
An INTERVIEW with VALENTIN MOREL on his work with HYBRID GRAPE VARIETIES. Read here.
An INTERVIEW with DOUBS micro-vigneron (and ETIENNE THIEBAUD acolyte) SYLVAIN MESSAGER. Read here.
A splendid DINNER at MOUCHARD Franco-Japanese FARM-TO-TABLE restaurant LE COMPTOIR KOKAGUE. Read here. (No paywall.)
An INTERVIEW with ZOE BOINET, founder of GROZON natural wine dining destination L’AUBERGE DE BELLEVIE. Read here. (No paywall.)
That’s all for now. August is the only period that could convincingly be called “tourist season” in Chagny, so I’ll be at La Cave du Centre throughout the month. Do swing by and pick up a copy of Morel’s book if you find yourself in Bourgogne! (I can ship them, too, if you’re further afield and in need of a summer beach read.) In the meantime, raise a glass of seyve-villard or chambourcin or what-have-you and toast to the implications of organic farming without copper or sulfur vineyard treatments! More vacation for vignerons!
FURTHER READING
Didier Grappe: The Obscenity of Tradition
Lilian Bauchet: A Plan B for the Beaujolais
Congratulations, can’t wait to read!