Xavier Couturier of DUO Oenologie: Everyone Wants A Recipe
Xavier Couturier of DUO Oenologie: Everyone Wants A Recipe
An interview with Xavier Couturier of influential Alsace consultancy DUO Oenologie, and Les Vins Pirouettes and Pépin.
Poitiers native Xavier Couturier is one half of DUO Oenologie, an Alsace-based enology laboratory he co-founded in 2008 with his enologist associate Pierre Sanchez. The partners’ work has been lauded in Le Rouge et le Blanc and beyond for helping usher in Alsace’s present natural wine renaissance. Today DUO counts among its clients a near-unanimity of Alsace’s natural winemakers, along with scores more outside the region.
Since 2014, Couturier and Sanchez are also partners in natural wine distribution agency Les Vins Pirouettes (co-founded with Christian Binner); the pair also play a central role (and own shares) in Pierre Dietrich’s natural wine négociant business Pepin (est. 2021), often effectively producing - and occasionally blending - the wines later marketed as Pépin (among many other custom brands). For DUO, these forays into wine production (in all but name) and sales have come with the risk of being seen as competing with their consultancy’s own clientele, who nonetheless continue to depend on DUO for counsel and analyses.
I first met Couturier in 2019 at Colmar natural wine salon D’Summer Fascht. In July I joined him for coffee at the DUO laboratory in Ostheim to chat about the partners’ unique position in the realm of Alsace natural winemaking; the chief challenges in natural winemaking today; and the folly of non-alcoholic “wine.”
XAVIER COUTURIER OF DUO OENOLOGIE: AN INTERVIEW
The following interview was conducted on July 12th, 2024. It has been condensed and edited for clarity.