Jean Foillard

Beaujolais, France

Jean Foillard has followed in the footsteps of great winemakers for most of his life as he hails from a family of talented producers. In 1980, he and his wife Agnès took over his father’s domain in Morgon in eastern France. He then began following the teachings of Jules Chauvet, a wine traditionalist, who decried the more commercial ventures in the region.

Following Chauvet’s tenets, Foillard, along with a handful of other local vigerons, returned to the old practises of viticulture and vinification. They would carefully tend to their old vines, and vowed never to use synthetic herbicides or pesticides, harvest late, and would only use tiny doses of sulfur dioxide (or none at). Chaptalization and filtration were also refused.

The results have paid off for Foillard; Côte du Py of Morgon is one of the region’s great vineyards and Foillard is its master. His Côte du Py is regarded as one of the iconic wines of contemporary France and his Morgons are deep, structured, and complex.

Wines