French wine crisis leads to death among the vineyards

Desperate vignerons are taking their own lives as climate change, US tariffs and wars take a grim toll on their livelihoods. Alex Diggins reports

- Alex Diggins

There are few spots in France more lovely than the Jura. When I visited in late March, winter still held on in the mountains marking the Swiss-French border.

But once over the high passes, the land relaxed. In the hamlet of Pupillin, above the town of Arbois, there was birdsong and the sweet smell of ripening fruit. ‘Wine country in springtime.

Until his mid-teens, this was Benjamin Benoit's world. As a fourth-generation vigneron, he never really questioned that he would become a winemaker. In the summer, his mates would be swimming in the river, or mucking about in the woods. Meanwhile, Benoit would be bent double among the vines, sweat in his eyes, the sun on his back. His family had cultivated grapes in the area since the 1930s; in this community of fewer than 300 people, almost everyone did.

In 2004 Benoit’s father dedicated the family’s seven hectares to winemaking, selling their cows and prepapring his only son to take over. Aged 15, Benoit packed himself off to the Lyce Viticole in the city of Dole to study winemaking. There, he began to appreciate the craft, its husbandry, chemistry and care. After graduating, he moved to the vineyards of Burgundy. He thought he'd have decades before he had to return home to the family estate.

Benoit, now 30, is talking to me in the top-floor tasting room of his domaine. From its window, you can see his vines, the house he grew up in and his grandparents’ home. He’s two staff down, and has been out since first light, but he’s a warm, generous host, telling me his story in flawless English. He pauses, though. Discussing the difficulties of winemaking is tough: it is the work Benoit’s father dedicated his life to – and which took it.

‘I was in Burgundy at the time, but I came back for the weekend,’ Benoit says. ‘We watched rugby and served customers together. It was normal. He was probably very tired, but he showed nothing.’