- Georges Duboeuf
Georges Duboeuf (born 1933 in
Crèches ,France ) is the founder of Les Vins Georges Duboeuf, one of the largest and best-known wine merchants in France. The company is known especially for its popularization and production ofBeaujolais wines, leading to Duboeuf's nicknames of "le roi du Beaujolais" (the king of Beaujolais) or sometimes "pape du Beaujoleais" (pope of Beaujolais).Early life and career
Duboeuf was born on a
Good Friday , April 14, 1933 in Crèches, near the village of Chaintré, in thePouilly-Fuissé appellation of France.Pouilly-Fuissé consists of five villages, southwest of the commune ofMâcon , in the central French wine-making region of Burgundy. Duboeuf was raised on a small farm, where his family owned a few acres of chardonnay vines. His father died when he was very young, and his uncle and older brother, Roger, took over the business.Duboeuf helped on the family vineyard growing up, cranking the manual grape crusher when he was just six. At the age of 18, he began delivering wine on his bicycle from producers to local restaurants. He began bottling Beaujolais to meet a customer's commission, and went on to form a syndicate of 45 local growers, the Ecrin Mâconnais-Beaujolais. The organization fell apart due to squabbling, and Duboeuf became a
négociant in 1964, when he founded Les Vins Georges Duboeuf.He married his wife Rolande in the early 1960s, and has two children, Fabienne and Franck.
Les Vins Georges Duboeuf
Duboeuf's business produces more than 25 million cases of
wine annually. He is almost single-handedly responsible for popularizing the annualBeaujolais nouveau phenomenon, and has won awards for his wines. Hiswine labels are easily recognizable by their use of colorful flower images and the distinctive Duboeuf insignia.Georges Duboeuf still heads the company as of 2007, at the age of 74, and his son Franck Duboeuf is considered his heir apparent.
Wine fraud scandalThe Vins Georges Duboeuf company was charged in 2005 with mixing low-grade wine with fine vintages after a patchy 2004 harvest.Samuel, Henry. (
2006 -07-05 .) [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/07/05/wine05.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/07/05/ixnews.html "King of Beaujolais is convicted over adulterated wines."] (News website.) "Telegraph.co.uk". Retrieved on2007 -10-04 .] Georges Duboeuf denied wrongdoing, blaming human error and pointing out that none of the affected wine was released to consumers. The production manager directly responsible admitted his actions and resigned, and a court found that both "fraud and attempted fraud concerning the origin and quality of wines" had been committed. Fewer than 200,000 liters of the company's annual 270 million liter production were implicated, but L'Affaire Duboeuf, as it was called, was considered a serious scandal. [Walt, Vivienne. (2005 -10-03 .) [http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/10/03/8356731/ "The grapes of wrath."] (News website.) "CNN.com". Retrieved on2007 -10-04 .]ee also
*
French Wine
*List of wine personalities Notes
References
* Rose, Anthony. (
2007 -02-14 .) [http://www.decanter.com/archive/article.php?id=109807 "Interview with Georges Duboeuf."] "Decanter", via decanter.com. Retrieved on2007 -10-04 .
* Langley, William. (2006 -09-07 .) [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/07/09/do0906.xml "The King of Beaujolais takes a tumble."] (News website.) "Telegraph.co.uk". Retrieved on2007 -10-04 .
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
