Jules Chauvet was a wine négociant

Négociant

A négociant is the French term for a wine merchant who assembles the produce of smaller growers and winemakers and sells the result under its own name....

. He worked from La Chapelle-de-Guinchay

La Chapelle-de-Guinchay

La Chapelle-de-Guinchay is a commune in the Saône-et-Loire department in the region of Bourgogne in eastern France.-References:*...

 in the Beaujolais

Beaujolais

Beaujolais is a French Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée wine generally made of the Gamay grape which has a thin skin and is low in tannins. Like most AOC wines they are not labeled varietally. Whites from the region, which make up only 1% of its production, are made mostly with Chardonnay grapes...

.

Jules Chauvet was a winemaker

Winemaking

Winemaking, or vinification, is the production of wine, starting with selection of the grapes or other produce and ending with bottling the finished wine. Although most wine is made from grapes, it may also be made from other fruit or non-toxic plant material...

 and a taster. He also possessed the skills of a chemist

Chemist

A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...

, which he obtained at the school of chemistry at Lyon, then with Otto Warburg

Otto Heinrich Warburg

Otto Heinrich Warburg , son of physicist Emil Warburg, was a German physiologist, medical doctor and Nobel laureate. He served as an officer in the elite Uhlan during the First World War and won the Iron Cross for bravery. Warburg was one of the twentieth century's leading biochemists...

, with whom he maintained a long correspondence. He worked particularly on yeast

Yeast

Yeasts are eukaryotic micro-organisms classified in the kingdom Fungi, with 1,500 species currently described estimated to be only 1% of all fungal species. Most reproduce asexually by mitosis, and many do so by an asymmetric division process called budding...

, the malolactic fermentation

Malolactic fermentation

Malolactic fermentation is a process in winemaking where tart-tasting malic acid, naturally present in grape must, is converted to softer-tasting lactic acid. Malolactic fermentation tends to create a rounder, fuller mouthfeel. It has been said that malic acid tastes of green apples...

 and carbonic maceration

Carbonic maceration

Carbonic maceration is a winemaking technique, often associated with the French wine region of Beaujolais, in which whole grapes are fermented in a carbon dioxide rich environment prior to crushing. Conventional alcoholic fermentation involves crushing the grapes to free the juice and pulp from the...

.

He also was a teacher in winemaking. As such he later inspired the movement of natural wines

Natural wine

Natural wine is wine made with minimal chemical and technological intervention in growing grapes and making them into wine. The term is used to distinguish such wine from organic wine...

. He leaves books of quality, includingThe aroma of fine wine, the text of a lecture he delivered at the wine fair of Mâcon

Mâcon

Mâcon is a small city in central France. It is prefecture of the Saône-et-Loire department, in the region of Bourgogne, and the capital of the Mâconnais district. Mâcon is home to over 35,000 residents, called Mâconnais.-Geography:...

in 1950.

Own books

• L'Esthétique du vin, Jean-Paul Rocher publisher, Paris, 104 p., ISBN 978-2917411148
• Études scientifiques et autres communications (1949-1988), Jean-Paul Rocher publisher, Paris, 193 p., ISBN 978-2911361937
• L'Arôme des vins fins, in Le Vin en question, an interview with Hans Ulrich Kesselring, Jean-Paul Rocher publisher, Paris, 1998, 108 p., ISBN 978-2911361081
• Vins à la carte, tome 1, Jean-Paul Rocher publisher, Paris, 1998, ISBN 978-2911361074
• La dégustation des vins, son mécanisme et ses lois in Évelyne Léard-Viboux & Lucien Chauvet, Jules Chauvet, naturellement..., Jean-Paul Rocher publisher, Paris, 2006, 113 p., ISBN 978-2911361814