Pierre Jancou is a cook, restaurateur, wine merchant and importer whose career has taken him through France, Switzerland and Italy, and left him fluent in four languages. In Paris he spent four years building Caves Miard (at La Crémerie) into one of the city’s best addresses for natural wine, then opened Racines in 2007, serving natural wine and natural food in the capital’s oldest covered arcade. Within two months it had won Le Fooding’s prize for best cave à manger in Paris. Regarded as an extremist even within natural wine for his devotion to pure, unsulphured bottles, he also started the blog More Than Organic, which quickly became a leading online resource for natural wine. He then moved to the South and was recently the proprietor of the legendary Café des Sports in Padern, which he recently sold, so he could solely focus on being a full-time vigneron.

His approach is artisanal, with no added sulphites, semi-carbonic maceration, and ageing in demijohns and amphorae. He purchased organic grapes from winemaking friends (notably De Mena) and also acquired two hectares of Carignan and Marsanne vines located between Padern and Cucugnan. He recently leased an additional hectare in Maury, comprising two plots of Grenache and four terraces of Carignan Noir and Carignan Blanc.

In the summer of 2026, tragically, Pierre was a victim of arson, both at his cellar and his home. Whilst the case is ongoing, it’s a tragedy to see someone who does so much activism and work for the village on the receiving end of this. He lost practically all his stock. Yet miraculously, only one of Jancou’s 2026 fermentations survived the blaze, and with the help of friends he plans to still release a special cuvée despite the devastating circumstances. It’s great news to hear he is staying put in the town, to not give the satisfaction to the ill-intentioned people responsible. There is a GoFundMe page here if you’d like to support Pierre.