A Wine With Iconoclastic Notes

Members of the government's wine regulating agency, the Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée, accuse Bouard of being "a revolutionary," he said. Among his demands they cite is that French winemakers relax their regulations, change their labeling, modernize their production techniques and adjust their products' styles and tastes -- even allowing oak chips to be used in aging barrels for flavoring -- to compete in global markets.

In his demand for innovation, the aristocratic Bouard, 48, is an unlikely ally of Thunevin. Bouard has purchased vineyards in Spain and South Africa, and his teenage son is apprenticing at a vineyard in Argentina to better understand the importance of globalization. His logic is simple, he said: "You want to work, or you want to die?"

"I don't want to kill my tradition and roots," he said, "but if you want to protect your traditions, you have to be strong enough to understand that the world changes."

But to Yves Delol, 66, whose family has owned the modest Chateau Gueyrosse vineyard since 1870, modernist techniques that use additives "are like doping in sports." Other vineyards "are free to do it, but they should be transparent and say on the label that oak chips were added, because it's not a natural process," he said, waving gnarly hands that look like the vines they tend.

"You don't want to sell your soul and lose your individuality," added his daughter, Samuelle, 37, next in line to run the vineyard.

While French wines are under commercial assault abroad, their problems are being compounded at home by a health movement that has resulted in national wine consumption being slashed in half, from an average 27 gallons per person a year in 1980 to 14 gallons in 2004. That has contributed to the unprecedented surplus in Bordeaux.

"We have to find a solution to simple problems -- there's too much wine, and too much of it is bad in quality," said Bettane, the wine critic.

Those are problems Thunevin says he doesn't face, citing his willingness to try new things -- such as his development of a kosher wine that American critic Robert Parker praised as "undeniably the finest red kosher wine in the world." It sells in the United States for more than $200 a bottle.

"It's not that if you weren't born wealthy in a chateau, you can't make good wine," Thunevin said. "It's a question of pushing your limits."

"At the beginning, he crossed the road looking both ways -- everybody was fighting the modernists," said Michel Rolland, a wine consultant who gives advice to about 100 French winemakers -- including Thunevin -- and another two dozen vineyards in 13 countries.

"Jean-Luc is permanently looking for something new to do. Every year he's asking how is it possible to move and change," Rolland said. "We need 200 Jean-Luc Thunevins in Bordeaux, but we have only one."

In fact, with his extraordinary success, Thunevin said, "my friends say, you're not so garage anymore. And I say it's a state of mind."

Special correspondent Marie Valla contributed to this report.