Tribute to Jacques Puisais by Jean-Pierre Perrin
Jean-Pierre Perrin paid tribute to Jacques Puisais, who passed away in December 2020.
A minute’s silence was observed in his memory.
https://academievin.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Temoignage-pour-Jacques-_-CL-Bourguignon.pdf
https://academievin.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Hommage-a-Jacques-Puisais-par-Jacky-Rigaux.pdf
Following the death of our friend Jacques, Jean-José and I would like to pay a small tribute to him, which we pass on to you below:
Dear Jacques,
If you were a great vine and wine professional, you’re certainly the most visionary terrien, philosopher and gastronome of your time.
Your hand caresses the earth and the wine you taste in unison is the perfect reflection of it, as you liked to say; you spoke to the wine and the wine spoke back to you.
You’ve given the noble fruit of the vine a poetic dimension, a dream of perpetual pleasure.
Wines that are true, fair, mellow, racy, delicate and personalized: your credo.
Thank you for your gentleness and patience, for helping us to approach life’s pleasures differently.
Hi Jacques and … thirsty!
Jean-José ABO and Pascal DELBECK,
With sincere condolences to the family
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Answers from Roberto de la Mota, Pierre-Henry Gagey and Chantal Pegaz :
Dear Joan José and Pascal,
Thank you very much for your letter, full of great feelings, admiration and respect for this great gentleman whom my father admired so much.
I hope this e-mail finds you well and that next year we can finally get rid of Covid.
Yours sincerely
Roberto de la Mota
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Formidable tribute to Jacques by Jean-Jose and Pascal .
Synthetic, precise, poetic and so true.
Pierre-Henry Gagey
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thanks to Jean-Jose and Pascal for expressing Jacques Puisais’ rich personality so well.
I’m very happy to have been able to meet him thanks to the Académie
with kind regards
Chantal Pegaz
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A tribute to Jacques Puisais by Jacky Rigaux
Tribute to Jacques Puisais
Jacky Rigaux
As I salute the memory of Jacques Puisais, one thing is immediately clear to me: he
was a major player in saving fine food and wine in the 20th century.
As we emerged from
the last world war, a newfound thirst for freedom was combined with a frenzy of
production-consumption, with the industrial trivialization of agricultural production using
chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides… The original
imprint was disappearing more and more, to be replaced by the construction of increasingly
artificial tastes.
Faced with the onslaught of branded industrial products offered by the
agri-food industry, he helped to save farmhouse and artisanal products, marked by
the singularity of their origin: foodstuffs like wines and spirits that deliver a
message, a history, a know-how, a tradition of enchantingly diverse tastes.
When he founded the French Institute of Taste in 1976, he inscribed on its pediment that the “right taste”
is always born of agricultural production proud of its original landscape and the ancestral know-how
of the farmer or winemaker who gave birth to it.
Because
is always about the birth of a product that doesn’t come from just any place, a product born in a
terroir served by know-how.
Speaking of fine wine, we all remember his marvellous
declaration: “wine must have the face of the place and the guts of the man… At the bottom of the
glass, I want to find the landscape of the place where I am”.
Today, this is what guides the mind and hand of the farmer and winemaker who wants to offer us healthy, genuine products.
Once at the table, it’s easy to understand why he liked to describe the dining experience as
“a moment at the table”.
A pleasure endlessly renewed, for oysters taste differently when
they come from Brittany, the Arcachon Basin or the Pacific, and taste changes with the seasons
and seasonings.
Chinon wine changes over time, differs from Bourgueil, and
also bears the imprint of the winemaker who bottled it.
The taste of food or wine also differs according to the mood of the day, the table companions, the feast being celebrated…
Hence the creation of his beautiful concept of taste as a “psychosensory experience” where our
five senses are activated, our memory too, and all the complexity of our personality.
In short, eating is a cultural act, a moment of otherness, a celebration, and sometimes a
communion.
Eating and drinking well are activators of the pleasure of being and the pleasure
of being together.
It’s as much an aesthetic experience as a physiological one.
For our survival, water is enough… Jacques has well earned his title of “philosopher of taste”!
His message has not been sufficiently received by a France that has committed its agriculture far too
frenetically and massively to productivism, forcing its
peasants to become farmers in the service of the agri-food industry.
Fortunately, the
“terroir awakening” is underway, thanks in particular to Jacques.
Farmers and winegrowers
are waking up, and lovers of genuine products are joining in.
Tired of industrial Camembert
, long live raw-milk Camembert de Normandie PDO!
The disciples of Jacques Puisais
, led by Périco Légasse, are determined to keep alive and appreciate this peasant agriculture and
viticulture, which produce original products based on good practices
that respect the natural balance of the soil.
My most recent experience alongside Jacques was at the “Rencontres Henri Jayer 2019”,
an annual gathering of some 40 winemakers from France and
elsewhere.
He was the main guest, along with Gabriel Lepousez, a young researcher in neuroscience and taste
from the Pasteur Institute.
What a pleasure it was to bring these two generations together at
to promote taste and fine wine.
Jacques was radiant, and at the age of
92 he had the grace of a young man, the elegance of a dancer, the verve of a speaker, the
depth of a wise man, the good-naturedness of the simple man he remained.
A “living national
treasure”, in the words of Natacha Polony, who now presides over the
French Institute of Taste.
And a treasure is not lost, it remains in our hearts, sad today, but
rich in the memory of men of the calibre of Jacques Puisais.
6 January 2022
