Fleur Godart, activist winemaker

It had been a hard day at work, and the Paris-based wine merchant Fleur Godart was celebrating with friends, when suddenly the atmosphere soured. “This guy started using inappropriate words to talk about our female host, and we said: ‘French is such a rich language, maybe you could find a better way to say it?’ He began shouting at us: ‘You are all putes féministes [feminist whores], one can’t say anything any more.’ And we thought, well, if people are going to call us putes feministes maybe we can take those words and make something cool out of it.”

The result was Cuvées Militantes, a range of “activist wines” made in collaboration with natural winemakers around Europe, which use provocative, colourful labels to highlight issues around gender, sexuality, racial and social inequality. “In France, the wine culture is still very much owned by the average, white, cis, heterosexual guy,” says Godart. “But I’m bi and I have a lot of queer friends; I thought maybe I could use wine as a medium to speak more about – and to – people like me.” 

Putes Féministes 2022, €24, vinsetvolailles.com

Me Libérez Pas, Je m’en Charge 2020, €19.50, vinsetvolailles.com

On Se Lève et On Se Casse! 2021, €24, vinsetvolailles.com

Justine Vigne’s Syrah Self Love, €31.50, vinsetvolailles.com

I thought maybe I could use wine as a medium to speak more about – and to – people like me

She now runs Cuvées Militantes, and her wine distribution company Vins et Volailles, with her cousin Alvin Godart and Maha Dridi. Their signature cuvée, Putes Féministes (€24), is a deliciously succulent yet textural skin-contact gewurtztraminer/muscat blend by Alsace winemaker Julien Albertus (“we wanted it to be what sommeliers call putassier, which means showy in a breasts-out-on-the-table kind of a way”). The label, by illustrator Justine Saint-Lô, depicts four women striding towards the viewer, naked except for a few strategically placed hands giving the finger.

The label for Fleur Godart’s Ceci Est Mon Sang, €20.50, vinsetvolailles.com

Amazones 2021, €25.50, vinsetvolailles.com

Fizzy Witches mocks the traditional belief that menstruating winemakers spoil the wine in the cellar. Made by renowned Burgundy winemaker Athénaïs de Béru, it’s taken the form of a pét nat Chardonnay, a chablis and the current edition, a lively Gamay with a vibrant red berry and delicate floral note. Me Libérez Pas, Je m’en Charge (€19.50) is a dense, velvety red, a riff on self-empowerment. On Se Lève et On Se Casse! (€24) – a quote from actor Adèle Haenel’s attack on Roman Polanski at the Césars – expresses solidarity with the #MeToo movement. The hedonistic Syrah Self Love (€31.50) is made by Vaucluse’s Justine Vigne, a gay winemaker. But “finding diversity among makers is difficult”, Godart admits. “So every label, at least, is designed by someone concerned by the matter.” Amazones (€25.50) – a strident rosé named after the Dahomey Amazons, an all-female army in west Africa from the 17th to the 19th centuries – has a label by the Black gender-fluid tattoo artist Katie McPayne.  

Godart’s wines can be found at forward-thinking Paris bars such as Rerenga, “one of the city’s first openly queer wine bars”. In London they’re on the list at Bruno, the new Victoria wine bar by Michael Sager of Sager + Wilde; and Sune, the Broadway Market restaurant co-founded by sommelier and Natural Wine, No Drama author Honey Spencer. “Once you realise you can invest the space of the label in a political way,” says Godart, “you don’t want to give up.”  

@alicelascelles