From Grape to Stars

These photographs represent tanks of wine in fermentation, seen from above.

“From grape to Stars” is an ongoing Project. It was born out of the desire to show the process of transformation, which is inherent to the universe. In this case it is the transformation of grape into wine. This process started around 5000 years ago. My wish is to highlight a chemical operation that the majority of the public never sees, in order to reveal its cosmic dimension.

The wines that have been photographed in the most prestigious French estates are rare and precious. Some of them are almost impossible to find. Almost all of them stand on small plots of 1 to 2 hectares, and derive their qualities and their complexity from exceptional terroir which, like our galaxy, carries with them the history of life.

The great winegrowers who work there, true alchemists of our time, live in this search for excellence. It requires rigour, listening, respect, sharing and imagination.

Some of the winemakers who produce these legendary iconic wines are considered as Stars.

Scientists have shown that the molecular diversity of a wine makes it possible to trace the evolution of its life and to read a "memory" of men. Furthermore, the slow evolution of the chemical particles of a wine inside a bottle is, on a smaller scale, similar to the evolution of microorganisms in the universe. So they use wine as a model to study the cosmos.

Quoting a poet, Richard Feynman, a major physicist of the second half of the 20th century who received the Nobel Prize for his work on Quantum Mechanics, wrote:

"The whole universe is in a glass of wine ..."