François-Henri Désérable has won the 2026 Prix Renaudot for Le Palais, a novel centred on wine. The book turns to a subject often associated with exclusivity, where the value and scarcity of bottles can fuel intense speculation.
Désérable said the idea took shape in July 2020 during a cycling trip through the vineyards of Côte de Beaune in Burgundy. What began as an intuition that wine could make a compelling novel became an obsession, he later recounted on Instagram ahead of the book’s publication by Gallimard.
The title refers to the palate, rather than a political palace, according to the account in the source article. Before Le Palais, Désérable had written about figures and subjects including Che Guevara, Romain Gary and Iran.
Sources: Le Figaro.