The Winemaker's Wife

Inès Chauveau is the eponymous character of The Winemaker’s Wife and its primary point-of-view protagonist. Although the novel is told through an adult voice (rather than a young adult voice), Inès is very young when the story begins and brings her youthful naïveté to this new world. In this way, she becomes a lens for the reader to experience the intricacies of champagne production and rural living in 1940s France. She’s also introduced to the reader early on in her other persona of Olivia’s Grandma Edith, although it’s not revealed that they’re the same person until the end of the story. Whereas Inès is young, optimistic, and uncultured, Grandma Edith is brittle and blunt. However, she does exhibit a more playful nature when she teases Olivia about her feelings for Julien. In Grandma Edith, the narrator creates a version of Inès who has made mistakes, learned from them, and seen more of what the world is capable of.

Inès's story is a coming-of-age arc. When Inès first arrives at her new home, she is experiencing her first love with Michel and takes a starry-eyed view of the life ahead of her. When confronted with greater problems like Céline’s fear for her Jewish family, Inès encourages others to think positively and trust that everything will work out for the best, ignorant of the real dangers that await.