Denis Boubals was one of France's leading oenologists. An early campaigner for the modernisation of the country's viticulture, he advocated the replacement of the native cultivars in Languedoc by the so-called “McVarieties”: cabernet sauvignon, sauvignon blanc, merlot and chardonnay. Indeed, he was sometimes dubbed the “apostle of cabernet sauvignon”, as a result of his feeling that its establishment would improve matters all over the world.

He also taught a modern approach to the cultivation of the vine. Vines needed to be trellised, planted in wide rows and allowed to burgeon. This required new methods of pruning.

He was a force for the globalisation of viticulture. In the course of his career he visited almost every wine-producing country to study viticultural conditions; his findings frequently led to a great step forward in quality wine production. He was supported by his pupils, who found work all over the globe and took his message with them.

Boubals was born in Bédarieux in Languedoc-Roussillon in 1926, the son of the vigneron Joseph Boubals and his wife, Marthe, née Carrié. He entered the science faculty in Montpelier at the end of the war and the École nationale supérieure agronomique (the “Agro”), graduating as an agricultural engineer and oenologist in 1948. He took his doctorate in 1958 with a thesis on resistance to mildew. His speciality was the causes and heredity of resistance of vines to powdery and downy mildew, phylloxera and xiphinema.

Boubals joined the National Institute for Agricultural Research, graduating from assistant to director of research and later principal. He left in 1975 when he was elevated to the chair of viticulture at the Agro. During his time as professor at the Agro he created the experimental Domaine du Chapitre at Villeneuve-les-Maguelonne, which had been left to the faculty by the Sabatier d'Espeyran family.

He retired from the post 20 years later in 1995. He was greatly admired by all those who studied under him, as a straightforward, motivated man who communicated his enthusiasm for life, the vine and wine loudly and clearly.

He was keen to revive quality wine in the Languedoc by planting the so-called cépages améliorateurs or improving cultivars. This meant not just cabernet and chardonnay, which could be made to thrive on the plains, but also the syrah of the northern

Rhône valley, which ultimately led to the creation of the new classic wines of the south, based on grenache noir, but given an extra dimesion by the addition of syrah and mourvèdre, and planted on south-facing hills.

His career developed an international dimension remarkably early. In the 1960s he identified chardonnay in a vineyard in Mudgee, New South Wales, at a time when there was thought to be no chardonnay in Australia. With time this trickle would turn into an ocean of chardonnay. While he was working at INRA in 1963, he correctly pointed out the threat posed to US viticulture by the Davis clone AXR1, a rootstock which was insufficiently resistant to phylloxera. In the 1970s and 1980s much of the Napa Valley was blighted by phylloxera, which necessitated extensive replanting.

In 1978 Boubals produced a report on wine in Uruguay, in which he pointed out that the country's industry was 50 years behind the times. It provided the incentive to modernise Uruguay's wines and vines, which now show a good deal of promise. Boubals also left his mark in China, advising on the planting of the Grace estate in 1997.

At the beginning of this century he pointed out a genetic weakness in syrah vines that led to their decline after ten or 15 years. A healthy vine should last 35 at the very least.

Between 1977 and 2005 he edited Le Progrès agricole et viticole, the oldest magazine of its sort in France, founded in 1883. It was after visiting Australia that he developed an enthusiasm for mechanical harvesting machines and introduced them into France in 1968. The harvester allowed the grower to pick quickly — a boon if there was a storm coming, or if insufficient casual labour was to hand.

He was a corresponding member of the French Academy of Agriculture and vice-president of the Office International du Vin in Paris, whose top award he also received for his work on the genetics and pathology of vines. He was Commandeur de l'Ordre Nationale de Mérite Agricole in France and received similar honours in Spain, Italy and Chile.

He married Rose-Marie Falandry in 1951 and is survived by her and their two children.

Denis Boubals, oenologist, was born on March 2, 1926. He died on November 24, 2007, aged 81