Grape Expectations (10 page)

  'Ah
non, non
, it's very heavy,' he said picking up the
cloche
with two fingers as easily as if it were delicate china. He deposited it in the barn. When he left a few minutes later, I went to the barn to see if I could pick it up: not a millimetre.

  Despite having a sore throat and threatening worse, Sean replaced 150 rotten trellis poles using the lead
cloche
in cold and rain. A few days later he had a raging fever. The doctor diagnosed a chest infection and prescribed an antibiotic. The antibiotic didn't work and Sean's chest infection turned into pneumonia. He was feeling grim and stressed about the work in the vineyard going undone. Despite a second antibiotic Sean's pneumonia worsened. The third antibiotic was so strong it made Sean nauseous for several hours after each dose. At least it worked. A week later Sean was well again but we were seriously behind with the vineyard work.

  The buds started to swell on the vines and Sean raced to finish tying the canes onto the trellising. Once the buds develop there is a chance of damaging them, but it's a fine balance. To minimise harm that can be caused by a late frost it's best not to tie down too soon. We were under intense pressure, so I asked Sonia to look after Ellie again and took a break from renovating the wooden shutters to help Sean. Now that the weather was improving I had moved from painting inside to outside. My days were a round of cooking, feeding, cleaning and renovating. I took great satisfaction from the renovations as the interior of the house was significantly transformed but I was lonely. I filled the gap of missed colleagues and friends with slabs of cherry chocolate. It would take time to find good girlfriends.

  We revelled in the greening beauty of springtime but I was slow at tying down. I blamed it on being left-handed but Sean blamed it on lack of will. He expected me to keep pace and yelled at me to hurry up. Soon my fingers were blistered and I was even slower.

  'Come on Carolinus, get on with it!' he shouted as I lagged behind yet again.

  Our relationship was better than it had been in winter but Sean was a different person to the one I had known. He was stressed and hostile like he used to be at the end of each quarter when he worked for the bank. Back then it was for a couple of days once a quarter. Now it was constant. I could understand it since everything was new, unfamiliar and dangerous but I didn't know how long I could live with it. An error in his analysis would have been dire but not as bad as if he misplaced his finger and it was chopped off by the electric secateurs. In the back of our minds we also had the ever-present pressure of worrying about our finances. With no income for the foreseeable future and constant outgoings, they were not pretty.

  Those few days were our first taste of the headlong rush that spring, summer and autumn would be for us. We finished tying down as the buds turned from hard little green nodules into pink lumps. Within a day or two, tiny, fluffy, pink and lime-green leaves appeared like tiny fairies standing on the canes. It was swift and magical.

Alongside spring growth I had some administrative challenges to face in our new country famed for bureaucracy. A local winemaker was shipping a container of wine to North America and they had space for ten cases. We decided to take the space to ship samples to friends and family. The winemaker gave me a list of paperwork that the importer had to have in advance.

  Top of the list was the
agrément
that the wine was certified AOC Bergerac. We had been sold the wine as such by the Bergerac town liquidator under the guidance of our wine specialist
notaire
when we bought the property. We had to have this document. I scoured the property transaction paperwork and found nothing that matched the description. Jamie advised me to call the Conseil Interprofessionnel des Vins de la Région de Bergerac (CIVRB), who were responsible for things like this.

  Juggling Ellie in one arm and the phone in the other I called the CIVRB. I explained my story while trying to stop Ellie from grabbing the phone. Madame listened patiently and told me to phone the Institut National de l'Origine et de la Qualité (INAO) Bergerac who were responsible for managing the AOC.

  Soon I was explaining my dilemma for the second time. The Madame at the INAO said she could only give copies of
agréments
to the person who owned the property at the time.

  'You could contact the previous owner. If they contact me I'll be able to release a copy.'

  'They have moved to Spain and we don't have contact details for them,' I said. 'Anyway, the Bergerac liquidator sold us the wine, not the previous owners. We own the wine. You must be able to give me a copy of the document.'

  Madame was kind but firm; there was no way. In any case, they only kept the last four years of
agréments
. Our wine was more than four years old. My heart sank.

  'You could try contacting the INAO
juridique
in Paris,' she threw out as a parting comment.

  Perhaps this was a sinister plot to make me practise my French and to test Ellie's patience. I gritted my teeth and called the INAO
juridique
to tell my tale for the third time.

  'You must contact the INAO in Bergerac,' said Madame helpfully.

  Ellie tried to grab the phone and I couldn't blame her. I was finding it somewhat difficult to control my frustration too.

  I explained calmly that the INAO Bergerac had sent me to her. She was apologetic but adamant that they were the only people who could solve my problem.

  After settling Ellie into her high chair I called INAO Bergerac again to be told a little more firmly that despite what Paris had said there was nothing she could do.

  'Contact the Bergerac liquidator and your
notaire
,' said Madame and put down the phone.

  The liquidator was on vacation and the Scarlet Pimpernel, our
notaire
, was unavailable. As a last resort I called Jamie.

  'I'll try to grease the wheels for you, Caro, but I can't promise anything. Sometimes there's no logic to these things,' he said.

  I visited the
notaire'
s offices in Saussignac and found his assistant in.

  'Officially I can't do anything,' she said. Then glancing around to see no one was looking she whispered, 'I'll make a few calls for you.'

  Jamie called back a few hours later and said he had got nowhere. If Jamie couldn't swing it, it wasn't possible. I put down the phone, defeated.

  Cécile, our vineyard consultant, came to do our weekly tour of the vineyard. Most of her service was free to us as newly installed young farmers, a huge bonus. We started this routine as soon as the first buds appeared. I was the person touring the vineyard each week while Sean looked after
les enfants
. He still wasn't confident enough in the language to take on the weekly meeting. He planned to take a course with a local language school at the end of the growing season when we hoped his work pressure would ease, so I wouldn't have to make all his phone calls and take his meetings for him. Contrary to my initial misgivings, though, I looked forward to my weekly meeting with our vineyard consultant, taking copious notes for debriefing Sean. Cécile was a mine of information. Her knowledge, attention to detail and reliability were refreshing. At the end of her visit we stopped for our usual summary of the position.

  'Have you made your vineyard declaration for the Saussignac?' said Cécile.

  'I don't think so. What is it?'

  'You need to declare Appellation Contrôlée Saussignac and Appellation Contrôlée Côtes de Bergerac vineyards upfront. The deadline for the declaration was yesterday. Didn't you get a form in the post?'

  'No,' I replied, feeling nauseous. Both of these appellations were part of our planned range of wines.

  'Contact the INAO straight away,' said Cécile. 'They may let you make a late declaration because you didn't get the forms.'

  There were four bodies that controlled the lives of the Bergerac winemaker, and I didn't know which was responsible for sending these all-important forms. After more than six months I was still totally confused about where the lines of responsibility lay between the Fédération des Vins de Bergerac (FVB), the CIVRB, the INAO and the
douanes
(customs), who were strangely linked into many processes. Bureaucracy was proving a serious opponent and we hadn't made any wine yet.

  I called the INAO Bergerac again, the same people I had been in touch with in my failed hunt for the copies of the
agréments
, and explained my new problem. Madame said she would allow me to do the declaration for AC Saussignac and AC Côtes de Bergerac in person the following morning at their offices. I arrived punctually. When we finished the declarations Madame picked up a folder on her desk and passed it to me.

  'I have those copies for you.'

  I opened the folder to find the four
agréments
we needed for the sample shipment. I still don't know who convinced her to give us copies of
agréments
that were officially no longer available but I took them home, elated.

A few days later as we prepared the sample shipment two AOC 'police' arrived. One was Joel, a middle-aged farmer with a mass of bob-length greying blonde hair, and the other our old friend Monsieur Ducasse, the Chamber of Agriculture representative, who raised his eyebrows in surprise at seeing us still here. He and Joel had come to count buds and check that the pruning on the Saussignac appellation vineyards met the strict rules. Ellie eyed him suspiciously, maybe wondering if she was in for another dazzling display of facial contortions.

  Appellation rules cover everything; from what you plant and how you plant it, to how you make your wine. These rules are outlined in a
cahier des charges
and are so detailed they even define the maximum number of buds allowed per vine; eight in this case. Low yields are necessary for quality and this is a way to restrict yields from the start of the season. The vineyard check went smoothly and they left after offering Sean a few suggestions about managing the yield and de-leafing. I was sure that our quota of administrative skirmishes was over for a while.

  The following week we got a letter from the INAO saying they could not grant us the right to do AC Saussignac as we had no white grape vines.

  'SF, I think the
notaire
duped us and transferred the white half of the vineyard to his brother,' I said, exasperated.

  'No, it's a farce created to keep you practising French,' said Sean.

  A few calls to the INAO and a visit to the
douanes
traced the error to a historic rental agreement by the previous owners. It was all straightened out in one afternoon. I was almost disappointed.

With the house renovations in hand thanks to Jamie's intervention with Lambert, we started to look to future building priorities. The winery electricity was a matter of life and death and a tasting room was fundamental to sales success. I called the electrician that Jamie recommended. Jamie was a great colleague to have, always happy to help and knowledgeable not only on winegrowing and winemaking but also bureaucracy and renovation. We didn't get to know him very well socially, he was a bachelor with a busy diary, but I was pleased we'd been able to help him out too in those early days so that I could call on him when needed.