Grape Expectations (15 page)

  High summer meant hornets but also bounties of fruit. We discovered the joys of eating berries directly off the trees. Ellie, who regularly refused fruit indoors, would happily position herself in a well-stocked, shady spot and shovel fistfuls of juicy delight into her mouth. We moved from cherries to early plums, blackberries, early grapes, figs, more plums and finally the wine grapes. I made jam and compote until the shelves were groaning.

  The market in Gardonne, our nearest town, every Wednesday and Sunday was held in the parking lot opposite the
supérette
(minimart). It wasn't a beautiful market like Issigeac but it was real. Most of the stallholders were local producers rather than resellers. Among the producers was a strawberry man, and over the season he offered different varieties from the early Gariguettes to the late Charlottes, succulent and flavourful, as far from bland, factory-farmed strawberries as you can imagine. The melon man was similar, offering a superb mix of melons in all manner of sizes, no doubt unacceptable to supermarkets, for tiny prices. Matched with Parma-style ham, they made the perfect starter. Alongside the melons he had piles of tomatoes topped with large sprigs of fresh basil that reeked of summer.

  One late afternoon I rode the bike down to Gardonne to collect the car from the garage where it was in for a minor fix. The vines on either side of the road were loaded with ripe merlot, purple-black and velvety. The
vendanges
were getting close. A little further on, a plum orchard engulfed me in its cool shade and rich fragrance. The air was heavy with the smells of summer. I was in heaven.

  By the time I drove back to Garrigue it was evening. The car beams lit up the dirt track and the vineyards. There were no streetlights or sirens, just the shadow of a hare disappearing into the brush. As I got out of the car the warm night air enveloped me in a dark embrace. The huge sky, spangled with stars arched over me and I felt a deep sense of ease. It was so familiar, so right. Despite living more sparsely than we ever had, not knowing if we would be able to earn enough to feed our children, and the ongoing tension in our relationship, I had a deep sense of being where I belonged.

A week later we attended our first Saussignac producers' annual tasting and dinner at Château La Maurigne (pronounced 'more-in-ye'), a neighbouring vineyard. An old army tent sparkling with lantern lights was set in the garden. Inside were seated our fellow producers tasting golden wine from delicate glasses.

  Thierry Daulhiac, the president of Saussignac appellation and in charge of the evening, came over to welcome us and greeted me with the obligatory
bisous
, kisses. Thierry was wiry and energetic, a winegrower who was a mechanical engineer at heart, farming land where his family had tended vines for at least seven generations. He was open-minded, generous and focused. When not farming his vineyards he could be found inventing viticultural equipment for a German firm or renovating part of the house under the direction of his very organised wife, Isabelle.

  The magical scene was a horizontal tasting of the previous vintage. All the bottles were covered with bags; the identity would only be disclosed at the end. We were handed paper and pencils. I felt intimidated, having never done a professional tasting before. Sneaking a glance at my neighbour's notes I took a swig of wine. A starburst of flavours exploded in my mouth: orange peel, almond, pineapple, honey. I slurped the second: passion fruit. Then the third: citrus and a hint of fennel. Almost effortlessly, writing filled the page in front of me.

  Grapes are unique; no other fruit can create such a rainbow of flavours depending on its terroir. They offer a palette of polyphenols or aroma compounds that runs into the thousands compared to normal fruits like oranges and apples that would only be a couple of hundred.

  Combining the great range of polyphenols of each grape type or varietal with the soil, the climate and the grower gives a unique taste. This unique 'taste of place' is terroir, an emotionally charged term that is deeply part of French culture. Blending the different results from each vineyard and each varietal is a key part of taste of place. For the French it is this complex notion of terroir that determines taste rather than the type of grape: a key difference with the New World. When you taste a mineral chardonnay from Chablis compared to a hot climate chardonnay it is easy to see why: they may be the same grape but they are worlds apart in flavour.

  All I knew then was that I was tasting the same style of wines from the same small area of Saussignac and yet they tasted different. Each one had its own nuance, its own secret whisper about where it came from. When the tasting was over, each wine was debated, then unveiled.

  'What do you think of number eleven, Caro?' asked Thierry.

  'Passion fruit and almonds. Delicious,' I said feeling nervous. Was I correct? Would I be unmasked as the complete novice that I was? It was so expressive even I could describe it and my comment was followed by approving nods around the table.

  Next up was a wine that was cloudy and fizzy: I had marked it right down, not realising still-fermenting wine was regularly presented at producer tastings.

  'Slightly fizzy but good balanced flavour,' said the first commentator.

  'Too woody.'

  The sample was unveiled as Bernard Barse's, the wine we had helped pick with Aideen and Barry a year before. I began to take the comments personally. It was an inkling of how I would feel when Sean and I made our own wine.

  Joel, the man who regularly intimidated me as part of the AOC police, was sporting beautiful, long dreadlocks and bright coloured pants. That evening I realised that he was more Joel the Jolly than Joel the Gendarme. His clothes and hair told part of the story but he also had a sharp wit and a love of practical jokes, passing me a wine glass of apple juice destined for the kids instead of the white wine I had asked for as my aperitif. He lived next door to Thierry and had four grown-up children, although he didn't look much older than us. Next time he came round for an AOC
contrôle
I wouldn't feel the ball of fear in my stomach like I had the previous times.

  After the tasting, we were served aperitifs – a selection of wines from all the winegrowers who were present with pâté and rillettes – and I got talking to Geoffroy Colombe and his wife Delphine. The Colombes were famous wine producers in the area.

  'What possessed you to move from successful lives in the city to wine-farming?' asked Delphine. I had déjà vu to my mother's recent visit.

  I explained that we were following a long-held dream.

  'But wine-farming in France is so difficult,' said Delphine. 'With all the rules and our high costs of production, how can we compete with the New World winemakers?' She meant places like Chile, Argentina, South Africa, the USA, Australia and New Zealand, where winemaking is less regulated and they have a much lower cost of labour.

  'I don't know,' I said, feeling a twist of fear in my stomach. If such successful farmers were struggling, how would we survive? What were we thinking? Some of these people had centuries of wine-farming experience behind them. If they were in trouble, we wouldn't have a hope.

  Geoffroy and Delphine's son joined our group. Jean was working for a wine shop in England, having recently finished his studies.

  'We've had twenty years of stress,' said Delphine. 'I can't believe you have given up comfortable lives in the city for this. Stress with farming and weather, stress with the harvest and winemaking and serious stress with selling. It's not easy.'

  'Perhaps having many small producers will prove to be France's saviour,' I said. 'People are looking for something different. Look how California producers are creating special vineyard areas and how large producers like E. & J. Gallo are splitting up their range to cater to consumer demand for unique, small production wines.'

  'Yes, I agree,' said Jean. 'Wine lovers are looking for the human touch, the artisans.'

  'I hope you are right,' said Delphine, not convinced.

  At that moment the first course of a feast was served. The lanterns twinkled and a gentle summer breeze flapped the side of the tent as we sat down at the long trestle table that had been speedily transformed for the banquet by Chantal Gerardin, the co-owner of Château La Maurigne, and Isabelle, Thierry's wife. Five courses followed with accelerating repartee as the night progressed. I soaked up the atmosphere. Rural France was supposed to be closed, but here it was the opposite. There was a shared history and sense of place. It was rich with generations and good humour but welcoming to newcomers like us. We had landed in an extraordinary place.

  The tasting of the Saussignacs was held a week or two before harvest and it signalled the imminence of our first
vendanges
. My stomach cramped with fear and excitement at the thought. This was what we had come to France for but we could not afford to mess up. We had to produce great wine, not just any wine, to survive financially.

Lucille, our wine scientist, began her regular visits. For the next eight weeks she would visit for a couple of hours at least twice a week. Every couple of days she and Sean would disappear into the vineyard for hours to taste grapes and assess their ripeness. Stuck inside, looking after Ellie who was a year and a half, I couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy. Lucille was gorgeous, appeared to be single and was spending hours and hours alone with my husband in a deserted vineyard.

  As the days stretched into weeks I found myself imagining them having a full-blown affair. My trust in Sean had plummeted with our stumbling relationship. I began to spy out of the windows to see what they were up to. I kept reminding myself that I would know from Sean's eyes. He couldn't pass through a border post with a single bottle of liquor undeclared he was so honest. That didn't help reduce my angst, though. I had never been jealous before but the state of our relationship left me feeling unsure.

  When they returned from their promenades Lucille would field our endless questions with the patience and demeanour of a teacher. Our 'serious
oenologue
', as Sean called her, was reliable, despite her Playboy looks. I told myself to get a grip. This was my husband, Sean, a man who had felt it necessary to confess an affair he had well before our relationship started when we were playing the 'we're just friends' game back in our early twenties.

  Sean's parents arrived to help with the harvest. John, Sean's father, was in his late sixties and relatively fit. He was a forester by trade and still worked part-time on forestry projects in South Africa. He quickly became a key man on the harvest team. Peta-Lynne, well-used to grandchildren thanks to Sean's siblings' progeny, took charge of the girls and delivering food to a hungry harvest team.

  Sean and John commenced the mammoth task of cleaning equipment, vats and buildings. I escaped to Thierry and Isabelle Daulhiac to talk over our plans for the coming harvest. They had been very open at the Saussignac dinner and seemed like good people to ask advice given Thierry's impressive seven generations of wine history and the quality of their wines.

  As I was leaving, their sons, Paul and Émilion, returned from school and a little white van pulled up behind them. It looked empty, then a familiar head of curly grey-blonde hair popped up armed with the largest water gun I had ever seen. Joel showered the boys and everyone else liberally then laughed hysterically and drove off, leaving us giggling in his wake. I would look at him through different eyes next time he came round to police our practices in the vineyard. Perhaps it was his way of coping with pre-
vendanges
stress.

  With Sean's folks on hand I could tour the vineyards and sample grapes with Sean and Lucille. This helped to calm my rising angst and also offered the opportunity to see and understand the fruit of our labour.