Saving Our Skins

by Caro Feely

  I felt like kissing them. It was the sort of encouragement I needed to lift me away from the worry about frost and our precarious future. We had good wines; it was no guarantee of making a living, but it was necessary to get back some of the confidence lost in our massive life change. 'What's the Irish connection?' he asked pointing to The Irish Times on the shelf.

  'We lived in Ireland for eight years before coming to France,' I said. 'We were both born in South Africa, hence the accent, but we have Irish roots.'

  I explained how Seán and I had dreamed of wine-farming for a decade before we had the opportunity and a moment of madness to leap in and buy our farm. We had roots deep in wine. His grandparents grew vines near Stellenbosch in South Africa's Western Cape after moving from Ireland in their youth – one of many Catholic– Protestant unions of the era that fled. Seán was bitten by the bug of winegrowing at an early age, helping them with work such as harvest as a schoolboy. My grandmother descended from the Frenches, a tribe that moved from Normandy to Galway to import wine in the 1300s. The Frenches were noted as significant wine traders in Bordeaux and Ireland in the golden era of the 1800s. 'So you know the Irish mafia?' he said, his eyes twinkling.

  'Of course,' I said. I wasn't totally joking. We had rented an apartment in Dublin in the same block as a notorious drug lord; fortunately, the only time we saw him was the day of his arrest.

  The Lambs were flying back the following day so they bought two bottles for the evening and promised to return with their car in summer to carry out the annual stocking of their cellar.

  'I have a small gift for your two girls,' said Mr Havana holding out two five-euro notes. 'Tell them it's from the Irish mafia.' He winked.

  Tears of gratitude pricked my eyes. His graceful gesture meant so much; but more than that, their comments had buoyed me up at a time when I was questioning our new lives, just as we had a year before when we almost sold the farm due to financial pressure. The frost had pushed my thoughts back down that road. I waved goodbye and ran inside to tell the girls. For years the only shopping I had done was for winery equipment and supplies. We piled into the car to go shoe shopping, Sophia and Ellie delighted by their good fortune.

  Chapter 2

  Gifts and Grace

  Notwithstanding the low volume we could expect from the frosted vintage, we still had wine stock from the previous two years. Wine was a buyer's market. No one was knocking on our door and the revenue we needed to keep the vineyard wouldn't be met by the odd tasting-room purchase. We needed serious trade sales but they took a year or more to cultivate. I had a few in the pipeline but it was a slow game. I was worried. One of these contacts was Jon, the wine buyer of a quirky online retailer in the USA. He loved the samples, the information about our organic practices and the tiny appellation of Saussignac, and requested the latest stock levels of two wines so he could profile them to his customer base. I sent them – then heard nothing.

  Saussignac, our commune appellation, had one of the highest percentages of organic winegrowers of all the appellations, wine areas, in France. When we bought our farm we had no idea, but most of our neighbouring vineyards were or soon became organic, a boon since it meant less residual agricultural chemicals – herbicides, pesticides and systemic fungicides – from spray drift and run-off on our borders.

  We sent Jon a new label for the merlot featuring a sensitive crystallisation image. Sensitive crystallisation is a process for creating an image and profile of a product that goes beyond its chemical analysis. A solution of copper chloride, or copper salts, is added to the product – in this case wine, but it can be anything – and the solution is left to dry in a glass Petri dish in a controlled laboratory with no external sounds, smells or other influences for twenty-four hours. With a healthy, good-quality product the copper chloride crystallises into a beautiful shape, creating an individual thumbprint like a snowflake. Many samples of the same product are taken to ensure the profile is accurate.

  The new label clinched the deal and Jon profiled the merlot and the Saussignac dessert wine in his daily email. I was nervous, sure that the description of sensitive crystallisation would not come across well in a short missive. We would seem like insane tree-huggers. I had required a two-day course to be convinced. On the course we analysed sensitive crystallisation of a natural vitamin compared to a chemically produced vitamin; city water compared to rain water compared to water from a limestone source where the rock had filtered the water clean; and an organic wine compared to one farmed with chemicals. In the case of the chemical vitamin, it was blank with a few black dots, whereas the natural vitamin was a crystal of beauty. The well-water image was stunning, the city water deformed with black holes. The organic wines created symmetrical crystals, whereas the chemically farmed wines created a Frankenstein version with many centres and black holes.

  Jon's emails to his customers were compelling. I had signed up for his mailing list and his descriptions made me want to buy everything he profiled. Luckily, we couldn't, since he didn't ship to Europe. When his confirmed order based on sales from the email arrived, a mix of relief and fear flooded through me. We did a panicked count. The merlot was fine but we couldn't fulfil the Saussignac order by a few cases. 'Why did you give them the wrong stock numbers?' asked Seán, exasperated.

  'I didn't give the wrong stock level. I gave the right one but that was a few months ago and we've kept selling the wine in the meantime,' I said.

  Seán dredged bottles from every corner of the property, the tasting-room fridge, the display cabinet – which we usually didn't sell, but this was an emergency – and all the wines we had put aside for our wine library. With every last bottle, including one without a label – don't tell Jon – we just made the numbers.

  As the panic subsided I felt rather proud, as if we were a grand cru classé, reduced to buying our wines back because they had become so sought after. Seán's sister in Kent had bought about ten cases on their last visit: we would buy some back from them.

  But day-to-day we were far from grand cru classé. We were just scraping by. We had developed the 'Wine Cottage' for rent and a small operation selling our wines direct to clients online and in the tasting room. Together they provided a core income to meet a major part of the day-to-day costs of the vineyard. To have a long-term going concern that would allow for a little shoe shopping and the reinvestment required for a farm like ours, we had to go further. Living from hand to mouth, even to follow our dream, made no sense. One of our ideas for reaching this equilibrium was to offer educational visits. We hoped they would sell wine and bring in extra income.

  It seemed to be working. My first double booking was a Dublin couple and a Yorkshire couple, the latter foolishly cultivating the dream of moving to France to buy a vineyard and start a new life with two young daughters. I was sure I could cure them of that.

  They arrived at 2 p.m. for an afternoon course on French wine appreciation, appellations d'origine contrôlée (AOC) and the elusive term terroir. I quickly applied lipstick – normally my lips went au naturel but for classes I needed the professional look – and went out to greet them. The hours flew, with humour flashing around the tiny room that served as our tasting room and fledgling wine school. The visits reminded me why we had come here in the first place: our passion for wine.

  Since early on in our adventure I realised that living the isolated life of a farmer's wife in rural France was not for me. As a city professional I had worked with teams, run workshops for high-powered executives and interacted intensively with people during my working days. Landing in rural Dordogne as a full-time mom and farmer's wife had been an extreme culture shock. The rising tide of tourism and direct sales provided interaction with people and an opportunity to share what we had learned about organic farming, both of which were fulfilling and necessary for my sanity.

  The Dubliners gave us gifts of Barry's Tea and bought cases of wine, then made their way onto Saint-Émilion for their next stop, while Dave and Amanda Moore, th
e Yorkshire couple, stayed for a cup of tea to meet Seán and hear more about what it was really like wine-farming in France. They were tall, fit and good-looking. Dave was a builder and all-round handyman, ideal for what they were setting out to do, unlike us. Seán had been a financial writer and I an IT strategy consultant. Little wonder it had been tough and Seán now had a short finger after an argument with a dangerous piece of machinery.

  We took a walk in the vineyard so they could see the flowering, a key moment in the vineyard cycle. As farmers we were soldered to the seasons, feeling them intimately, flowing with them. The risk of frost was gone and the trellising was filled with green foliage, the vines reaching skywards, their graceful canes and spiralling tendrils dancing in the breeze.

  Each tiny, delicate, cream flower in the right conditions would become a grape. We had to get up really close to see the caps, some of which had fallen off to reveal the stamens, the male parts, five in a circle around the stigma, the female part, doing their darndest to drop pollen onto her, essential to fertilise the eggs that would become the seeds around which the fruit would form. The vines were erotic, the field filled with their summer excitement. It was also a time of angst for us since flowering was a key determinant of the quantity of harvest. If we had wet, damp weather the caps wouldn't fall off and the fertilisation would fail, devastating our yields. There was so much to talk about we invited Dave and Amanda to stay for dinner. They laughed at our noholds-barred descriptions of the previous three years and we laughed at theirs of the properties they had seen. I offered seconds of the rice and dhal lentils, one of my regular 'fast food' dinner solutions.

  'Don't mind if I do!' said Dave in his thick Yorkshire accent as he lifted his smart shirt to expose a T-shirt underneath that proudly announced 'Mr Greedy'. We all laughed as I heaped his plate with seconds. He was remarkably lean for his appetite.

  'He's Mr Greedy and I'm Mrs Picky,' said Amanda. 'I'm vegetarian and allergic to lactose and gluten. So no cheese or bread for me. My God, what's the point of moving to France? Oh yes, I remember, for the wine!' Amanda lifted her glass, took a sip and nodded approval. 'Definitely worth it for the wine.'

  Later Dave emailed to say they had found a property fifteen minutes north of Saint-Émilion with 'three hectares of vines and a few buildings that are a wreck and full of poo'. Although we had only just met, I felt like I was on the roller coaster with them. I was disappointed their potential vineyard was a good hour away. We got on so well I had hoped they could settle closer.

  A few days later as I set our places at the old pine table for lunch, I looked up and caught the view of the Château de Saussignac through the kitchen window, perfectly framed behind the mass of red roses that formed the entrance to our potager, where I had been collecting hardy salads minutes before. Seán's boots resonated on the footpath outside then I heard him scrape mud off on the bootscraper. He entered and handed me a fistful of wild garlic, a spring onion like alium from one hand, and red purslane, with crunchy red stems and succulent green leaves, from the other, both collected in the vineyard on his way up. We sat down to eat.

  I opened the post as we ate and found yet another invoice that needed to be paid: 'I can't take this feeling of angst every time I open an envelope,' I said to Seán. 'We have to get ourselves to the next level or we have to get out.'

  'We have to plant the old peach field to vines,' said Seán. 'I know planting vineyards is very long term, but to make the farm viable we have to have more vines.'

  'Then you'll need a new tractor and that will mean another major investment,' I said.

  The authorities had decided that higher density – more vines planted per acre – meant higher quality, and were forcing growers to comply. To fit more vines on a given surface meant the rows had to be closer together. Less space between the rows meant we needed a new tractor because our old tractor was too wide. Legislating density sounded mad to the winegrowers from America and Australia who booked visits with us that year. Frustrating as it was, though, we had to get on and work with it. It was a classic case of agricultural bureaucracy.

  'But with a new tractor I'll be far more efficient. It will halve my time on the tractor and I will do a better job. I'll be able to do two things at once. It will make far better use of my time,' said Seán. 'What do you mean?' I said.

  'The hydraulic power means I will be able to do shoot removal and mowing at the same time, rather than making two passages. We'll save on fuel and have less soil compaction.'

  Seán really wanted that new tractor. He knew that saving on fuel was a great way to convince me: I loved any savings, but fuel even more, since it saved our bank balance and the planet at the same time. When we had met in Joburg, Seán and his friend Mike Murphy had a comic strip stuck on the pinboard in their shared house: it was of two old men in rocking chairs, one reading an invoice, glasses balanced on the end of his nose and saying, 'Let's celebrate, the last payment on our student loans is due next week.' I laughed but actually the idea scared me so I gave Seán a 'Savings 101' course. Despite being a financial journalist, he still had a massive student loan and was paying off the minimum even when he had a bonus or cash to spare. Within a year he had paid the entire loan off. He loved to tell the story; he couldn't believe how quickly he did it through a few less beers and a change of attitude.

  'Not only that, you won't have to do shoot removal by hand anymore,' said Seán, knowing that would clinch the deal if the savings didn't.

  As organic farmers, shoot removal, taking off the suckers that come out of the base of the vine, taking valuable sap and energy away from the main plant, has to be done manually or mechanically rather than chemically. Doing this work by hand involved a very long steep hike interrupted at metre intervals by a deep squat – 25,000 of them, to be precise. It wasn't a solution for our size of vineyard. We had to have that tractor. 'But how can we afford it?' I said. 'The money from the sale to Jon is enough for the first down payment,' said Seán. 'But then what?' I asked. 'We have no visibility for the payments into the future.'

  'I know,' said Seán. 'But we have to have faith. If we want to stay in this business we have to make this investment. Otherwise we might as well just give up.'

  Getting the vineyard rights alone had taken a minor miracle, so we couldn't stop now. Our ability to meet the ongoing payments and stay in the vineyard game would depend on many things, including how bad the effect of the frost turned out to be. We decided to make the leap.

  Chapter 3

  Ploucs, or Country Bumpkins

  I set off for Saussignac, following the serpentine route that swept up to the village alongside our vineyards, feeling delicious, free and wild. Seán had given me a pass for the Randonnée Nocturne, a night walk organised by our local village syndicat. I ran, skipped and twirled intermittently from sheer joy, the warm air like a caress on my skin and the landscape filling my eyes and soul. It was my first night out alone in more than three years. A journalist had described Saussignac as a 'quintessential charming French village' and it lived up to the description that evening. The massive stone chateau built in 1591 that formed the central feature of the village was bathed in sunlight; my friend Laurence's roses, a riot of scarlet in the front garden of the chateau, threw clouds of perfume into the air. Opposite, on the main square, a crowd chatted in front of the Lion d'Or restaurant. I spotted a few people I knew and caught up on news, and then we were off, two guides in fluorescent jackets setting the pace at the front and two more bringing up the rear.

  From Saussignac village we crossed the ridge to the west above the Dordogne valley, the sunset highlighting the contours of the vineyards, creating an impressionist palette of greens and yellows that followed the hillside off the Saussignac plateau. Below us the patchwork of vines, plum orchards, forests and old stone buildings was tantalisingly flecked with gold by the setting sun.

  Very quickly, even those who didn't know each other were chatting as we walked. There was something different, exciting, almost dangero
us about a night walk. Monique, one of the guides, pulled in alongside me and struck up a conversation about what we were doing in our vineyard. She heard we were not only organic but biodynamic. Word got around fast in a small place.

  Fully expecting the blank look I often received, I launched into my explanation: 'For me, biodynamics is three things: thinking of the whole farm as a living thing, working with the calendar of the earth's position in relation to the moon and cosmos, and homeopathic-like preparations or treatments for the soil and plant.'

  I glanced at Monique to see that she was with me. Behind her was a vineyard that looked like a desert. We were passing between that on one side, the herbicide-treated soil baked hard like concrete, and a certified organic vineyard on the other, lime-green growth between the rows and soft-worked soil under the vines. The difference was glaring. It reminded me to add that to go biodynamic you had to first be certified organic. It is impossible to work this way without good farming fundamentals already in place.

  'Man has used the sun, moon and stars to guide his agricultural activity for millennia, knowing that the moon and planets and constellations affect life on earth. Before wristwatches, we told the time via the sun, moon and stars, and we were accordingly more connected to these bodies. They determine much of what takes place on earth, but many of us have lost touch with them and with nature itself, living in a world of concrete and light pollution, thus finding these ideas hard to swallow.' We turned onto the high vineyard path running towards Razac as the sun dropped below the horizon, darkening the landscape. Seeing Monique nodding, I continued. 'The moon moves the oceans; it has a major influence on water, so the moon's phases influence the way plants grow, through the different levels of moisture in the environment and in the plant. The moon affects wine as well. Racking our wines – taking the clear wine off the sediment – on a descending moon rather than an ascending moon reduces the need for additives like fining agents to clear the wine later on. It is the moon's gravitational force at work.' 'How do you know if it is ascending or descending?' she asked.