Saving Our Skins

by Caro Feely

  A couple of hours later at our lunch destination, the nearby Relais de Monestier, a hearty welcome and an offer to put our socks in the drier warmed our souls, while salad with hot mushrooms, poached egg and bits of bacon warmed our stomachs. It wasn't raining, but there was so much dew that our feet were soaked. Like the smell of the leaves and herbs in the valley of aromas, the heavy dew meant the water forces were strong. With toasty socks came a beef and autumn vegetable stew. We melted into our chairs, succumbing to the joys of Dordogne autumn food. Philippe, chef extraordinaire, crowned the lunch extravaganza with a moelleux au chocolat, crusty on the outside and oozing rich dark chocolate from the inside. We sat for a while soaking in the satisfaction of a hard morning walk and magnificent lunch, contemplating life. Satisfied physically and spiritually we took off at a brisk pace in the bracing air and soon felt light as a feather and ready to do it all again. When we returned home that evening I checked the calendar. It was a leaf day: the water forces had the upper hand, just as I had suspected from the clues on the walk.

  On the third and last day we crossed the valley ridge from Saussignac to Razac to visit Thierry at Château le Payral. It was a gorgeous autumn morning; cold and sunny with a hint of smoke in the air. We strode through orange, gold and green-flecked vineyards past Château de Fayolle, down the valley towards Patrick and Chantal at La Maurigne, where we had experienced our first ever Saussignac-growers evening just a few days before we started our very first harvest; I had been charmed that night as much by the rustic army tent filled with golden samples and candlelight as I had been by charismatic growers like Thierry.

  From La Maurigne, we took the forest path that linked us with the small road to Razac. Below us was Le Chabrier where I had hand-picked Saussignac grapes and met winegrowers like Joel at a marketing event organised by our commune the year we arrived. Back then, everything seemed foreign. The names made no sense. I couldn't remember anyone or anything, having no familiar hooks to hang them on.

  Now everything was familiar. We knew most of the people living on the road. When it had snowed heavily the previous winter, Seán took the children to school when the bus wasn't running. He said he wasn't worried because, if he got stuck between us and the next village, he would know the nearest farmer and they would pull him out with their tractor. There was a sense of security in knowing our community that was true luxury. Leaving behind the views of the Dordogne valley, a stunning patchwork of vineyards and plum orchards, we entered the forest and fecund, earthy aromas flooded our lungs. With each footfall more rich perfume puffed up and filled the air. As we turned out of the forest the village of Razac-de-Saussignac appeared in the distance, its Romanesque church bright in the morning sun.

  'Someone's rubbish has been dropped on the side of the road,' said Isobel pointing to a small mound of plastic up ahead.

  'It's strange to see a pile of trash in the middle of pristine countryside,' said Lucy One.

  'It looks like packages of something,' said Lucy Two, who was closest.

  We gathered round. I gingerly picked up one of the packages. Silver backing on one side and vacuum-sealed meat on the other: it was not just any meat, but a top-end brand of whole foie gras, six entire packs, unopened, packaged that morning and still cold. We packed three into my backpack and Isobel, Lucy and Lucy carried one each as we continued the last stretch to Château le Payral, laughing about our strange treasure.

  Isobel proffered hers to Thierry as I told the story.

  'Someone must have dropped it,' said Thierry.

  'Not it. Them.'

  I pointed into my bag.

  'Wiouw. That is a sacré mountain of foie gras. It must be worth at least 300 euros,' he said.

  'Who would order that quantity of foie gras?' I said.

  'Château des Vigiers. No one else near here would order that much,' said Thierry.

  Château des Vigiers was a four-star chateau hotel with spa, golf and two restaurants a few kilometres away. Thierry's good friend, Léonie, was a manager there. Thierry called her and she laughed and said it was our lucky day. We should keep it. The traceability was lost so they couldn't use it and neither could the supplier. Thierry, chuckling, put our Périgord treasure in his fridge and took us into his winery and barrel room to explain their process of winemaking to the women. I later offered Isobel and the Lucys a pack of foie gras each but they were travelling back that evening and didn't want to wrangle sniffer dogs at Gatwick.

  I enjoyed the taste of foie gras entier sliced and pan-fried, but since visiting a foie gras farm a few years before I wouldn't buy it, so we hadn't eaten or served it in years. Now, with a mountain of the stuff having fallen free at my feet, I was faced with an ethical dilemma that I tried to argue away. The ducks were long dead. Not eating what they had died for would make their death meaningless. I didn't want to buy foie gras and contribute to the industry, but I didn't want to throw away the windfall. That evening, after saying farewell and dropping the three women at Gardonne station, I collected the ethically-thorny-but-free bounty from Thierry and gave him one pack as a thank you.

  The first official Wine Spirit Education Trust course and exam was about to take place at Terroir Feely. With three participants signed up we would only use a tiny section of each of the forty-plus samples of wine I had purchased or swapped. To make the most of them we would have our friends join us to taste through the samples the evening the course finished. Thierry's Isabelle took two packs of bounty foie gras to turn into foie gras mi-cuit, semi-cooked foie gras, for the occasion.

  That month our guests were coincidentally arriving in sets of three women and I was enjoying it. I missed time with girlfriends like I had missed my daughters. These three women had booked the course separately and came from different corners of the world. They were lively, asking great questions, some that had me scrambling for Jancis Robinson's Oxford Companion to Wine, a comprehensive dictionary that almost always came up with an answer. I loved having to look things up; each question I couldn't answer was another opportunity to learn. When the course results arrived a few weeks later, all three women had passed with distinction, leaving me glowing with pride.

  Within hours of the end of the course our friends' tasting marathon started. Pierre was first to arrive so we took the opportunity to draw on his mechanical skills. The ancient forklift we had bought from Thierry that year, a museum piece that cost less than a tenth of a new one, was as unreliable as memorabilia could be expected to be. It had stopped working a few days before, as was its wont.

  Pierre tried everything to no effect. Finally he leant his head onto the forklift frame and I expected him to start banging it methodically onto the metal bar – what I felt like doing – but instead he paused Zen-like and began to stroke it. Having done nothing but stroke calmly, he turned the key again and it leapt to life. My eyes wide, my eyebrows halfway up my forehead and my mouth open, I watched in awe as he quickly moved the pallet we needed transported into place. He was 'Zen and the art of machine maintenance' personified.

  While the Feely, Moore, Daulhiac and de St Viance younger generations took over the main house, playing music and games, eating dinner and then settling exhausted in front of a DVD, we pitted our wits against rounds of wines, blind tasting from one end of the globe to the other while I tracked results on a flipchart. Pierre was the most gifted blind taster, picking up the nuances of what the wine was, where it was from, the farming and the winemaking methods, all with a quick swish and a swirl. No need for WSET for him. Years of bottling wines across the region and beyond had left his receptors extremely fine. He was master, closely followed by Isabelle. Palates exhausted, we sunk our teeth into little toasts covered in treasure-hunt foie gras.

  Laurence and I caught up standing next to the windows of the tasting room and enjoying an aperitif of méthode traditionelle.

  'Comment ça va, mon amie?' How are things going, my friend? asked Laurence. She was slim and darkhaired, always neatly dressed, and thriving since passing her
concours to become a full-time primary teacher. As part of passing the teaching exam in France, candidates had to run the 800 metres within a specified time. It had been part of Laurence's motivation to run with me, and now she was a full-time teacher she also hadn't as much spare time as before. We hadn't had a chance to talk in ages.

  'Really good, at last!' I said. 'This tasting room and the lodge were a good decision.' Laurence had been a bouncing board for me to talk through the idea of the renovation years before. 'Is it all finished?'

  'Yes, we were lucky to have the O'Briens here for a holiday. Nous avons peinté ensemble. We painted together.' She cracked up and lifted her hand over her mouth in amused embarrassment.

  'Sorry, Caro! But peinté is slang for inebriated… whereas the past of to paint is just peint,' explained Laurence, trying to control herself.

  I joined her laughter and we giggled together like two schoolgirls. After all that tasting, perhaps I was a little peintée.

  Chapter 27

  Gold for Green

  The smell of sauvignon blanc hit me like a tsunami as I opened the insulation curtain to the winery. Seán was in shorts spotted with grapes, sterilised garden clogs and a smile. We had harvested our whites and Seán was preparing to do the last bit of pressing. He had improved the system since the previous year but it was still slowgoing. We had also moved one of the large vats out and our winery was inching closer to what we wanted it to be, although it was still far from being there. Like the rest of the property, it would be part of our life's work. I waved at him to join me to say farewell to the van Sorgens.

  Ad and Lijda had been with us for a few weeks to help with harvest, as they did every year. I was drowning in work again, every waking hour consumed and barely coping. Harvest meant 5 a.m. starts, full days of wine-tour guests and then finishing, if I was lucky, with replying to emails and calls by 10 p.m. Lijda quietly collected and folded laundry for me, picked figs, weeded the potager and made dinner. It was like having an angel to stay. Ad fixed tools for Seán, welded machinery, replaced bulbs that we had missed and helped with harvest. They were surrogate grandparents to Sophia and Ellie with both our parents living far, far away.

  I kissed them goodbye and tears pricked my eyes. As they drove out, their familiar campervan with bikes attached to the back bouncing along the road, I was sobbing. It was with sadness but also with gratitude for what they meant to us. The people that had come into our lives through the vineyard were powerful and beautiful.

  That evening the smell of a basil and lime candle, a gift for us from the marketing manager of my publisher, perfumed the air as we sat on our terrace planning the following year's summer holiday; our first summer holiday as a family ever. Hilary, an old friend from university, and her partner David had offered us their holiday house in Provence for a week. We had been down to see their beautiful mas for two nights a few years before. We were dreaming of lavender fields, Provençal olives and an infinity pool. 'Where is it again?' asked Sophia.

  'The one in Provence. Remember? The house of Hilary, my friend. The place you fell in the pool.'

  I had started to use French grammar like 'the house of Hilary' instead of 'Hilary's house'. Sometimes when writing an emotive sentence I would find the French words, not the English ones, in my head and be forced to click over to Google Translate.

  'Oh yes, the place I nearly died,' said Sophia, who on our first trip had toddled into the pool and sunk like a stone, swiftly followed by Seán who scooped her up spluttering. Now they could swim. 'Hilary gave me the Richard Scary book, What Do People Do All Day?'

  I laughed. 'Richard Scarry, not Richard Scary. There is no winegrower in there but if there was it would be Scary.'

  Seán smiled.

  'Can we swim every day?' said Ellie.

  'Of course,' I replied. It would be a real treat for them since we did not have a pool of our own.

  Sophia pushed her fork into the orange square on her plate, delivered it to her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. 'Now I understand why it's called butternut! That is the first time I tasted the butter and the nut,' she exclaimed.

  Ellie grimaced; even if it tasted like butter and nut, it was an orange vegetable other than carrot and she didn't like it. That winter was going to be tough for her since Seán had produced about 40 kilograms of these and other evil Halloween-horror orange vegetables.

  Seán's gardening was a triumph. Not only was he producing serious quantities of food, enough to feed us most of the year, but the food was delicious, offering a depth of flavour true to itself, as Sophia had highlighted. Printing documents for wine-tour guests that evening, the printer stopped working. I felt like hitting it but instead took a Zen-like stance and stroked, then pressed the print button and stood, mouth open, as the perfectly printed pages fell into the receiving tray.

  Hand-picking with Saussignac primary school was something I had wanted to do for years, a way to connect with our community. Not many winegrowers hand-picked their grapes, and with total mechanisation vineyards lost some of their life and joy. Saussignac, the dessert wine we made, had to be hand-picked but picking the noble rot was too complicated for children. Hand-harvesting our red merlot with six- and seven-year-olds would be better. There could still be some bloody fingers so we loaded the cart attached to the tractor with the first aid kit alongside buckets, secateurs and patience.

  A tiny triangle, one of our vineyards closest to the school, was our target. It was just enough to keep them engaged for an hour while they ate their way through it – one bunch for the bucket, one bunch for me. We laughed at the red mouths and explained about how important farming without chemicals was. Sophia and Ellie ran back and forth, helping to organise and acting as nurses with the plasters and antiseptic. The morning sun filtered through the vines and the unique energy and excitement of harvest filled the group. When we returned to the winery, each child emptied their bucket directly into the vat so they could envisage the full process. Sitting in the courtyard to let them ask questions afterwards, I was impressed by the level of interest and the quality of some of their questions.

  We sent three bottles of juice up to school the following day for them to taste with their lunch. Now as I arrived at Saussignac primary school each day I was greeted like an old friend. Running with Dora a few weeks later, a car passed me on the St Germain road, close to the ridge where once I had cried thinking we were going to have to sell the farm. The kids in the back seat turned with great smiles of glee spanning their faces as they recognised me and waved madly, almost leaping out of the car in excitement. I felt a glow of community warmth.

  From picking with the school we flew into our fourth vine-share weekend. Back to a more manageable fifty, it went perfectly with help from John and Judy Burford, Australian winegrowers who farmed near Melbourne and who rented our Wine Cottage every two years. They brought a relaxed Aussie sense of humour. The harvest weekend was now starting to feel natural, like something we could do instinctively.

  As the last harvest weekenders left, Nat, a specialist cardiologist from Florida, arrived for a wine tour. He was compact and neat, recently retired and fiercely patriotic, deeply grateful to the USA for the opportunities he had when he emigrated from India in his youth. He was also a wine connoisseur whose cellar contained greats like Cheval Blanc 1947, a hallowed estate and vintage from Saint-Émilion, and Château Margaux 1982, another mythic vintage, this one from the mega-vineyard in Margaux in the Médoc region; wines I had read about but never tasted.

  We toured our vineyard and voyaged to Saint-Émilion and Pomerol. Our last day was to the Médoc, timed to coincide with the 'Night of the Stars', the official awards ceremony for the Best of Wine Tourism. I had an invitation for two and Nat agreed to chaperone me and act as official photographer. Seán was too busy with our own harvest to take a day off and with one car between us he couldn't make the trip later. He would walk the girls home from school and feed the family instead.

  Château d'Agassac was lit up like a fai
ry castle, its Cinderella turrets and moat so perfect it seemed like a Disney creation rather than what it was, original Renaissance architecture from 1580. Renovation and modernisation of the stunning property had won them an international 'Best of Wine Tourism' award the previous year. The old pigeonnier, dovecote, on the front lawn was ancient stone on the outside but through the open door I could see the inside was wall-to-wall control panels with flashing lights and buttons; the technical centre from where the impressive 'son et lumière' shows they offered could be managed. Like some other wineries I had seen on my tours, the inside looked more like a setting for James Bond than a wine farm. Perfectly manicured lawns were zigzagged with evocatively lit white paths that led visitors from the presentation hall to the main chateau and back to the car park. My feet crunched the gravel as I scampered back and forth ferrying wine samples and brochures.

  With everything set for the wine tasting afterwards, my heart quickened with the activity and excitement. I changed into sleek stockings, a little black designer dress and a golden puff-sleeved jacket – all courtesy of my glamorous sister – in the washroom. Nat and I settled down in the front row as the room hushed and the awards, a who's who of the greats of Bordeaux, began.