My Grape Year: (The Grape Series #1)

by Laura Bradbury

  We were dumped out in a tumbling, muddy mass back at the domaine. There was a pail filled with water and a couple of sponges for us to wipe off any removable mud before taking our spot at the two huge monastery tables that had been set up in a vaulted cellar that was attached to the winemaking hangar. Everyone seemed to be referring to the hangar area as the “cuverie.”

  I tried to remove some of the mud that covered me from head to toe, but the water in the pails was already dark brown by the time it was my turn, and I only ended up smearing it more extensively over my clothes. I settled for washing my hands—and hopefully most of the mud off my face—in the bathroom. As there was no mirror, whether I had succeeded or not was anybody’s guess.

  By the time I got to the tables, Florian had already claimed our seats and was waving me over.

  I sat down.

  “I’m soaked,” I said.

  “Are you cold?” he asked. “Would you like me to warm you up?”

  I looked across the table and down a few seats where Monsieur Girard was sitting. My second host father’s eyes were not looking as good-humored now and they kept shifting back and forth between me and Florian

  In English, I said to Florian, “Monsieur Girard is my second host father during my year here. One of the rules for exchange students such as me is ‘No dating.’”

  “What!? But that is simply unnatural! How old are you?”

  “Almost eighteen.”

  “They cannot possibly tell an almost-eighteen-year-old girl that she has to be celibate for a year.”

  I tended to agree. Telling an eighteen-year-old girl she couldn’t fall in love was like telling the tide it couldn’t come to the shore.

  “How old are you?” I asked, almost as an afterthought.

  “Twenty-one,” he said.

  That was good. I’d always liked guys who were slightly older.

  “I don’t really know what to think about the Ursus rules,” I admitted. I’m not clear on how strictly they are applied.”

  “What are the rest of the rules?” Florian asked as he passed me a basket filled with delectably warm cheese puffs.

  “No Drinking,” I began.

  “Well, you broke that one,” Florian observed. Indeed, my glass was already filled with wine.

  “As far as I can tell that particular rule doesn’t seem to apply to exchanges to Burgundy.”

  “Logique,” surmised Florian.

  “No Dating.”

  “Like I said—unnatural.”

  “No Drugs.”

  Florian shrugged over this one. “That shouldn’t be too much of a problem.”

  “No Driving.”

  “Even a vineyard tractor?”

  I shrugged. “I guess so. I’m not sure.”

  I had barely noticed that my plate had been whisked away, but another—heaping with tiny round grains and delicious steamed carrots and other vegetables with hot sausage—had been placed in front of me. A delectable spicy sauce soaked into everything.

  I took several bites to take the edge off my hunger. “This is delicious,” I said, changing the topic. “What is it?”

  “Couscous. It is a North African specialty from Morocco and Tunisia.”

  “It’s fantastic.”

  “Back to this ‘No Dating’ rule,” Florian said, not to be distracted, “I’m Swiss. Compared to the French, we love rules. This is why Switzerland is so much cleaner and the trains always run on time, and why my whole country is so much more pleasant than France. Still I cannot agree with this no dating nonsense.”

  “France is pleasant.” I felt defensive of my adopted homeland.

  “Have you ever been here when they are in the streets striking over something or other? They are always striking.” His lips twisted with disdain.

  Maybe France wasn’t perfect, but the anarchy here had a certain chaotic energy that I found invigorating. France, at least, was never boring. You couldn’t say the same for Switzerland or Canada.

  “What if I stole a kiss?” Florian leaned closer so he could whisper in my ear. “Would that be dating?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said, but I found myself wishing that Florian would stop flirting for a few minutes. The food on my plate was delicious and deserved my full attention. “Monsieur Girard is watching us pretty closely,” I added, forking up another bite of couscous.

  Florian glanced his way. “So he is. Then we’ll just have to find a place where he can’t see us.”

  “I just met you. Maybe I’m not ready to kiss you yet.”

  “You look to me like a girl who is ready to be kissed.”

  That was a bit presumptuous. “We’ll see. In the meantime, I’m loving this couscous stuff.”

  Luckily Florian didn’t appear to be easily offended. “It’s delicious,” he agreed. “They always feed us well. That’s why the same people come back year after year. For the wine too.” Florian refilled my wineglass, which I had drained almost without noticing. There was a definite dearth of water during the harvest—it appeared to be assumed that we got all of our hydration though wine.

  When the couscous plates were cleared, two enormous cheese plates were passed around the table.

  Florian insisted I serve myself first.

  “I take it you like cheese,” he surmised, after watching me make several selections.

  “You must love cheese too, being from Switzerland.”

  He passed the cheese platter on to the person on his other side. “Actually, I don’t like cheese.”

  “What?”

  He shrugged in apology.

  “Never?”

  “Never. My mother kept trying, but I’ve hated the taste since I was a baby.”

  I began to entertain grave doubts about Florian. I didn’t think I could trust someone who didn’t like cheese, let alone fall in love with them.

  He took my hand under the table then and squeezed it. “It leaves my hands free to do other things.”

  Perhaps that sounded like a good idea for him, but I had plans to enjoy my cheese, and trying to eat it one-handed was decidedly awkward.

  Still, his hand was warm. It felt nice to be touched.

  So I ate my cheese with one hand while Florian held the other under the table and carried on a conversation in French with the guy beside him, perhaps for the benefit of Monsieur Girard, whose gaze was still riveted in our direction.

  The cheese plates were whisked away shortly after I had finished. I wasn’t sure who was working in the kitchen, but the service there would have put most five star restaurants to shame.

  Out of the kitchen came four huge glass bowls of what appeared to be chocolate mousse, carried by two chattering, middle-aged women.Yet another one of my favorite things…

  Along with that were baskets of fine, lacy little biscuits shaped like rounded roof tiles and which Florian called tuiles.

  The old grandmother makes these every year,” he said, “as well as the chocolate mousse. You will never taste better, I guarantee it.”

  After tasting both, I decided that I may be able to trust Florian a bit, even though he didn’t like cheese. The wine kept flowing, even through the dessert course. It stopped only after the dessert was cleared away, when we were all served tiny cups of espresso so strong and bitter that I had to grit my teeth to get it down. It was perfect.

  A few minutes later the cowbell rang again, so loud that I jumped.

  Florian gave my hand a squeeze under the table and let it go. “Back to work.” I suspected from his expression that he was considering sneaking a kiss as well, but luckily he glanced at Monsieur Girard first. He was still watching us.

  The harvesters were lining up to use the various bathrooms in the house, and Florian came to find me as I was climbing into the back of the now-empty trailer attached to one of the tractors. He squeezed in beside me and in one fluid movement dipped down and dropped a quick kiss on my lips.

  “Oh!” I breathed, surprised. Nobody around us seemed to have noticed or, if they h
ad, found it anything unusual. I had been surprised, so the kiss was difficult to evaluate. The spontaneity was nice. No lightning bolt, but I was intrigued enough to investigate further. Besides, wasn’t it wiser to enjoy what was right in front of me rather than saving myself for some fantasy man I’d concocted in my overactive imagination?

  “I wanted to do that throughout the entire lunch,” he said, and then he leaned in and whispered into my ear. “I’ll try to get assigned to your row.”

  I chuckled. “We’ll probably get yelled at again.”

  “It would be worth it,” he said.

  CHAPTER 11

  Unfortunately, seconds after I’d been deposited back in the vineyards, the clouds opened and the vineyards became a pit of pale brown, squishy mud. The pouring rain put a distinct crimp in any planned dalliance. I regretted my decision to leave my rain pants back at the domaine yet again.

  The festive mood of the morning shifted into something more subdued, reflecting the weather. Everyone worked hunched over, knees inches deep in the ever-increasing mud. We still drank from the bottles being passed up and down the vineyards—but I would have gladly traded them for a piping-hot coffee or a hot chocolate, as the damp cold penetrated my bones.

  The afternoon dragged on forever. I began to count each clump of grapes that went into my bucket to pass the time. I counted to one hundred and then back again several times. I could not remember ever having felt this exhausted, even after the lunch at Mamy’s house when I was freshly arrived from Canada. Madame Beaupre was right. Wine was the result of hard, backbreaking work.

  Florian had not managed to be assigned to my row. In any case, all the carriers had their hoods drawn tightly around their heads and were pretty much indistinguishable from one another.

  About three hours after I thought I couldn’t go on any longer, the cowbell rang. I tried to stand up on shaking legs. I slipped and landed flat on my back in Burgundy’s prized limestone-rich earth, which had been cultivated for winemaking since Roman times. The rain splattered on my cheeks and hair. I had no idea how I would manage another day. Even Florian wasn’t enough of a draw for that.

  I unstuck myself limb by limb and didn’t even try to brush myself off before heading over to the vehicles—there was so much mud on everyone that nobody would even notice.

  I climbed back into the back of the tractor, my muscles protesting with every movement. Florian was nowhere to be seen, and I was too tired to look very hard for him.

  I’d brought a change of clothes for myself, but we were all made to change in the utilitarian bathroom off the cuverie, which had only a sink and a toilet. I could hardly blame them—I wouldn’t let people as muddy as me into the house either.

  My fellow harvesters were silent, wrapped in their own thoughts, sitting on the floor or in the few chairs that were scattered around the room with their heads either in their hands or rested on one of their arms, catching a catnap. I yawned. I wasn’t sure I would be able to make it through dinner without falling asleep in my plate. I had already learned that while dinners were many things in Burgundy, one thing they were not was fast.

  In the bathroom, I peeled off my soaking, muddy clothes and shoved them in my backpack. I’d have to do this laundry myself. I couldn’t in all good conscience allow Madame Beaupre to undertake such a monumental task. My skin had taken on a distinct brownish tinge from the mud. I tried to wipe it off with a little mitten-like facecloth, but that only appeared to push it deeper into my pores. Grape harvesting wasn’t quite as idyllic in reality as it had been in my daydreams. Which of my other French fantasies were, in fact, part delusion?

  I gave up and slipped on a clean pair of jeans and a turquoise cotton sweater. I managed to wipe some of the mud off my face, though there was still a healthy quantity in my hair and on my scalp. I raked my hair back into another ponytail with my fingers.

  I returned to the cuverie where the grape pressing machine was humming and clunking. Monsieur Girard beckoned me over.

  “So Laura,” he asked me in his bashful way. “How did you like your first day of grape harvesting?”

  “I loved it.” Granted, the aching muscles and the endless mud hadn’t been part of my initial daydream, but I felt a deep satisfaction from being a part—albeit a small one—in this year’s Burgundy vintage.

  “Are you sore?” Monsieur Girard talked slowly and articulated his words with extreme care. If he had been speaking in English it probably would have driven me bonkers, but in French it was perfect.

  “Very,” I admitted.

  He smiled shyly. “Just wait until tomorrow morning.” He looked me up and down. “The mud is the sign of a good day’s work. Burgundy’s mud is prized around the world, you know.”

  “Then I must be extremely valuable at the moment.” I said as I watched the churning of the press. “How do the grapes look?”

  He peered in and then nodded back at me. “Winemakers never like to admit when they look good. We’re an extremely suspicious lot, you know, but…they don’t look bad, shall we say? I was worried about getting them in quickly when it began to rain. I had to assign a few more people to the sorting table, of course, but overall I am satisfied. Tiens, do you want a taste?”

  He went over to a nearby table where there was a tower of plastic glasses piled up. He plucked one off the top and then went to the front of the machine where the freshly squeezed grape juice was pouring out the spout. He filled a glass about half way and passed it to me.

  “It will taste sour, but will still give you—or it will give me—de toute manière, an idea of the personality of this year’s vintage.”

  I took a sip. I fought to keep my lips from puckering from the sour taste. It was intriguing though. I took another.

  “Are you interested in winemaking?’ he asked, watching me.

  “Of course,” I said. “There is so much I want to learn. I know next to nothing.”

  “Really?”

  “Why are you so surprised?”

  He shrugged. “I wish I could get my children interested, but all this generation of Burgundian children want to do is move to Paris. They don’t seem to care much about tradition or the land.”

  “How could you not be interested in wine?” I asked, more to myself than anyone else. I didn’t know much then but was hungry to learn everything I could. To me, winemaking, especially in Burgundy, seemed as much an art as a science, and one imbued with century-old traditions and rituals. With wine, my love of gastronomy, creativity, and history were merging together to create what was fast becoming a true passion.

  “When you come and live with us I will teach you,” he said. “It would be my pleasure.”

  And with that, he launched into a detailed explanation of the workings of the grape press. I tried hard to follow, but the language became highly technical and he lost me. I kept nodding, trying to ignore my grumbling stomach and shaking legs as he waxed on about pumps and filters.

  Finally, the clang of the cowbell made Monsieur break off his explanation. He looked disappointed but told me to go and find a place at the table. He said he still had one more load of grapes to see safely crushed before he could think about eating his dinner.

  He caught my arm as I turned around to leave.

  “That Swiss boy…Florian…is he bothering you?” My heart beat a bit faster in my chest.

  “Florian?” I said. “No. We just enjoy talking to each other. I’m merely interested in learning about other European countries,” I lied. No way was I admitting to enjoying Florian’s attention.

  “You are all of our responsibility,” he reminded me. “You are young and charmante, not to mention very far from home.”

  “It’s nothing like that,” I assured him, feeling instant guilt at my duplicity.

  “I have a daughter of my own,” he said. “I am a protective father. My daughter would surely say overprotective, but I feel a responsibility as your host father to make sure that you stay out of trouble.”

  Florian
was waiting for me at the table and waved me over. I didn’t want to give Monsieur Girard grounds for any further suspicions, but then again I had hopefully reassured him. This was a cultural exchange after all. I was learning about life in Switzerland and, well…getting a better feel for Swiss people…

  I slid into the seat beside Florian.

  “I thought he was never going to let you go!” he said.

  “He was showing me how the grapes were pressed. He asked about you too. He reminded me about the ‘No dating’ rule.”

  “What did you tell him?” Florian’s blue eyes widened with alarm.

  “I told him you were teaching me interesting things about the customs of Switzerland.”

  Florian laughed and I joined in, struck by the irony of it all. In Canada I had been free to date, yet not many guys had ever lined up for the opportunity.

  A jovial, round-faced fellow on my other side was already hoisting a glass filled to the brim with what I recognized as kir to his mouth. “What is so funny?” he demanded in a heavy German accent.

  “Nothing,” I said. “We were just joking about the mud.”

  “It was terrible,” he said. “I got so stuck at one point, Florian had to come and rescue me.” He patted his rotund gut like it was a beloved friend. “This makes it difficult to get up and down easily.”

  “You could drink less beer and lose it, Heinrich.” Florian leaned across me, ensuring as much bodily contact as possible, and poked his German friend.

  I wasn’t sure if Heinrich was going to be offended, but he chuckled and patted his stomach again.

  “Why would I do such an absurd thing? I do not usually roll around in the mud like I did today, but I enjoy drinking beer and eating delicious food all year round. Now speak some reason please, mein freund.”

  The dinner that night, Florian told me, was going to be coq au vin. “The grandmother makes it herself,” he added. “Just like les tuiles and the chocolate mousse we had at lunch.”