The French for Love

by Valpy, Fiona

  Suddenly I hear the words ‘... Thibault frères...’ and I tune in to a conversation Robert and Christine are having with Benoît and Jacqueline.

  ‘Marie-Louise says Raphael’s hand is still quite bad,’ says Christine. ‘It’s taking a long time for the break to mend. But it doesn’t stop him turning up on site to tell them they’re not doing the job right!’ The others chuckle appreciatively.

  ‘What are they working on at the moment?’ asks Jacqueline.

  ‘The church at Les Lèves,’ replies Robert. ‘They won the contract to redo all the stonework, including the bell tower. It’s a massive job. Short-handed as they are, they’re going to battle to finish it on time. They’re working straight through every weekend at the moment.’

  Suddenly my bedroom ceiling seems a total embarrassment. I now appreciate fully what a favour Cédric and his brothers have done me. And how much clout their diminutive mother must have over her strapping sons to have persuaded them to help me out in the first place. I’m beginning to wish I’d taken up Cédric’s offer of the contact details of a plasterer. I’m quite sure finishing off the work on my roof is a complete nuisance for them and they’re just too polite to say so—or too afraid of Mireille. But at the same time I feel a pang of longing for Cédric’s company and a sense of profound sadness at the thought that, once the work on my house is finished, I won’t have any excuse to see him again. I keep quiet, feeling ashamed and deflated, and take another sip of my coffee. The others down theirs and push back their chairs.

  Robert and Benoît leave the table first, heading back out into the vines for the next load. Back in the chai, the sides of the two steel vats we’ve been filling are now covered in droplets of condensation up to the level of the cooling grapes and juice within. We work on steadily and by five o’clock we’ve filled three cuves with white grapes.

  ‘Good work,’ enthuses Patrick as he inspects the temperature control panel’s winking lights.

  At the end of the long day I’m bone-achingly tired. The restorative effects of lunch have worn off long ago and there’s been no stopping for a British-style tea break in the afternoon. And now we have to hose down the equipment, taking apart the de-stemming machine and rinsing every grape skin and stalk out of its honeycombed drum. Then we clean the pump and all the tubing, spewing residue onto the chai floor. This then has to be scraped up using a long-handled rubber blade and shovelled into bins. Finally the cement floor has to be hosed down and the water scraped into the drain that runs down the centre of the chai. Finally, at six o’clock, peace falls as Jacqueline turns off the pressure sprayer and I scrape away the last drops of water.

  ‘Impeccable,’ declares Patrick.

  I am now so tired I can hardly speak. I ache all over and my head feels heavy and dull from trying to follow the rapid-fire colloquial French spoken by my colleagues in such strong accents. I’m cold and damp and hungry.

  It’s the best day I’ve had in ages.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A Lesson in Chemistry

  To-Do list:

  •MW coursework (evenings, when possible, but usually collapse straight into bed with exhaustion)

  •List of questions for meeting with oenologist

  •Food shopping— inc. more chocolate HobNobs

  The first week of the harvest passes in a blur.

  The highlight of each day is the lunch break when we all gather on the terrace for another of Christine’s delicious, and apparently effortlessly prepared, meals. It’s not just the good food and the welcome chance to sit down in the sun-dappled warmth for an hour or so. I find myself slowly starting to feel included, a fellow-worker and one of the team rather than just a curious foreigner who’s popped along to play at winemaking for a day or two. I’ve tuned in to the personalities of the group and the rhythm of the work in the chai and no longer feel like a clumsy outsider as I learn the steps to the whirling waltz of the wine harvest. Finally, instead of just reading about it in books, I’m joining in the dance. And at the same time I realise I’m becoming part of a community here; maybe even building myself some new foundations after feeling so unsettled for so long.

  Each night I soak my aching limbs in a hot bath and then collapse wearily into bed. Once I was so tired I even fell asleep in the tub, the cooling water jerking me back to consciousness as it lapped around my stiffening shoulders. And I sleep better than I have done in ages. The combination of physical labour, hearty meals and stimulating company is a healthier diet than I’ve had for a long time.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The unmistakeable scent of fermentation begins to percolate through the chai, a fruity yeastiness that hints at the extraordinary changes that are taking place in the vats of grape juice. And most days Sylvie Clemenceau, the oenologist, comes by to discuss the results of the latest tests that have been carried out on samples from each of the cuves. Patrick and Thomas call me over the first day she arrives.

  I take to her immediately. Her wide brown eyes and mop of curly hair accompany a smile as warm as the early autumn sunshine outside the chai door. Her manner tells of a quiet competence, as she patiently explains each step of the testing process and the results for my benefit.

  ‘So it’s as we would expect after such a hot summer: the sugar levels are very high, which is going to translate to higher alcohol levels in the wine than normal. Rather like many reds from the New World that are grown in hot, sunny climates. There’s also a greater risk of the fermentation stopping before it’s complete so we’ll have to watch for that. We may need to use different yeast. We will need to filter later on. And we’ll probably add a little more of the press wine than usual to the free run. The blending is going to be critical to make sure we get the balance right.’

  ‘Fortunately, Gina has an excellent palate,’ says Thomas. ‘We’ll include you when it comes to the blending stage,’ he says, turning to me.

  ‘In the meantime,’ offers Sylvie, ‘if you’d like to come and spend a morning with me in the lab you’d be very welcome. I can show you exactly how the samples are tested and how we obtain and record the results.’

  ‘I’d love to,’ I reply. ‘That’ll be a huge help in trying to understand some of the chemistry.’ I turn to Patrick and Thomas. ‘If the Cortinis can spare me, that is?’

  Patrick smiles. ‘Well, it’ll be a loss, but we’ll let you have a morning off once we start pressing the Clairet. For once, the weather is on our side this year.’

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  And so a few days later I present myself at the little laboratory in Saint André-et-Appelles for a morning’s apprenticeship. It’s a very different place of work, a tiny pair of rooms with clinical white walls, although everything is as scrupulously, almost surgically clean as the equipment in the chai. When I arrive, Sylvie is talking to a winemaker who has come to hand in some samples. ‘Come on through,’ she says once he has departed, and she shows me to the little lab behind the reception room. Crates of sample bottles are stacked high, each one neatly labelled. ‘As you can see, it’s very important to be systematic and to make a careful note of where each sample is from,’ she says. ‘Imagine how disastrous it would be if we gave the wrong results back.’

  She hands me a white coat. ‘Here, put this on. Now you look the part. We’ll make a chemist of you yet!’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, ‘but I think it’s going to take more than a white coat to achieve that.’

  We perch on stools at a long counter and Sylvie shows me how she carries out the basic tests. ‘For more complex analysis we send the samples to the main lab at Sauveterre,’ she explains. ‘The turnaround is fast and we can have the results back to each vigneron the same day.’

  We are interrupted at regular intervals as more samples are dropped off, and at eleven o’clock the driver arrives to collect the batches to be taken to the Sauveterre laboratory.

  We pause then for a welcome c
offee break. While it’s less physically tiring than working in the chai, I’m finding it mentally exhausting trying to keep track of the stream of information Sylvie is imparting. I scribble notes frantically. But light is beginning to dawn and it’s already far clearer seeing the chemistry in action than my attempts to understand it from the textbooks.

  ‘So that covers the main tests we do at this stage in the winemaking process,’ Sylvie summarises. ‘And of course the other major round of testing we do is in the spring, to establish whether or not malolactic fermentation has taken place. Let me show you how we do that to give you an idea. I think I have some old duplicate results.’ She pulls open the drawer of a filing cabinet and extracts a folder.

  ‘Ah yes, here we are. As you know, we need to make sure that the malic acid has been transformed into softer lactic acid, and this happens during a second fermentation, which may occur in the tank or after the wine has been put into barrels.’ She hands me two squares of textured white paper. ‘Can you spot the difference?’

  I ponder the purple-brown stains on each of the sheets, fading in a spectrum as the paper, exposed to a chemical solvent, has separated out the different constituents of the wine as they soaked their way up to the top of the paper. Finally I point to the right-hand one. ‘This one has a gap, just here,’ I say.

  ‘Exactly right,’ replies Sylvie. ‘What it is showing is an absence of malic acid, which is still present on the other sheet—here, you see? So that is how we know the second fermentation has taken place. We test for something that isn’t there, rather than something that is. In other words, we’re looking for a negative.’

  And suddenly, triggered by her words, my mind catapults off at a complete tangent. Why didn’t I think of it before? A negative. There has to be one. Of the photo of my father. And maybe there’ll be others too. Images that will give me more of a clue about the extent and timing of their relationship. Pieces of the nightmarish jigsaw that I’m trying to put together, with most of the bits missing and no idea of the final picture. I can hardly concentrate on the rest of what Sylvie is saying and am relieved when the hands of the clock nudge round to midday and it’s lunchtime.

  ‘Thanks very much, Sylvie. It was a wonderful morning, so helpful,’ I say as I leave.

  I get into my car and head up the hill for home. Lafite, who’s been curled up peacefully on a chair in the kitchen, looks up startled as I crash through the door, flinging my keys onto the table.

  I head straight through to the study. Liz’s files are arranged in one of the big bookcases that line the walls, each neatly labelled by year. Within them, alphabetical dividers separate plastic sleeves which hold strips of negatives, each marked with a small white sticker giving the name of the subject and the precise date the photos were taken. I work feverishly, going first to the folder for 1980, the year of my birth. I start with the obvious (which would be making things just too simple of course, but I live in hope), turning to ‘P’ for Peplow and then ‘D’ for David. I leaf through the plastic sleeves but find nothing. I need to think more laterally. I turn to ‘W’ for wine. There are several strips of pictures of wine bottles and barrels, but no picture of my father tagged on to one of these as an afterthought. 1981 is the same. Next I seize the folder marked 1979, the year my parents met, the year of their wedding. I’m certain Liz and Dad didn’t meet before this; my mother told me so categorically when I asked why Liz wasn’t in the wedding photos, so this is the very earliest year from which the photo could date. I page through again, squinting as I hold strips of negatives up to the light to make sure none of the figures is Dad.

  Liz was a professional. She methodically and systematically catalogued every picture she took. Even ones that turned out badly are still here, though they’ve been scored through with a marking pen. Some of them are amazing. Pictures of fashion models and portraits of film stars leap out at me. But none is the photo I’m looking for. Finally, just as I’m about to give up, I page through the 1979 folder and turn randomly to ‘V’. And there it is. ‘Vins, Salon, Bordeaux. 22-24 Oct 1979’ in Liz’s neat handwriting. My father used to come to these wine exhibitions every year for his work. I pull out the three strips of negatives, holding each up to the window to scrutinise them in the light. There are figures in many of the pictures, but none is my father. I start to slide the strips of film back into their transparent sleeves. And then I stop. Each frame is numbered with its own tiny digits. And between two of the strips, three numbers are missing. I check back through the other pages of negatives. All the numbers are there. It’s only on the strip I’m holding in my trembling fingers that three of the frames have been carefully cut off. And I realise I have a result.

  Just like the test at the lab, sometimes you have to look for what is missing.

  The acid test for a guilty conscience.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  That night my insomnia returns with a vengeance.

  After discovering the missing negatives, confirming that the incriminating photo of Dad was taken after my parents were married, I’ve spent the afternoon back at the château working in the chai. I’ve lugged equipment to and fro and run up and down the catwalk’s steep metal stairs countless times to readjust pipes over the top of the vats. I’ve wheeled a heavy canister of carbon dioxide gas from one end of the winery to the other, and I’ve helped wrestle into place the lengths of steel piping to carry the contents of the vats of Clairet to the press, causing a minor disaster when, distracted by the thought of those missing negatives (what was Dad doing in the other two pictures?), I accidentally undid one of the joints too early, flooding the floor of the chai with sticky pink juice, pips and skins. Clearing up took even longer than usual this evening.

  I was too preoccupied to eat any lunch and too distracted to eat supper. Lafite’s indignant, hungry meowing finally made me put away the files that I had spread about the study floor, kneeling in the middle of them and looking for more missing negatives. But it seems Liz didn’t go to any more Salons des Vins. I could find no similar entries in subsequent folders. I remind myself to take deep breaths, but Letting Go seems a less attainable goal than ever.

  So now my head aches from squinting at negatives, my stomach is growling with hunger and yet again I’m wide awake at two a.m., my mind buzzing. What have I learned? That the photo of Dad was very probably taken either during or immediately after the wine exhibition. Meaning that he’d been married to Mum for about four months. And I would be born eight months later.

  In my crazier moments, I wonder again whether this means Liz was really my mother, picturing the scenario where Mum agreed to raise the baby, the result of a moment of madness between her husband and her sister. Could she have faked those photos in the album at home? Surely not. And certainly not that caesarean scar. I turn over in bed and thump the pillow in annoyance, trying to make a more comfortable cushion for my pounding head.

  The good thing, small consolation though it may be, is that it looks as if maybe they didn’t spend time together again. Although I realise there’s no evidence for this. Maybe she just stopped taking photos of him after the first time...

  I think of the urn of Liz’s ashes, still on the coffee table in the sitting room. I’m no nearer to deciding what to do with it. But tomorrow I’m going to shut the door so I don’t have to look at it every time I go past. Ha! That’ll teach her. Though of course it won’t.

  Troubled, broken dreams blur the boundaries between wakefulness and sleep, a shifting kaleidoscope of faces and photographs. I dream I’m in the chai with Dad and I give him a glass of wine to try from one of the vats. It’s a wine I’ve made myself. I wait with pride, and some trepidation, to hear his verdict. ‘God, Gina, this is absolutely dire,’ he says. ‘What have you done to it?’ Furious, I take the glass and taste it myself. He’s right. It’s off. Sulphurous and stinking. Like wet dog and mouldy rubber. The liquid is murky and covered in slime, like water in a stagnant pond. I look
around the chai and see Liz pressing buttons on the temperature control panel. ‘Hey!’ I shout. ‘Get away from there!’ She ignores me and the lights start to flash a warning, an electronic alarm beeping insistently. And I struggle up, surfacing through the layers of sleep to find my alarm going off because it’s time to get up once again and go to work at Château de la Chapelle.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Lost in Translation—and

  Found Again

  To-Do list:

  •Keep taking deep breaths and letting go—ongoing

  •MW coursework—ongoing

  •Buy teabags and HobNobs

  By the time the last of the Cabernet Sauvignon has been pressed, it’s the middle of October. I’ve been working at Château de la Chapelle for four weeks and the harvest is now over. Across the region, only the occasional harvesting machine can still be seen sailing ponderously up and down the vineyard rows, bringing in the late-harvested Sémillon grapes at the chateaus where they make the sweet wines for which Monbazillac and Sauternes are famous. The bunches are furred with a blanket of noble rot and will be made into a golden nectar that is as mellow as the autumn sunlight.

  The final job for us in the chai is to decant the fermented and pressed red wines carefully into barrels. Universally acknowledged as the best in the world, the wood comes from ancient forests in the middle of France. Englishmen may lay claim to hearts of oak, but France’s heart truly is made of oak and each year she generously sacrifices a little to help finish off the wines that her sons and daughters have laboured so hard to create. The Cortinis replace about a third of their barrels each year, so Jacqueline and I are unwrapping the bulky, curved parcels that have been delivered from the barrel-maker. I love the smell of the wood and stroke the smooth fineness of its grain as I peel off the plastic covers. We roll the barrels into position in the cellar and wedge chocks under each one to hold it in place. Then, closely supervised by their father, Thomas and Robert connect up the pumps and pipes that will lead the wine from the vats into each barrique, where it will stay for up to a year while the deep red liquid is suffused with the smooth vanilla flavours from the wood, which help to add depth and balance to the mix of fruit and tannins.