Glass Half Full

by Caro Feely

  Then the dark mass boiled out, as if an invisible force holding it back had let go. It rolled like angry water released from a dam wall and raced over Saussignac Castle. The hail drumbeat on the roof increased. We stopped talking. The noise outside reached fever pitch; rain and hail pounding, and wind thrashing the trees and vines relentlessly.

  I felt like our lives were suspended over a void. In a few minutes our harvest could be shredded. Some long seconds passed as we stood mesmerised, then the mass split into two and the destructive darkness raced away; one part towards Gageacet-Rouillac in the east, the other to Razac-de-Saussignac in the west. The battering of the hail calmed, then stopped.

  'Holy smokes,' I said.

  'That was close,' said Seán.

  Christophe was wide-eyed.

  'I wonder what the damage is?' I said.

  'Not as bad as it could have been,' said Seán as he rinsed the glasses.

  'We should go and check now,' I said.

  'Relax,' said Seán. 'If we see it now or in ten minutes it's not going to make any difference.'

  I swallowed my panic and tried to concentrate on the wine.

  The sun came out. Like the returning light, the last wine was golden: our Saussignac botrytis dessert wine.

  If it were not for the hailstones thick against the tasting-room door, it would have been hard for a newcomer to believe a storm had passed.

  'This is very good,' said Christophe after taking a sniff and a sip. 'It's like a trockenbeerenauslese.'

  He took another sip, savoured it and spat into the spittoon, then set his glass down.

  'Your wines are great. Real terroir. I would love to stay and talk more but I should leave you as I know you're anxious to check the grapes.'

  He had a reserved Northern European way about him. We were in the midst of a crisis and he acknowledged that but was calm. I wondered what they would do in southern Italy, Sicily or Corsica in a similar situation – probably scream and race out into the vineyard as I felt like doing.

  'It is what it is,' said Seán. 'I think we missed the worst of it.'

  We exchanged bottles with Christophe. The tradition of swapping wine with other winegrowers was one we cherished. Since becoming winemakers we rarely drank wine made by someone we didn't know. It added a special dimension to our enjoyment of our favourite drink.

  As we waved his small white car farewell, our minds were already in the vineyard. Before the car had turned up the hill to Saussignac I was pulling on my boots. Night was falling. We needed to get out there fast.

  With a worker lamp in hand, we followed the track below our house, a long stone building covered in grey concrete. Beneath the seventies concrete that the locals called crépi we knew there were original cut stones that had been quarried on the farm. Removing it was one of many tasks that would keep us busy far into the future. If the hail damage was bad, that and other projects would be pushed out. Sometimes I felt like we took one step forward to take two steps back.

  The Dordogne Valley spread below us like a quilt of perfect country scenes. Vineyards, plum orchards, forests and pasture were sewn together, patterns of green and gold with the river in the middle. The scene looked so peaceful and safe. Yet the village of Mardenne's only water source was one of 500 community wells that had special project status because it was so polluted by local farmers' activities. A programme of phone calls and meetings had been initiated to cajole farmers to stop using the legal poisons that were showing up in the water. So far it wasn't working. Recent analysis of the town's water showed the herbicide level to be so high that there wasn't a scale for it. A farmer had weedkilled a field hours before a storm and it had washed the herbicide directly into the community's water. The herbicide was glyphosate, classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as 'probably' carcinogenic. It was still legal in the EU and should have been banned long before. Mardenne's well showed glyphosate but also traces of chemicals that had been banned for more than ten years, including atrazine and arsenic. Atrazine was a popular herbicide in the twentieth century but has been shown to be a persistent endocrine disrupter and carcinogen. Arsenic is a famous poison – it was a favourite method for murder in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance – but was considered a great idea as an agricultural pesticide in the 1900s. It is a poison that can kill and in smaller doses it leads to nervous-system disruption that can be the cause of diseases like Alzheimer's. When I thought about it I felt desperate, frustrated and very grateful that our tap water didn't come from there.

  Our local Saussignac district was slowly transforming to organic farming. A large percentage of winegrowers had already converted: around 20 per cent of the vineyard surface area, compared to an average in France of around 4 per cent at the time. Local farmers had started on the road to organic for different personal reasons. One neighbouring couple were driven to find an alternative to chemical farming when their five-year-old daughter got leukaemia. Their research concluded that systemic chemicals were behind their daughter's terrible disease and they went organic. With treatment their daughter recovered. Another close friend went organic after realising chemical farming was bad for the quality of his wine and for his long-term yield despite what the agricultural advisers said. Not surprisingly, many of the 'advisers' were connected to the sale of agricultural chemicals.

  I set aside my thoughts about Mardenne's water calamity and focused on our immediate one – the hail. The vines alongside us were covered in green plumage and, without getting closer, I knew the storm had not been as devastating as the one in StÉmilion a couple of years before. Then the vines had been hit so hard that it looked like winter, the leaves and just-set fruit shredded off the trellis, leaving only the solid wood and cane structures like emaciated skeletons.

  But, given the fragile state of our almost ripe fruit, even a small amount of hail could wreck our crop and the old Sémillon vines that ran down the east-facing slope looked ruffled. There was no mistaking that the storm had passed through.

  I stepped into a row and lifted leaves so I could scrutinise the grapes.

  'No broken skin here,' I said, feeling a flood of relief.

  'Nor here,' said Seán, doing the same on the next row. 'A bit windblown, that's all.'

  'Thank God.' I popped a grape into my mouth. After chewing and tasting the skin and pulp, I spat the pips into my hand to look at the colour. There was still a line of bright green along the centre. They were almost ready. In a few days the green would diminish and the pips would brown and start to taste a little nutty instead of bitter astringent.

  'I think we should pick on Thursday as planned,' said Seán after doing the same.

  Each year we started harvest with a vague idea of which days would be ideal for each grape and then adjusted our plan based on the weather and development of the grapes. We were on target.

  We kept walking, hurrying but stopping every few rows to check the bunches. The vines changed from Sémillon to Sauvignon Blanc.

  'The further we go the more roughed up the vines look,' I said. 'Thank God this Sauvignon is safe in the winery.'

  Seán nodded.

  'There are a few perforated leaves here,' he said, lifting one to show me.

  I felt anxiety rising and wondered what we would find around the corner in the Hillside Merlot, our last parcel on this stretch of land, a steep east-south-east slope already dark with the shadows of the evening.

  In the first row of it I found grapes with broken skin.

  'We've been hit,' I said, my heartbeat pounding in my ears and my mind racing to the implications.

  Seán looked up from the next row.

  'Here too. It looks bad but I don't think it's as serious as you might think, Mrs C,' he said, using a nickname he had given me years before. 'We hand-pick this parcel so we can remove any damaged grapes when we harvest.'

  'But won't damage bring bugs? And rot?' I said.

  'It could. But is there enough to hit the emergency button? This is one of our best red vineya
rds. We need it for red. If we pick now it will only be good for rosé. Let's count how many damaged grapes we find on the last two rows.'

  We each took a row.

  'Around one broken grape every three bunches,' I said as I reached the end of mine.

  'You see. Less than one per cent,' said Seán. 'It was the same for me. Definitely not enough to warrant picking when it isn't ripe.'

  'But even a little damage could bring rot,' I repeated.

  'That's a risk,' said Seán. 'Let's go and check the other Merlot.'

  Feeling a little light-headed with a combination of anxiety and relief, we crossed a semicircle of grass cupped by a curved wall of limestone that we called the amphitheatre, home to a giant fig tree. It presided over the area like a dark-green wise woman. Its gorgeous lush leaves offered deep shade; its fresh fruit fed us for weeks in season and its jam the rest of the year. Through the summer its tantalising scent reached way over to the vineyard, an aroma so uplifting that French perfume producers sold a home fragrance called Sous le Figuier (Under the Fig Tree). Passing it, I couldn't resist picking a fig despite our haste. I was a figaholic. When Seán visited the farm for the first time and told me it had copious fig trees, I declared, 'It was made for us!' If it had figs I was ready to buy.

  A few metres past the fig, a staircase of wood and stone wound up the cliff from the amphitheatre to the tasting room. Clambering up the uneven steps – the fastest route – I thought of Ad and his son Adrian, friends from Holland, who had made the steps. Back then there was no tasting room, wine school or Wine Lodge accommodation. Now the view above us was filled by two structures built on to the original stone walls of abandoned workshop, pigsty and stables from the nineteenth century. Each time I saw the buildings I felt a wave of gratitude. Their oak frames were works of art, like the everchanging views they offered on to the vineyards. We reached the top and stopped.

  'What a view,' said Seán. 'Even after the storm.'

  We took in the scene for a few moments, then he sighed deeply and said, 'We had better get on or the light will be gone.'

  That sigh was the first sign of how worried he was. It said so much about the care, attention and sweat that had gone into the vineyard and the disillusion that the grapes could be destroyed in a few minutes. Even if the damage was slight, the hail was a reminder of how fragile we were in the face of nature.

  To keep up with Seán's long stride, my fast walk broke into a trot. We passed our herb potager (kitchen garden) and turned towards Saussignac along a grassy track that ran alongside baby Cabernet Sauvignon vines we had planted three years before. Setting up the tiny vineyard had taken tenacity – first to get the vineyard-planting rights (an archaic quota system), then to establish the vines. Like the buildings, it was a vote for the future.

  We reached the end of the baby vines and the start of the last Merlot vineyards.

  'The same procedure as the last vineyard?' I asked, using a phrase from a favourite film, Dinner for One.

  'The same procedure,' said Seán, giving me a weak smile – another sign that he was worried.

  'What do you think?' I said as we reached the end.

  'I think the arguments are the same though it's clearly worse. We'll lose more by jumping the gun and turning it into rosé than by waiting and removing the damaged grapes when we handpick. I'll do some research on what we can do to limit the risk of rot. A clay spray can help the healing but this close to harvest I'm not sure there's much we can do.'

  A little further on, we reached our last small triangle of Merlot. It was worse again.

  'What will we do?' I said.

  'This vineyard isn't big enough to call the machine out and picking by hand with just the two of us isn't viable. Anyway it would make such a small volume it would cost more to harvest than it would generate. We may have to forget this section,' said Seán. 'We'll see closer to harvest.'

  I nodded. It was a tiny area but we were a small producer and every grape mattered. I felt a wave of worry wash over me.

  Beyond the triangle were another five rows of Sauvignon Blanc picked that morning. It was the most southerly point of our farm and it looked battered. I held my hands together in a gesture of gratitude to the sky, thankful we had harvested it before the storm struck.

  As we walked back we went through our options again. Seán was adamant that we shouldn't do anything and that there wasn't enough damage to jump the gun. I reticently agreed.

  That night after dinner and saying goodnight to our two daughters, I turned back my old sleeping bag that served as our duvet and heard the sound of harvest machines clattering and beeping high-pitched warning signals in the surrounding vineyards. Seán opened our bedroom window to close the shutters. The smell of the night, filled with harvest aromas of fresh grapes and crushed leaves, rushed into the room. I loved those aromas but they brought a flutter of nerves. Since becoming winegrowers, the month of September always held a hint of promise, nervous anticipation and fear.

  Our neighbour's courtyard lit up. His tractor and trailer rattled back from the vineyard. I felt a chill run down my spine. He was emergency-harvesting everything on a Saturday night because of the hail.

  'Maybe we have underestimated the damage,' I said. 'Perhaps we should be harvesting.'

  'I don't think so,' said Seán. 'We checked the grapes. We know the state of them. Anyway, like I said, we'll hand-pick those sections and remove the damaged grapes at harvest. Our neighbours machine-harvest so they don't have that option.'

  He was probably right but the noise of the harvest machines still made me doubt. Maybe they knew something we didn't.

  'You saw how that cloud split,' added Seán. 'We were incredibly lucky. The vineyards the other side of Saussignac were hit worse than us.'

  We stood in the dark, observing, our arms just touching. The bright lights of a harvester lit up the vines nearest the village and the clattering started again. Seán took a deep breath, sighed, reached for the shutters and closed them decisively as if to say, 'Don't say another word.'

  That night I thrashed back and forth, unable to sleep with the noise of the machines. I flushed hot and cold and wondered if I was getting sick. As soon as it was light enough I went out to check again. The damage was there but no worse than the night before. Our equilibrium was so finely balanced, one knock and we could fall. I wondered if as a wine business we could weather the coming challenges of global warming – or if I even wanted to. I was passionate about wine and organic farming but the work overload, stress and uncertainty of life as farmers had already taken its toll on our relationship. I didn't know how much more I or it could take. But stopping the train we were on, especially in the middle of harvest, was not possible. There was no emergency brake.

  CHAPTER 2

  HARVEST THRILLS

  The cold pre-dawn air stung my nostrils and the gravel crunched under my boots as I crossed the courtyard. Above me the heavens were brilliant with stars. I could see Seán's outline through the insulation curtain of the winery. Sensing my arrival, he looked through a slit and inclined his head to listen.

  'He's on his way,' he said, ears fine-tuned to the harvest machine's whine across the valley.

  I heard it and felt a flutter of adrenalin.

  Seán dropped the curtain and I stepped forward and put my head through to see him blast a final jet of rinsing water over the vat destined for the day's Sémillon. Then he attached the harvest pipe that would serve to move fresh harvest from trailer to vat using elastic guy ropes.

  A whine sounded in the courtyard and I turned to see the three-metre-tall harvester light up the darkness like a cruise ship. Benoît, the driver, waved and climbed down the ladder to ground level. We exchanged the obligatory kisses and a few words about the harvest. After explaining the section we were harvesting, I ran ahead to indicate the rows to harvest, marked with baby-pink Lycra bows, a tradition at Château Feely. He gave me a big smile that dissolved into giggles before straightening up and earnestly calibrating t
he machine.

  He was setting simple things like the height and width of the rows but also more sophisticated information like the grape variety to be harvested. Given the varietal, the machine would know the range of weight the grapes should have. For example, a Cabernet Sauvignon grape is smaller and weighs less than a Merlot grape. The sorting system inside would vacuum away the bits that weighed less than the lower point of the set range, while the sticks, whole bunches and other parts that were larger and weighed more would be caught by the sorting grille and vibrated to the back to be sorted into whole clusters to be destemmed and waste to be ejected. It was a sophisticated piece of equipment worth the equivalent of a modest house in France.