by Caro Feely
'But it is not possible!' one of the ladies said and clapped her hand over her mouth.
'Mais oui. The jewels had been found but we couldn't get the evening back. It was our night of Agatha Christie. We laugh about it now but I wasn't laughing then. The lesson is: don't hide your jewellery in your underwear.'
He went out laughing heartily while we, sharing in the laughter, dispersed to our respective rooms.
Seán and I decided to walk the route we had taken to the plateau to see the enchanting truffle fields again. This time we took the longer road back, one that extended further into the new truffle tree section. The air was icy and it was dark by the time we returned.
To recuperate I lounged in a luxurious bath filled with organic bubbles, one of the bathroom treats provided. I felt like a queen. While I soaked, Seán read the newspaper, appreciating the comfortable sofa. It was a life of luxury we hadn't experienced in a long while.
After drying myself in a soft-as-down bath sheet, I slipped on a gold G-string – as close as I was getting to jewellery in my underwear. Then I added sheer dark stockings, a little black dress, leather boots and lipstick. I was ready to go and Seán hadn't even hit the shower.
We exchanged places. I sat reading and relaxing. It felt quite extraordinary. I breathed deeply, enjoying the moment of peace, and sipped on a glass of our Grâce red wine that Seán had poured for me.
I felt in a state of grace, grateful beyond measure for this long overdue interlude. Seán emerged from the bathroom dressed in beige chinos and a blue collared shirt that matched his eyes. His golden mane was brushed, tamed into a halo, and his cheeks were shaved – rare in winter, when they needed hair to protect them from the cold while he was out pruning. I almost didn't recognise him. He looked so much younger without a beard.
'You shine up well,' I said, rising from the sofa. 'Ready?'
'Ready.'
The dining room had the perfect ambience of low lighting and intimate chatter. We greeted our truffling friends with a 'bonsoir' and a wave. Inés had changed from farming gear, jeans and a cowboy hat to stockings, miniskirt and high heels. She showed us to our table and returned with a wine list.
As Seán perused the list and my hands itched to get hold of it, Inés explained quietly that the others were on the seven-course truffle menu and, so that we could keep pace with them, they would offer us a few extra truffle surprises. It was our lucky night. I had gone from no truffle to full-blown truffle in a couple of hours. If the aphrodisiac promise was for real, the place would be steaming.
Inés was welcoming but we felt a little ill at ease. It was so long since we had dined at an upmarket restaurant that we felt rather out of place.
Inés returned with a tiny square of lard for each of us, homemade bread and the aperitif Seán had ordered.
'The idea is to eat the lard on its own. It is to show that a simple product like this when well raised is delicious. It also gives you appetite. The bread is made from our own wheat, sea salt, water from our source and our own living yeast.'
'Thanks, Inés. That looks delicious,' I said, referring to the bread rather than the lard. You couldn't get more local than that: grown, ground and baked on the farm. The lard on the other hand didn't sound gourmet to me. It was a strange start.
'What do you recommend for the wine?' asked Seán. 'We would prefer local and organic.'
'Unfortunately the ones from Cahors available right now are not certified organic,' said Inés. 'We prefer organic and biodynamic wines but in the local selection we don't always have them.'
Seán made his selection from the Cahors list and Inés left to find our order. I was disappointed that this icon of organic and biodynamic farming was not selecting organic wines for their wine list. It didn't make sense.
Feeling a little reticent, I tasted the lard. It was delicious, full flavoured and nutty; my preconception was proved incorrect.
The arrival of the bottle of wine was accompanied by a small plate of jambon de porc noir, ham from black pigs of Gascony home-cured for 24 months. Inés explained that these black pigs could not be raised in intensive conditions. They needed to be free to range, ideally in the forest eating acorns and having fun.
We began to chat about the day: the truffles, the dogs, the freedom we felt in this isolated place, the ideas it sparked.
The menu followed like a symphony. A velouté du curé, a velvet-smooth, pastor's soup of potimarron (a small, gourdlike, bright orange pumpkin), laced with truffle and a hint of foie gras, started the adventure. There was more truffle in the soup than had been in the jar I bought for a king's ransom many years before. The flavours were divine, fit for a priest as the name suggested; I felt like singing hallelujah. I sipped my Cahors, appreciating the dense dark fruit and tannin, then took my last scoop of soup and sighed. How could things get any better?
But there was more – bien sûr. Next was a risotto à la truffe – home-grown wheat cooked risotto-style with truffle and leeks. Once again the 'simple' dish had a depth of flavour and a fragrance of truffle that filled the stomach and the soul. The aroma of brioche turned our heads as it came through the door. Each tiny savoury brioche had its own whole truffle inside. We ate slowly, savouring each bite; the infusion of truffle through the soft bread was intense. At that point our neighbours were served a layered potato dish, a dauphinoise à la truffe, and we had a much-needed break. It was the only part of the sevencourse truffle menu we weren't served and it provided welcome time to talk instead of eat.
'That soup and risotto were exceptionels,' I said. 'It's the combination of the quality of ingredients and their heritage, the raising of it and all the steps in the transformation. All three were juste. They respect the product through the entire process from the growing to the processing to the final cooking. It's simply perfection and perfect simplicity at once.'
'I wonder if truffles would grow at Garrigue?' said Seán.
Garrigue was the old farm name and also the sector name of our part of the commune of Saussignac. We had changed it to Château Feely, our family name, a few years before because there were so many Garrigues on the market already and it was difficult to say.
'The limestone of their plateau looks like our terroir,' I said.
'Hmm, perhaps Dora could become a truffle dog,' said Seán.
'He he. Maybe. But Inés said it took fifteen years for the trees to start giving truffles,' I said. 'I'm not sure our loving Dora will be around for that.'
'But if you're lucky you might get them after five,' said Seán.
'Exceptionnellement.'
Seán looked longingly at his empty glass.
'Wine and truffles – they just go together.'
'Absolutely. One for us to look into a little more.'
Inés served the main, filet mignon de porc aux truffes, pork tenderloin with truffle reduction sauce, and Seán ordered a glass of another local red.
When it arrived he took a deep sniff.
'Dark berries, a hint of truffle,' he said. 'This could be a perfect match.'
He took a bite of the pork and truffle sauce and a sip of wine.
'Delicious.'
'I'm jealous,' I said. 'One little sip?'
'No way, you'll leave lipstick on my glass and the wine won't be the same. Petrochemicals.'
Seán was a Luddite when it came to cosmetics.
'No petrochemicals, only natural products,' I said.
'How do you mean natural products? All lipsticks are petrochemical.'
'Not this one,' I said and whipped it out of my bag.
I had converted to organic and natural products, including my lipstick, but even those Seán didn't like. Perfumes and deodorants weren't allowed in our house, only a natural deodorant – and even that wasn't allowed in our bedroom because it brought on a sneezing fit for Seán.
He passed the wine glass over reluctantly and I took a small sip. It was a little softer than the bottle we had ordered but with a good body, dark colour and fruit typical of
Cahors Malbec.
'I think the whole idea of what they are doing is inspirational,' I said. 'The basic products grown on the farm, the transformation of local unique products like the ham made with their ancient method, the restaurant that highlights their own produce. It's a circle like the one we have with the visits, the wines and the accommodation.'
'Hmm. The idea of a restaurant showcasing the farm's products is good but I don't like the hours a restaurant requires. We don't have any spare time anyway.'
'True,' I said.
'We need to work smarter,' said Seán.
We were talking about work again. It was inevitable when our lives took place at our work and we worked together. It was an upside and a downside. We loved what we did and were passionate about it – something that was a luxury in itself – but I wasn't sure how we would ever achieve a normal balance in our lives with this situation. For the previous eight years we had to focus on the business and neglect our personal life for our survival. Now we were inching closer to financial equilibrium as a business and our challenge was to achieve balance in our lives before it took an irreversible toll on our health and our relationship.
Inés removed our empty plates and soon returned with pomme à la truffe, apple in a rich egg custard laced with truffle. I ate the fruit and left the custard – a step too far for me. I offered it to Seán and he held his hand up.
'I love the isolation of this place,' said Seán.
I knew what he meant. Saussignac, our village, and the valley below us were constantly expanding with new houses. The main road beneath the farm had little traffic when we arrived but now carried an almost endless stream at peak hours. In addition we were aggravated by the conventional farming around us. We were fortunate that most of our vineyard borders were with other organic farmers, like our neighbour Olivier, or with wild areas. But when a chemical farmer sprayed, even miles away, we could smell it. The products were not innocent and they didn't stay on the targeted area. Looking down at the area around Mardenne we could sometimes see plumes of spray drifting well beyond where the sprayer was operating, on to neighbouring farms and into the Dordogne River. I had read that 92 per cent of France's waterways and rivers were polluted with pesticides from agriculture.
'It looks less intensively farmed here but I bet they have the same problems,' I said.
'But their farm is much bigger. Their buffer areas are way larger than ours.'
'We couldn't cope with more land. We're stretched as it is,' I said. 'And anyway, I'm not moving.'
Seán laughed. He knew that I wanted to be buried on our farm. I had always felt a need for an anchor, a root, and I wanted that for me and my family. I loved the solidity, the settledness, of a farm and a family's shared place like we had. I wanted our daughters to know they had a place to come back to when they flew the nest, that there was this solid base in the world. Sometimes the weight of the responsibility of that solid base made me feel like running away. Sometimes it didn't feel that solid, but it was there.
Inés reappeared with a small rectangle of chocolate à la truffe that signalled the end of the night's feast. It was delicious and heavily laced with black gold. The quantity of wine and food we consumed that night should have sent us straight to sleep. But it didn't. I can attest to the aphrodisiac effect of truffle.
In the morning I woke with the energy of a young lover. Seán was still asleep so I pulled on my boots for a walk instead. The dawn was just breaking and I had the world to myself. Even the dogs didn't stir as I tiptoed across the courtyard, let myself quietly out of the gate and took the path up to the truffle forest. As I stepped on to the open plateau, snow began to fall, soft white flakes lit up like a silver shower in the light of the dawn rising to the east. Over the white stones and perfectly manicured truffle trees it was like something out of Narnia; a magic land. It took my breath away.
I kept walking, pleased to have my insulated boots and barely able to believe the beauty was real. With the snow the silence was even greater. My footsteps were soft in it; no hard sounds, just the soft touch of the white blanket forming around me. It was extraordinary. The dark clouds above showered down flakes that shimmered silver and gold in the dawn light. I reached the point where we had turned down with Inés and considered going further, to where Seán and I had been the night before. I kept walking. The trees stretched out ahead of me in the swirling flakes. At the next corner I stopped and looked back, hesitating for a moment about whether to turn back.
Under the trees the brulés had less snow, their limestone circles a creamy colour against the pure white, punctured every now and then with grass stubble. Beyond the plateau the land plunged away to the valley floor and layers of hills disappeared into the distance, folds of lemon, gold and amber. The light and depth created between the snow and the cloud above me and the rising sun were like nothing I had experienced before. I stayed there, breathing the cold and calm and taking in the magic, until the cold in the tips of my fingers drove me home. I thought better of the long route. If the snow was building Seán might want to get home sooner rather than later to avoid Burgundy take two.
I teetered down the steep shortcut – even more treacherous with the snow – then stepped it out back to the farmhouse via the lower road.
Seán was up and had packed the car. As expected, he wanted to hit the trail before the snow worsened. Even without snow we had decided that the truffle egg breakfast, while tempting, was beyond our bellies and budget. Besides, another dose of that hefty aphrodisiac could have been dangerous.
We found Inés in the main house.
'I hope you enjoyed it,' she said.
'Oh yes,' I said. 'Especially hearing about the truffles on our walk with you and the dinner. We're organic and biodynamic farmers. In fact, we brought two bottles of our wine for you to try.'
'That is very interesting and kind,' said Inés. 'But it isn't me that decides on the wines. Let me see if Guillaume has a moment to talk to you before we serve the breakfast.'
Minutes later we were ushered into the cocoon of their professional kitchen. Their youngest child descended the stairs wrapped in pyjamas and gown. She looked sleepy, like she needed a quiet Sunday with her parents. It was their home as well as their workplace. We knew the feeling. Now I felt like we were invading their private space but Guillaume drew us in.
'Come, come,' he said. 'Tell me a little about yourselves. Can I get you a coffee?'
'I would love an espresso,' I said, the idea of a shot before our long drive very tempting.
Seán declined. He had been off caffeinated drinks for years and I guessed was also sensitive to our hosts' right to family time on Sunday.
We took turns to share our story and why the triskell, a three-way spiral, in a mosaic form, was the logo on our label. After many failures and a label 'hall of horrors', we had found our emblem.
'The triskell is an ancient Celtic sign. You can see it carved into rocks at Newgrange in Ireland, a site dating to 3500 BC,' said Seán. 'It's a nod to our Irish roots but we grew up in South Africa. My grandparents that came from Ireland farmed a vineyard in the Cape.'
'Springboks!' Guillaume said and lifted his jacket to show us a Springbok logo on his shirt.
A look of complicity passed between him and Seán. They were both rugby men.
Guillaume passed me a tiny cup of espresso. Inés took a jug of cream from the fridge and placed it on the counter. I mouthed merci so as not to interrupt Seán.
'We thought we would go wine-farming in South Africa but we moved to Dublin and on a holiday to France we fell in love with French wine and vineyards. It took years to find our farm in Saussignac. We have great terroir, a section of limestone plateau similar to yours but much smaller.'
'Interesting,' said Guillaume, lifting the bottle for a closer look at the triskell.
'We're passionate about organic and biodynamic,' I added. 'The triskell symbolises the biodynamics too since the spiral is emblematic of nature and of dynamisation. We're excit
ed and inspired by what you're doing here, your self-sufficiency, the truffles, the food you served last night. It's an experience we'll never forget.'
'Thank you,' he said.
'I have one question,' said Seán. 'How did you make the truffle risotto?'
'Ha ha, you need a lot of truffles,' Guillaume said and opened the fridge to show us a bowl of dry spelt grains with several large nuggets of fresh truffle nestling inside. 'It is a good way to store the truffles and it gives truffle flavour to the grain.'
