by Caro Feely
'Yes, and of course all this certification is expensive. Demeter biodynamic certification want two per cent of our turnover to use their logo on our labels so we don't except for our top reserve wines. We do the South African organic CERES label then we do the EU organic label and even though there's reciprocity between the EU and the US on the organic standards we have to do it again for the US. It's so expensive.'
'We know. And it's crazy that those of us not using poisons have to pay the certification fees when it should be the ones polluting who have to pay,' I said.
'Just so,' said Johan. 'Now, I have a story for you. But first, something about this Sauvignon Blanc. It's wild yeast, barrel fermented, simple.'
I caught Seán's eye and we shared a smile at the word 'simple' that reminded us both of a hail-spattered afternoon in our tasting room that felt like aeons ago.
'No filtration, just a rock stopper to make sure the odd pair of forgotten secateurs doesn't get through,' continued Johan. 'So anyway, back to my story. A lady solicitor from Amsterdam drove her car all the way down through Africa to Cape Town. She volunteered here for a while. She said to me, "Always employ people smarter than yourself otherwise you limit your business to the level of your ability." I took that as good advice rather than a slight on my intelligence and followed what she said.'
He waited for our laughter to subside.
'I have a great team. I once sent the wrong wine to Holland. Daniel, who manages our orders now, has never made a mistake like that.'
Johan poured his Syrah. It was gorgeous, smoky, sultry, dark fruit, liquorice and fynbos (wild herbal scrubland unique to South Africa).
'When we started the farm we did it with the team that had laboured with me in the vineyards when I was a student. My degree in philosophy taught me that empowering people meant giving them the "capability to choose" – it's more about that than about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Regardless of whether these needs are met or not, we're only happy when we have choice. So I asked the guys what they wanted. I gave them choice. They said they wanted houses and education so we went all out for that. We still offer university education to all our staff and children but you have to stay ten years with the company to get a house. We burnt our fingers with people leaving after a year and selling the house.'
He poured Reyneke Cornerstone red. It was red fruit and bright, full of flavour.
'Anyway, back to the idea of choice and team. We know that the team is the cornerstone of our business hence the name of this wine to reflect that and our choice to offer choice to our people, especially education. So one of the original team who started with us is now our gardener; he's illiterate but his daughter Lizaan has a university degree and she runs the place. She's the one who has set the new prices and the price for the new Cabernet Sauvignon. With her in charge soon the wines won't be cheap but they will still be great value.' He caught my eye and we laughed.
'Back at the start I was sitting in this room, the place where we used to milk our cows. Things were really tough. We had bought houses for our staff but the wine business was rough. We were close to closing the doors. I really didn't know what to do. Then a lady walked in here and tasted our wines. She said she was from CNN and she wanted to buy all our wine for a big international event in Johannesburg. She followed through and I flew up for the event. Next thing I was being introduced to Madiba. Now, you know, it isn't good me being white, Afrikaans and a farmer given the history of South Africa, but President Mandela started a conversation smooth and in his stride, saying in Afrikaans, 'So how is it going with our farmers?' What an experience meeting him. But it also turned us around. From the precipice that lucky break in 2002 took us from strength to strength. We had already changed to farming without chemicals. We started the natural farming in 1999 but only started the biodynamic certification in 2006. At the start we had four families depending on the farm; now we have sixteen.'
'Impressive,' I said. But in the back of my mind I was also calculating, comparing our ten hectares with one full-time worker, Seán, to around four times our size with 16 people or more. They could hand-weed, hand-spray and have enough people in the winery for it to be relatively peaceful at harvest time. The minimum wage in South Africa was such that almost two days of work cost the same as one hour in France.
'It's intense right now, harvest time. I'm looking forward to going to the beach and surfing, not thinking, when it's finished,' said Johan.
'We know that feeling,' I said. 'Maybe we need to take up surfing.'
I could see from Seán's face he was thinking, 'And hire a few people if only we could afford it…'
'For me it's important to make good wine but also to enjoy my life,' said Johan.
As we took off back to Cape Town I reflected that we would benefit from following his philosophy. Our holiday offered a chance to do a little of that. In Cape Town Aunt Sally, who visited for my parents' golden wedding anniversary, organised a big family party. We talked, laughed, ate and played the racing demons like demons. It was good to be together, to experience intergenerational family contact. Despite having been away for so long, I felt a deep sense of belonging. The trip to South Africa reminded me how much we missed having time to relax, to be with friends and family – things we had sacrificed for ten years in order to turn our business around.
CHAPTER 17
SEEKING EQUILIBRIUM
When we returned home the daffodils were out but there was still a bite in the air. Our trip to South Africa had been a welcome break but things were not perfect between us and we both knew we had to find a better balance between our work and our personal life.
Seán and I were doing maintenance, cleaning and treating the tasting-room and Lodge decks with natural oil. The night before Seán had insulted my dinner again and I had cracked. We got into a roaring fight that left me and our daughters crying. I found myself wondering if this was the man I had fallen in love with so many years before.
'We have to stop fighting in front of the kids,' said Seán. 'They went to sleep after midnight they were so upset.'
'Then you should hold back before criticising my cooking,' I said. 'What's wrong? You seem so dissatisfied. We're no better than business partners. We have to change or call it quits.'
'That's the third time you've said you want a divorce,' he said.
'What?' I said.
'Yes, that's the third time you've said we have to call it quits,' said Seán. 'What do you expect me to do? Is that what you really want?'
I looked deeply into his eyes for what felt like the first time in years and was mute for a few moments, trying to compute what he had said. He was right. I had said it three times.
'No,' I said, feeling shocked as I realised exactly what I had been threatening.
'Neither do I, Mrs C. I love you. I want to stay together but I can't take this constant questioning and bickering.'
Seán's eyes filled with tears and I felt mine do the same. It felt like the first real conversation in ages – and it wasn't about labels, corks or sulphites.
'I don't want to keep doing the hard physical graft I do every day for another ten years,' said Seán, ignoring my comment about criticism. 'My body is telling me to slow down. I love being in the garden, growing things, tending the vines, and I don't mind that physical work, but when it comes to the pipework and the barrel-work in the winery I have had enough.'
'But we've just turned the corner: the wines are selling themselves, we don't have to kill ourselves to make sales, we know the ropes, everything is starting to roll a bit easier. With the investments over the last few years our cash flow going forward will be better. People love our wines and visits; the business is growing. We'd be mad to walk away. You're so good at winemaking. Look at the positive comments we get about our wines.'
'I still don't speak French well enough. I don't feel like it's home the way I felt in Ireland. I miss Ireland. I think I want to move back there.'
He left it hanging for a few minutes like a
dare, as if he were waiting to see if I would say, 'Fine. Go!'
We had grown so far apart that, for a second, I saw that option. In that moment of consideration I felt like I had been hit by a wrecking ball; I saw our lives transformed, torn apart, as if my very being was split in two. Deep down I knew it was not the right choice for me or for anyone in our family. Then I felt a deep tenderness for this man I loved, for what was driving him to behave like he was under threat, driving us to the fights that we had been having. He was not happy doing the heavy winemaking, perhaps also tired of doing almost the same thing for ten years, and I had been a bad-tempered perimenopausal monster. That momentary flicker of 'then go' was my ego speaking.
When we let our spirits speak we were on another level. We hadn't given them time to be together. It felt like our egos were in charge and we had been going so hard to keep our boat afloat that our spirits had taken off in opposite directions. We had to find our connection again.
Before I said a word, Seán continued, 'I'm also concerned about France. The new labour law is supposed to help the unemployment situation, which is what we need, but people are out striking and burning cars. France doesn't like change. It doesn't adapt and that's dangerous.'
'Feck,' I said. 'Where did all this come from?'
'Look at us. We've given more than ten years of our lives to this place and where are we? We work non-stop, we've only just taken our first real holiday of more than a week – and even then you had to be online every forty-eight hours. What sort of life is that? I sometimes feel like we're slaves to the French Republic.'
'Holy smokes,' I said and stopped sweeping the deck to stare at Seán as I took it all in. 'I guess you're right. Johan Reyneke said, "It's important to make good wine but also to enjoy my life." He had the right balance. Perhaps we should track our hours and make sure we give ourselves the statutory minimum time off required in France. If we backdated that ten years I bet we'd be on holiday for years.'
'Yes, three years of solid paid holiday to be exact,' said Seán.
He had already done the calculation; this had been festering for a while.
'No one would pay us since we're self-employed so that's just theoretical. But you have a point. We have to be able to afford holidays, proper weekend time off, our daughters' studies and full-time help. But we're maxed out and you don't think we can charge more for our wines. What will we do?' I said as much to myself as to Seán. 'I enjoy what I'm doing and having an apprentice has made a difference. But the farm needs to grow and develop if we want full-time help and that means more work.'
'Well, I don't want to tend any more vines than I have already and I don't want to do the heavy work of the winemaking any more,' said Seán.
'Holy smokes,' I said, my brain scrambling with the potential implications of what Seán was saying.
We finished the deck and started collecting up our tools.
'I feel like I've been doused in a bucket of cold water,' I said. 'I love Ireland but I don't want to go back to being a project manager or strategy consultant. Anyway, I'm more than a decade out of date – no one would give me a job. And I won't go back to starting from the ground up like we did ten years ago. Do you remember how hard it was? I won't go back there, SF. I know we aren't living it up but we aren't on the precipice every month like we used to be.'
'I want a simpler life,' said Seán. 'Remember that when we came here it was to live a more self-sufficient life, to get away from the rat race. I feel like we're under more pressure now than we were then. The business is getting bigger and more complex all the time. I want to be more self-sufficient and have less administration, bureaucracy and stress.'
'But we have to grow to afford a full-time person. Think of all the projects we'd like to tackle: sheep and cheese, a biodynamic display garden, permaculture, more education, tourism and food pairing. What are we going to do?'
Until Seán's outburst I had been coasting along thinking we were into the 'plain sailing' in the life cycle of our business. We had offered Cécile a role with us once her apprenticeship was complete. She was going travelling for six months and we hoped would return after her trip. Our discussion was a swift reminder that there are no certainties in life or in business. Our fights were an explosive combination of my perimenopause and of Seán feeling unhappy, but perhaps there was an element of Johan Reyneke's philosophy of choice in our behaviour too. After what we had put in and considering how far we were into our vineyard dream, it felt like we didn't have any choice but to continue. We had lost our freedom.
'We won't solve this now,' said Seán. 'I'm just saying we need to consider our long-term well-being.'
We agreed that we needed to talk more.
I raced up to Saussignac to fetch Ellie. The sun was out at last after a slow start to spring. The late afternoon was too good to waste inside. Ellie and I decided to go for a knock on the Saussignac tennis court after she had finished her goûter. She and Sophia had started tennis at Pineuilh two years before; at first they didn't want to do it, but now they were enjoying it.
We walked up with the racquets and Dora on the lead. Saussignac village was quiet; no one was around except a few pigeons. The bell tower rang, echoing through the square and the budding trees.
We started with warm-up races bouncing a ball across the court. That always generated a laugh and did us good but when we started knocking Ellie wasn't playing well. She got mad. The madder she got the worse she played, and the worse she played the madder she got. It was an infernal circle and she became totally unpleasant, showing me an excellent example of what the French call fait la tête, 'to be in a bad mood'.
'We need to get back. Papa said we had to be home at quarter to seven at the latest,' I said. 'I'll collect the balls outside the court then we must go.'
As I did that Ellie served a few good balls but she was still in a foul temper. I walked ahead then waited near the Château de Saussignac for her to catch up. I had given her a few minutes to walk and calm down.
'You know, Ellie, one of the most important things about sport is to be a good sport. That means being nice when you lose and keeping a happy face even when you're not happy with how you're playing,' I said.
'Hurumph,' said Ellie.
'I know how you feel. I used to get really mad when I lost and I believed that I should have won, that I could play better than I had,' I said.
'Hurrrumph,' said Ellie again, but this time she lifted her head and looked me in the eye for the first time since she had got into her temper.
'And getting mad doesn't help you play any better, does it? In fact, it makes you play worse,' I said.
Ellie nodded.
'So next time just relax and try to enjoy playing even if you aren't playing your best. You need to be Zen if you want to play well.'
She seemed to have taken in what I said.
We reached our front door and Seán opened it from inside, his left hand held high in the air. It was wrapped in white tape that had ominous red smudges all over it.
'Don't worry, it's just a little cut. Nothing to get excited about,' he said, backing away into the kitchen. 'I've cleaned it out, run it under loads of clear water, put Betadine on and taped it up. No need to panic.'
I dropped the tennis bag and opened the cupboard to grab the car keys.
'You could just re-tape it with surgical tape,' Seán said. 'We don't even have to go to the clinic. It's just a little cut.'
Sophia was behind him, shaking her head wide-eyed.
'We're going to the hospital,' I said. 'Have you got your carte vitale and your phone? Girls, get yourselves some dinner and get ready for bed.'
'I'll make fried eggs,' said Sophia.
'No. I don't want you using the flame while we're out, especially with a crisis already on the go.'
'This isn't a crisis,' said Seán. 'It's just a little cut.'
It was déjà vu to ten years before, when Seán cut off a third of his finger on the same hand and I had raced him to Bergerac ho
spital. This time we knew that Sainte-Foy-la-Grande was slightly closer and for a cut like this would probably be faster.
In a quarter of an hour we were at the hospital. I pressed the buzzer on the intercom in the emergency waiting room and within minutes Seán had been whisked behind the plasterboard walls and I was left alone.
A blonde woman and her young son came in. Her husband had a crushed foot, a work accident that had happened half an hour before. He was already behind the plasterboard walls. His boss had brought him in and she had just arrived, hoping she could take him home.
We sat down on hard metal chairs. The tiny room had a coffee and soup vending machine, a few posters about hygiene, an empty table and the intercom. There was not a single magazine or book. The wait stretched out ahead of us. With each set of footsteps or voice on the other side of the door, I felt a flicker of hope that died as they disappeared again.
