by Fiona Valpy
It’s Cédric.
Sadly he’s not calling to say that Marie-Louise has left him and would I like to move in. (I know, I know. Sorry, but I’ve got far too much time on my hands right now and it’s bloody lonely. So yes, I admit I have whiled away the odd hour indulging in various highly unlikely fantasy solutions to my rapidly encroaching spinsterhood.) I try to calm my breathing—panting is distinctly un-cool, after all. And I’m only out of breath as a result of my run to the phone, honest.
I smile into the handset, expecting Cédric to say he and Pierre will be along tomorrow to finish putting up the plasterboard. And so I’m disproportionately disappointed to hear him explain that Raphael has had an accident and they won’t be able to come for several more weeks as they are now busy covering other jobs.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say with heartfelt sincerity. ‘I hope Raphael is okay. Was it serious?’
‘A stone fell and landed on his hand. An occupational hazard in our line of work. He has a broken wrist and two fingers were quite badly crushed. But he’s tough and it’ll mend. It’s going to take a while though and we’re very behind with several jobs that we need to get finished before the autumn. I’m really sorry, Gina, but we have to prioritise. If you like I can give you the number of a plasterer who might be able to come and finish the work for you sooner.’
‘That’s okay,’ I reply. ‘It’s not urgent after all. I’ll wait until you can do it, if that’s all right.’ And I’d rather have you in my bedroom than anyone else, I don’t add.
‘Once the weather changes, we’ll have more time for indoor work. I’ll call you. And I really am sorry, Gina.’
Not half as sorry as I am, I think as I put down the phone. I wander back out to the terrace and pick up my book, the enticingly entitled Concepts of Wine Technology, whose complicated chemical formulae I have, quite literally, been sweating over.
I sigh and put the book straight back down again, feeling disappointed and disgruntled.
And then a small rectangle of card that I’ve been using as a bookmark catches my eye. Thomas Cortini.
I hear Annie’s voice urging me to call him up on some pretext or other. My heart’s not really in it, but the prospect of the empty weeks stretching away before me suddenly makes me crave company. I look up, gazing absently at the view beyond the garden. Of course! The harvest is rapidly approaching, judging by the darkly ripe grapes on the vines all around me. I’ll volunteer my services as an extra pair of hands. Despite my career in the world of wine, I’ve never actually worked a harvest. This is the perfect opportunity to learn a whole lot more about the detailed intricacies of winemaking first-hand. And it should be far more interesting seeing it done for real rather than trying to read about it in a book.
‘Gina, how good to hear from you.’ Thomas’s voice is genuinely warm. ‘How are you? Annie has returned to England now I suppose? You must be missing her. The harvest? Why yes, if the current weather holds, we’ll be starting on the whites next week or the week after. It’s been so hot and dry the grapes are slightly small, but in wonderful condition. We’d be delighted to have another pair of hands in the chai. I’ll call you when we have a confirmed date, but en principe it’ll be a week next Monday.’
♦ ♦ ♦
I’m surprised at how cold it is at six thirty in the morning. Until now the days have still been beautifully warm, but then I’m not usually up this early. I nip back into the house and grab a fleece jacket before jumping into the car and driving to the Château de la Chapelle to report for duty. ‘Come about seven o’clock,’ Thomas instructed me yesterday. I’m early, eager to create a good impression on my first day. As I drive into the yard, I’m surprised to find it already a hive of activity.
The vast doors of the winery stand open and the bright lights inside throw a sharply defined rectangle of illumination onto the white dust before the entrance. A conveyor belt has been positioned just inside and at the far end the de-stemming machine waits, silent for the moment. A pump sits underneath it and a long stainless-steel tube runs from here to the top of one of the lofty metal tanks. Thomas and his father, perched on the metal walkway suspended above the cuves, are heaving the far end of the heavy pipe into position above the vat’s open lid.
‘Ah, here is our beautiful helper. Bonjour, Mademoiselle Gina!’ calls Patrick and he picks his way down the ladder-like stairs to come and greet me. Thomas follows behind him, having fixed the pipe in place.
‘Gina, thank you for coming to help,’ he smiles. ‘Let me introduce you to Jacqueline, our assistant in the chai.’ A stocky, cheerful-looking young woman emerges from the office. A gleaming golden tooth embellishes her friendly grin, giving her a faintly piratical air.
A tractor pulling a large, deep-sided trailer behind it swings into the yard and I glimpse Robert at the wheel. He reverses neatly, precision-perfect as he lines up the back of the trailer with the end of the conveyor belt.
‘Come on,’ says Jacqueline. ‘We’re on the sorting table. You stand on that side.’
Robert jumps down from his cab and opens a round hatch in the end of the trailer while Jacqueline attaches a plastic pipe to an outlet on the underside to capture the juice that is already starting to run from the bunches of golden-green grapes. Catching sight of me, Robert comes round to say hello, then reaches back into the cab of the tractor to flick a switch. The trailer’s internal screw mechanism begins to turn, disgorging its load in a steady stream onto the belt which Jacqueline has set running. She hits a button on the de-stemmer and another on the pump and the machinery leaps into action with an ear-splitting din.
Thomas appears at my side. ‘Take out any large sticks and leaves, and any bunches of grapes that don’t look good,’ he shouts above the noise. I nod, concentrating hard on the moving belt before me and trying to pick though the heaps of fruit as nimbly as the other two. I find it hard to follow the fast-moving stream and rapidly begin to feel queasy with the movement and the noise and the fact that I didn’t really feel like eating any breakfast at such an early hour this morning.
Jacqueline grins across at me, waving a hand to attract my attention. ‘Gina, are you okay? You’ve gone as white as a sheet. Don’t try to follow the motion of the belt. Fix your gaze on one point, like this. That’s better. You’ll find it easier now.’
Actually there isn’t much debris to remove at all. The grapes are beautifully ripe, with no signs of mildew or rot and there are just a few leaves and the occasional woody bit of vine to take out. The bunches of fruit then fall through the de-stemmer which spits the stems into a bin, the loosened grapes pouring into the hopper of the pump where they are seized by the machinery and fired through the long pipe into the gaping mouth of the vat.
At last the stream of fruit coming out of the trailer dwindles and then stops and Robert nimbly switches off the screw, shuts the hatch and disconnects the hose from underneath, before hopping back into the cab and driving off for the next load. The last grapes drop into the pump and Thomas hits the off switch on the machinery, leaving us standing in sudden silence, the only sounds the soft dripping of juice into the vat and the ringing in my ears.
‘Let me show you the control panel for the cuves,’ offers Thomas, leading the way to an efficient-looking array of lights and buttons fixed to the chai wall. ‘Five years ago we replaced our old cuves with thermo-regulated stainless-steel ones, so we can control the temperature in each from here. The white grapes need to be kept cool to preserve the very delicate flavours of the fruit—that’s why we start picking them so early, before the sun begins to warm them up—so we’re chilling the vat they’re going into. We’re starting with the Sauvignon Blanc and it’s vital to keep the grapes cool if you want to try to catch those elusive elderflower and gooseberry notes in the final wine. We’ll easily finish the Sauvignon this morning and then change over vats to begin the Sémillon.’
I nod. ‘Who’s picking the grapes?’ I ask.
‘We use a local contractor, Benoît Michel.
All our grapes are machine harvested nowadays. The technology is so good now it doesn’t harm the vines the way some of the old vendangeurs used to. And this way we can get our grapes in at the very best moment when they reach optimum ripeness. So we have just two people working in the vines today, Benoît driving the vendangeur and Robert bringing in the trailer-loads of fruit. The turnaround is very efficient.’
And right on cue we hear the tractor manoeuvring the next trailer into position at the end of the sorting table. We hurry back to our positions as the stream of green-gold fruit starts to pour onto the conveyer belt and the machinery roars into action once again.
Two trailer-loads later, Christine Cortini appears in the doorway, a large wicker basket over one arm. She does the rounds, greeting each of us in turn and then busies herself in the office. A delicious aroma of percolating coffee wafts in our direction. Suddenly I realise how cold my hands and feet are from standing on the cement floor at the sorting table, my fingers and the cuffs of my sleeves stickily damp with a mixture of chilly grape juice and dew. The last of the batch of grapes trundles along the conveyor belt, then rattles into the de-stemmer and the fruit cascades into the pump. Jacqueline nips round to hit the off buttons on the machines and gestures towards the office with a tilt of her head. ‘Coffee time.’
I rinse my hands and then rub my neck, which is beginning to ache, trying to roll the stiffness out of my shoulders. I glance at my watch. It’s not even ten o’clock and I feel like I’ve done a good day’s work already.
Christine is pouring strong, hot coffee into cups and hands me one. I clasp my hands around the small cup to warm them, wishing it was a large British mug with a generous slug of hot milk added. But in my cold, tired state, the shot of scalding, tarry liquid is the best cup of coffee I’ve ever drunk. The men come in from the vines, Benoît shaking hands all round, and the whole team stands around the desk drinking coffee and munching flaky croissants which Christine produces from her basket. Patrick, who has been everywhere this morning, darting from sorting table to trailer to cuve, and even popping out into the vines to supervise activities there, is euphoric about the quality of this year’s harvest. ‘A wonderful year, even better than 2005, you’ll see. Gina, you’ll be able to boast to your friends that you have had a hand in making some of the finest wines of the century!’
‘And the century is not even ten years old yet,’ remarks Thomas drily.
‘It is going to be an outstanding year though,’ says Benoît (another thick sud-ouest accent for me to try to decipher). ‘Especially for the reds. I’ve never seen such clean Merlot. And the Cabernet Sauvignon is going to be superb. Perfectly ripe.’
‘Yes, as long as we don’t get thunderstorms next week,’ says Robert, shaking his head. ‘A downpour at this stage and in this heat can rot the grapes overnight. With the sudden rain they can swell and split,’ he explains to me. ‘You can even get hail sometimes, which is disastrous. All that work and care throughout the year and then you can lose the whole lot just before the harvest. Vignerons don’t sleep well at the best of times, and at this time of year hardly at all.’
‘Pah!’ exclaims Patrick. ‘Don’t you worry; we’ll get the harvest in all right. And just you wait and see. It’s the vintage of the century I tell you! Right, back to work everyone.’
Robert already has another trailer-load of grapes waiting for us, so we get straight back down to it. Revived by the break, I sort the fruit with new energy and am gratified to notice that my fingers are now working almost as fast as Jacqueline’s across from me. The coffee has warmed me up and the sun is beginning to heat the air outside the entrance. We work on cheerfully for another hour and then the rhythm of our work is broken as Robert announces that that’s the Sauvignon Blanc finished and they’re about to start bringing in the Sémillon.
As he drives off with the trailer, there’s a flurry of activity in the chai. We have to change over to another cuve, which involves repositioning the huge metal pipe. Thomas nimbly climbs up onto the walkway in the roof and manhandles the top end, while Jacqueline and I wrestle with the bottom. There are a series of joints in the piping, each closed with a strong metal clip, and we have to release these to swing the steel tubing round to reach the new vat. I strain to undo one clip, scraping my fingers and breaking a couple of nails, while Jacqueline competently manages the others. We get the pipe into position just in time as Robert arrives with the next trailer-load.
I hurry back to the sorting table where the belt is already running, and focus once again on the fast-moving stream of grapes.
On the dot of midday, silence falls again as Thomas switches off the machines. We’ve filled one tall vat with Sauvignon Blanc and half filled its neighbour with larger, yellower Sémillon grapes. ‘Lunchtime,’ says Jacqueline with gusto. ‘Christine cooks for everyone during harvest so it’ll be good. It’s on the terrace.’
In the loo I catch sight of my reflection in the mirror with horror. My hair is wild, coming out of the elastic I’ve tied it back with and sticking out in strange wisps where I must have pushed it back with hands covered in grape juice, a natural but not very becoming alternative to hair gel. I wash my hands and face and let my hair down, tucking the band into my pocket for later. As we step out onto the terrace, I blink in the midday sunlight and peel off my jacket to let the rays warm my aching shoulders. At a trestle table set with a checked cloth, Christine is setting out baskets of bread and plates of pâté. Suddenly I realise I’m absolutely ravenous, despite the mid-morning croissant.
‘Bon appétit,’ smiles Christine as she pulls up a chair. Patrick pulls the corks from two bottles of Clairet and tours the table, filling glasses with the pomegranate-coloured wine.
Thomas offers me the basket of bread and I smear a crusty chunk of baguette with rich, garlicky pâté. ‘How have you enjoyed your first morning?’ he asks.
I chew and swallow. ‘Good,’ I reply. ‘Hard work, but I was expecting that, and very interesting. It’s great feeling you’re part of the process that leads to something as wonderful as this.’ I raise my glass. ‘And I still find it magical. You take all those trailer-loads of grapes and turn them into bottles of wine. It’s a kind of alchemy.’
Thomas smiles. ‘You’re right. Even after all these years, we still find it miraculous too. And you never really know what you’re going to end up with until the final blending and bottling. There’s a saying around here that red wine is made on the vine and white wine is made in the chai. Each has its own particular challenges.’
Robert chips in from the other side of the table, ‘Yes. This year we’ve been lucky with the weather, but there’s still lots to do before the wine is in the bottles and we can start to relax a little.’
Patrick is now handing round a platter of pork chops and he deposits a huge slab of the golden, fragrant meat on my plate. ‘Here you are, Gina, we need to feed you up ready for a hard afternoon’s work.’ Christine follows in his wake, cradling a steaming bowl of fried potatoes, encrusted with dark flecks of sweet-smelling garlic. I pile my plate high. I’m not sure whether it’s the good food or the fact that a meal eaten in company is so much more appetising than the solitary snacks that I’ve grown accustomed to on my own at home, but I seem to have got my appetite back. A green salad moistened with the tang of mustard vinaigrette follows and then a white wheel of creamy camembert. The last crusts of bread are used to wipe plates clean, as Christine pours us each a small black coffee to round off the meal. I drink mine thankfully, needing an antidote to the comfortable blanket of drowsiness the food, wine and sun are weaving over me.
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.