Grape Expectations

by Caro Feely

  With the help of the heat and humidity the cooper then bent the staves using a winch to obtain the shape of the barrel. The final metal hoops were put in place and the ends of the staves were trimmed and cut to receive the barrel heads. The cooper completed the final hooping with a large mallet, reinforcing the medieval sense of the place. The barrel was then tested for impermeability and, if passed, would proceed to the sand-papering and finishing. It was an intense process requiring skill and strength.

  Sheila and Jeff were charmed by seeing the whole procedure done by hand and appeared unfazed by the porn on the walls. I felt the day could only improve.

  We continued to a tour of Château Belair in St Émilion. From the courtyard in front of the main house Lionel, our charming guide, pointed out many of the premier grand crus classés of St Émilion including his neighbour Château Ausone where the Roman poet consul Ausonius planted vines around AD 350.

  Belair belonged to the English military commander during the period of the Hundred Years War, a war that was the ultimate result of the second marriage of a lusty woman, Eleanor, to an English king. Eleanor inherited the province of Aquitaine and ruled from 1137 to 1189. Soon after inheriting she married King Louis VII of France. She bore him children, accompanied him on a Crusade to the Holy Land and took a lover in the afternoon. On their return she decided he was too religious for her, gave him the boot and persuaded the Pope to annul their marriage.

  Then she married Henry Plantagenet who became Henry II of England, so Aquitaine was in English hands. During this part of her exciting life she gave St Émilion their city rights in return for fifty barrels a year of their premium wine. For the ensuing 300 years of English rule, the only French wines exported to England, and to her trading partners, were Bordeaux. Partly thanks to this export monopoly, Bordeaux is still the most well-known wine region in the world. Merci, Eleanor.

  We went into the Belair caves (cellars) to see their old vintages; wines dating back to 1802 when they were the first to do mise en bouteille au château, estate-bottled wine. It was a treasure trove of old vintages in ancient golden tunnels and cave rooms that were like something out of a film set. Bordeaux was a universe of wine stars waiting to be discovered. I felt like a child inside a sweet shop just bursting to try them all.

  Sheila and Jeff were ecstatic about their stay, describing it as 'perfect' and commending my knowledge. I felt I still had a lot to learn but their comments fired me up about our new line of business.

  It was six months since I spat our first vintage red wines out in disgust and the wait was paying off. Now they were strong and smooth, all black fruit and mocha. Almost everything was ordered for the imminent bottling including our new label, which featured a photo of our ancient well artfully enhanced by our printer's creative studio. It made our premium wine look grown-up, serious and delicious. The logistics for the bottling were perfectly aligned. Then the bottle supplier called to say he could not supply due to a gross bottle shortage in Europe.

  In a panic I called our agricultural supply company that I knew supplied bottles too. They took the order and asked me to come in for a meeting where I was presented to the owner of the business, a cigarette smouldering in his hand despite the workplace smoking ban.

  'Aren't you the one who didn't pay your bill a few months ago?' he asked, flapping my €7,000 bottle order in the air and blowing smoke in my face.

  'No. We didn't pay for a faulty product last year but otherwise we always pay our bills on time.'

  He berated me a little more and blew a bit more smoke in my face.

  'Our supplier has cancelled all bottle deliveries for February. We can't even fulfil orders for our most loyal customers.'

  It was a calamity. I pleaded and begged.

  He gave me a lesson on bottle economics, the number of factories in Europe, the number that had been closed down by the three main players and more. All I cared about was our bottles and when he could deliver them. His assistant arrived and saved me from the final instalment.

  'I can't believe it. They've confirmed your order. The other four in February were placed before yours, but yours is confirmed and the others cancelled. Yours must have slipped through because it's quite small and they can fill it between other orders.'

  Suddenly Monsieur grabbed the order confirmation from his assistant. I feared the worst.

  'Ah, ah, ah! But I have made a mistake. You are Mrs Feely, it is another étrangère who didn't pay their bills.'

  It was a relief to know our name was clear but nothing compared to the joy of having my bottles. I took a copy of the confirmation and asked them to bring the delivery date forward a few days to be sure.

  For our previous bottling, the capsules were available off the shelf so we assumed the same would be true this time. Now we had a week to go and the FVB told me they did not have what we wanted in stock. It would be four weeks until the next lot arrived. I grovelled.

  'I'll see what I can do,' said Madame.

  A few days later she had found some capsules for us. I collected them. We started bottling the following day, progressing at a snail's pace. Neal and Gillian, Sean's brother and his wife, were over to help, and within an hour they were treated to a full education in French expletives from Pierre, our bottler.

  'Quel bordel! Ces merdes de capsules! *!@*!&*$%^*!&!'

  It was a Pierre I had not seen before. The culprits were my last-minute capsules. Every second one was sticking on the machine.

  'These are bad, bad quality,' he said accusingly.

  'Now I know why Madame at the FVB found the capsules so quickly for me. No one else wanted them.'

  'We will have to put the capsules on by hand. Paul will do it.'

  Paul, Pierre and Laurence's nine-year-old son, was soon positioned on top of a plastic pallet placing capsules onto bottles. Several thousand bottles later we took a break for lunch. Paul's great work was enabling us to keep pace despite the 'capsules merdiques'.

  The following evening we all celebrated the successful bottling with Pierre and Laurence in their house, the slowly transforming middle section of Saussignac Castle. At last, after a wait of about four years, Pierre had fitted the oven for Laurence.

  'Ça avance!' (It's progressing!) I said excitedly.

  'Oui, à pas de fourmis,' (Yes, with ant-like steps) said Laurence patiently, stroking the new sideboard.

  Ellie's voice resounded around the room. 'Mummy, I need to go to the toilette.'

  Sean looked around. 'Where is she?' He had not come in contact with the castle's internal phone system. Through the great curved sewage pipe jutting out over the oven I told Ellie I was on my way. This natural telephone between upstairs and downstairs allowed communication between levels in the massive building. It was like being on a submarine.

  Laurence served a cauliflower and apple salad that was the essence of freshness.

  'How do you say it in French?' asked Neal.

  'Pommes et chou-fleur,' replied Laurence. Neal repeated it several times.

  Then we asked for translations of the words that we had heard from Pierre that week.

  'You know Pierre picked up all that bad language in Marseille. It's the capital of the expletive. He always goes back to his Marseille accent when he swears.'

  'I think these swear words are especially effective when you add "espèce de" (stupid) to the front of the word,' said Pierre. 'When you see an idiot on the road you roll down your window and yell "espèce de gros con!" Big *%$! species!'

  'I'll remember that next time I am on the road,' said Neal, trying the name out several times as I held my hand over the talking pipe so our girls weren't exposed to the lesson.

  Neal tried out his new words. 'Chou-fleur, pomme, gros, con…'

  'Watch out you don't get mixed up.' Pierre made the motion of rolling down his car window. 'Espèce de gros chou-fleur!'

  Chapter 19

  Pre-school Gourmands

  After my wine class in Bergerac I waited behind two students dis
cussing with the teacher which wines would best match each course they had planned for the weekend. Their fifty-minute debate took food and wine matching to a new level. Later, I mentioned to Isabelle Daulhiac that I was planning to cook chicken in Saussignac and to serve our dry white wine alongside the dish.

  'Never, never serve a different wine to the one that went into the food,' said Isabelle in horror. 'Only use good wine for cooking and always serve the same wine that goes into the meal with the food. This is a fundamental rule.'

  No longer could wine be set aside as cooking wine. If it was good enough to cook with, it was good enough to serve. Nowhere is French appreciation of food more apparent than in the schools. A typical day could be endive salad to start, pan-fried fish for a main and apple tart for dessert; or tomato soup, sausages and lentils followed by crème caramel. Children learnt to eat a variety of foods that were adult and healthy. Sophia spotted a bunch of radishes at the Gardonne market. I wasn't big on radishes so we didn't have them in the potager.

  'We must buy these,' she said. 'We eat them at school.'

  When we got home, standing on a chair, four-year-old Sophia presided over the preparations. I cut off the radish leaves and prepared to throw them into the compost bin.

  'No, no!' she exclaimed. 'You must keep those to make a green salad.' I obeyed, feeling safe in the hands of a grand connoisseur after two years in the French school system. She then recited how to make the dressing for the radish leaves; olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sugar, a pinch of salt.

  The radish heads with a spot of cold butter dabbed onto them and the radish leaf salad were absolutely delicious. It was the first time I had enjoyed radishes in my life.

  A few days later, I came home with a cheap Camembert.

  'That doesn't taste like Camembert, it tastes more like Brie,' said Sophia imperiously.

  'Maybe,' I replied.

  Minutes later Sean came in. 'That's bad Camembert. It tastes like Brie.'

  There would be no more cheap, nasty, imposter Camemberts in our house.

  Duck is a major part of the cuisine of the Dordogne and the Périgord. My best duck breast of all time was enjoyed al fresco at the Saussignac market from an artisanal producer who grilled it right in front of me on a medieval iron platter hung over an open fire.

  Free, with music and dancing included, Saussignac night market was chock-full of the ambiance of a summer sans soucis (without worries). As evening fell, traders erected stalls and music began to waft through the village square where tables had been arranged by energetic village volunteers. The DJ, a dynamic extrovert with a wide smile, set up his stand right against the church. Soon he was boogying and shaking to wild rock music under the clock tower. It was loaded with all the irony I had come to expect of France.

  We were selling our wines for the first time at a market. Soon I was frenetically serving people by the glass. Sean went back to Garrigue for more cold wine.

  'J'aime ce vin,' (I like this wine) said Olivier, our winemaking neighbour, coming back to buy a second bottle of sauvignon blanc from our stall. 'It's different. It's very good.'

  My heart swelled with joy. Olivier was from a winegrowing family of several generations. His comments were high praise. Olivier's return for another bottle spoke more than his words.

  Sean ran after our two girls weaving between tables in their pretty pink dresses. He bought moules et frites, mussels and chips, and they enjoyed a finger feast standing next to our stall. Then, leaving Sean to man the stand, I took the girls to boogie with the DJ in the shadow of the church. We could have danced all night if the toilet facilities had been in better shape, but alas, they were à la turque and not quite spotless.

  We decided to make our first foray into livestock: chickens. Animals were important to the whole farm concept of biodynamics and they would improve our self-sufficiency. Despite the pressure of early summer mowing, weeding and shoot removal Sean ordered the chickens, knowing a deadline was what he needed to build the house and run.

  'What kind of chickens did you order?' I asked.

  'I don't know. They're the type the co-op supply as laying hens.'

  'But what colour will they be?'

  'I don't know.'

  This said it all about the difference between men and women. For me, our chickens needed to be the cute golden-brown ones with white undercarriage, not any old chickens. For Sean, so long as they laid eggs, he wasn't too pushed.

  The auspicious day arrived and Sean collected our nine chickens from the farm supply in Gardonne. He lifted the boxes out of the car and carefully let them out into the run. They were the right colour but, horror of horrors, their necks were bare, totally feather free. They ran off, scared out of their wits. Sean and the girls spent hours watching them.

  Within a few weeks the chickens had become an important part of life at Garrigue. Sean got up early to let them out. At night he closed them into their coop, safe from foxes. They loved Sean, their source of food: a mix of grain and leftovers. When they saw him they would stampede like ladies at a summer sale beating each other off to be first in line. Their running gait was hilarious: one minute genteelly pecking around the garden, the next running like mad, skirts hoicked up over their knees.

  The hens started laying: first a mixed bag of erratic, tiny eggs, then a steady flow of good-sized speckled or brown eggs, often with double yolks. We ate our first home-grown omelette with relish. The yolks were a more vibrant yellow than I had ever seen and the flavour was superb.

  Early one Sunday morning I heard a commotion that didn't sound like the usual egg laying. I dropped everything and sprinted onto the terrace. A hen was scrambling up the road with a monstrous dog in pursuit. I let out a blood-curdling yell and ran at the dog, forgetting my own safety in my effort to protect the hen. The dog turned tail and ran.

  With my heart beating like a helicopter rotor and my adrenalin pumping I went up to the chicken house fearing the worst. A bundle of chickens were huddled in one corner. I consoled them quietly and counted. Eight. I did a circuit of the garden and the fields around the house then came back to count again. The number was the same. I was devastated. Sophia and Ellie came out. Sophia counted and burst into tears.

  'Don't worry, Sophia,' said Ellie sagely, not clear on what was happening.

  'Ellie's right,' I said. 'Don't worry. She is probably hiding because she's scared. We'll have a good look with Dad when he comes in for some water.'

  I didn't hold out much hope. I felt sad, far more affected than I thought I would be. I hadn't realised how much a part of the family they had become with their beady eyes, pointy beaks and hilarious lacy skirts.

  When Sean came in from doing his anti-fungal treatment we did another circuit looking for the missing chicken. Sean went up to the hen house and counted again. As he closed the gate, fearing she was lost for good, the hen stepped cautiously out of the thick hedge behind the coop. She had been hiding in fear since the incident. Hearing Sean's voice, she felt safe enough to come out. All of the chickens were safe and sound.

  Our gourmet hens were producing enough eggs to provide much of our protein requirements. We tightened our belts and stopped buying meat. Alongside decreasing our cost of living I had to create some income. The wine tourism had to succeed. My first reservation for a Médoc wine tour had just come in. Although it was far – almost three hours' drive – it was such an iconic part of Bordeaux I had to include it in my offerings. I read up frantically, filling in the gaps in my knowledge. It was like cramming for exams but more fun.

  Winemaking is one of the most ancient arts practised by man, dating back to around 8000 BC in parts of Asia; in parts of France, including our little corner of the Dordogne, winemaking predates Roman times by a few hundred years. The Médoc, an exception, was marshland until the late 1600s, when Dutch engineers were brought in to drain it for agriculture.

  Austin, my client, was a Scottish oenophile doing a grand tour of France. He was on his way through the south of France and on
ce in Bordeaux, he was keen to visit a premier grand cru classé in the Médoc. I planned our day around a visit to Château Mouton Rothschild where they offered tasting as part of the tour. When we arrived for the tour I discovered an additional bonus was their art museum. Wine is widely depicted in ancient art. Walking around the ruins of Pompeii at twenty years old, I was impressed by the sophistication of two things: their art and their plumbing. The art depicted scenes of people enjoying wine and sensual pleasures that would make a regular Playboy-reader blush.

  The museum at Mouton was filled with similar ancient treasures. We passed millennia-old Greek pottery with scenes of the grape harvest and winemaking painted on their smooth round sides, magnificently erotic and celebratory. One showed nude men with massive erections lifting baskets of grapes into a press. There were scenes with dancing, music, winemaking and mystical elements like a man with horns and goat feet. Then we entered the modern art section with lurid pink pottery tea pots and other strange collectibles.