by Caro Feely
'Hi, Caro. It's Andrew.'
I hadn't spoken to Andrew since my last trip home. It was great to hear his familiar tones. We worked together for more than five years and had known each other a lot longer.
'How are things?' I said. We had a chat about the new job that he had started. It sounded like a good place to work.
'They don't need more people do they? I need a job.'
I explained what had happened and how we had just put Garrigue up for sale. Andrew was incredulous. He had been a major supporter of our vineyard and a loyal direct customer.
'I don't think you should give up,' he said.
'We just can't see how we can make it work given the time frame and resources we have,' I said.
'Well, this is more than a friendly catch-up call. We've decided to wind up the company. After costs, there is some money to divvy out, including enough to cover your loan to it. That might help you to hang in there.'
'Tell me more,' I said, excitement mounting. He was referring to a loan I had made to a start-up about ten years before. I had written off the sum long ago, not expecting it ever to be repaid.
As Andrew filled me in I did a quick calculation. The money would meet our shortfall on running expenses for the next twelve months, which would give us the breathing space to develop the new business lines of tourism and holiday rental. I ran through to Sean.
'We've been saved,' I shouted.
'Calm down. What's going on?'
'We can take Garrigue off the market.' I felt a strange sense of déjà vu back to the days of 'it's on, it's off', when we tried to buy Garrigue almost three years before.
'I feel like we just won the lottery,' said Sean, a smile spreading over his face as the impact of my news sank in. Then he looked serious. 'But Carolinus, we have to decide if it's worth investing this second chance in Garrigue. We need to be sure we aren't throwing our energy into something that will deliver nothing in the long run. The farm has to be financially viable, it has to make a living for us. We've got to be rational.'
There it was, rational. We had to be rational, but I wasn't. If I had been rational, I would have walked out the first time a mouse launched itself at me or the first time my back felt broken from stacking too many cases of wine or the first time I came back from a full morning of shoot removal. No, it was not rational, but Sean was right, it needed to make enough money to feed our family and to fund a modest retirement.
Once the girls were asleep, we worked for hours on a new business plan. Going over the history of the business we could see how badly we had misjudged the time it would take to have the wine business operating as a going concern. The red wine had taken eighteen months longer than expected to be available. The costs had been much higher than estimated and we hadn't planned for the excruciating level of social charges despite our consultation with an expert accountant. Add the low yields of the organic road we had chosen to that and it wasn't pretty.
We looked at different scenarios and discussed potential income streams deep into the night. Our average wine prices had to increase considerably. We had to sell our wines for what they were worth. With optimistic projections, higher wine prices, the self-catering cottage and the wine classes, we could find sufficient income to keep the wine business going while we developed new vineyard plantings. The new plantings would then help Garrigue to pay its way. We would have to work hard to put bread on the table.
No one in their right mind would stick with this business. No investor on earth would touch it, but I had left my consulting roots long ago. I had found a discipline I loved, something that was awesome, demanding and vibrant.
'It's what I want, SF. We've come too far to give up. I love this place. I get up in the morning with energy.'
'I agree, Carolinus. We have to make it a success. There is too much potential to throw it away.'
We took Garrigue off the market. Knowing we would not be rethinking our decision again was pure release. We had decided to stay. We would pursue this dream to its end. The previous twelve months of constant questioning of the future were over. We would make it work. We were following something beyond logic, an ancient profession greater than ourselves.
We couldn't afford new things, the girls had hand-me-down clothes, as did I, Sean's gear was more hole than cloth, but we were living and feeling more deeply than ever before. We were also settling in the community. Each year the arts exhibition in the Château de Saussignac was accompanied by a lunch à l'espagnole, a bring and share, set out in the garden on long trestle tables. When I arrived at my third Arts au Château festival opening I found a huge photo of Sean, taken by Timothy White, a photographer who co-owned one of the towers of Saussignac Castle, at the entrance. The photo captured the essence of Sean, the vigneron. In the line-up he was alongside village powers like the mayor, the president of the syndicat of Saussignac and François, the chef at the Lion d'Or. Sean had arrived. With a few intensive language classes behind him he could now hold his own at a French dinner party. We were slowly transforming from outsiders to insiders.
The following evening we sat down to a dinner 100 per cent grown by us. Our own organic white wine, potatoes pulled from the earth an hour before, fresh chives, mayonnaise made from our own eggs, a salad made from edible weeds, herbs and hardy greens like rocket that survived erratic gardening. It was a meal that beat a grand feast, bursting with flavour, truth and freshness.
I pushed my chair back from the table and proposed a toast to Garrigue and Sean's green fingers. I felt humble and grateful for what we had, instead of harassed about what we didn't have. We were taking a risk but we were living. This was not the safe option but it was our option. It was more than a job. It was our lives. Yes, there were no weekends off but there was also fulfilment that you could not put a price on. Not only that, we were living our philosophy, contributing to what we believed in through our organic practices.
I prepared to depart for a sales and marketing trip that was long overdue and we received news that our merlot that had put us in the merde had won a medal in the Concours de Bordeaux, the Bordeaux wine competition. It was perfectly timed. A few days before, an unexpected article had appeared in a major newspaper: the writer, Sandra Mooney, declared Château Haut Garrigue La Source to be her favourite red wine saying, 'It's gorgeous.' I thought she was gorgeous. These were the red wines that had given me so many sleepless nights and cost Sean a third of a finger. Now they were winning accolades.
Sean took me to Bordeaux airport. We said goodbye and automatically kissed each other on either cheek à la française. We realised at the same moment what we had done and cracked up, giggling uncontrollably on the set-down pavement. We were becoming French. At least I knew his name.
On arrival as I drove through the city, I was filled with memories. Aideen and Barry were waiting for me with a plate of fresh salmon on the table. The butter I slathered onto the potatoes was beyond heaven. Everything was calm and ordered. My bed was made and Aideen had put out slippers for me. A new copy of Food and Wine magazine was on the table with a two-page feature article about us and our wines. It felt good.
Andrew gave me the use of his boardroom in the city centre for the evening wine classes I offered to our direct customers. Before my first session I made a dash into a specialist cheese shop to buy Cashel Blue, a delectable Irish blue cheese that would be matched with our Saussignac dessert wine as the finale to the class. Like the butter I had had the night before it melted on the tongue and left a long memory. My appreciation of all food had been transformed in the years at Garrigue.
A radio crew arrived to tape part of the class. I had a full house with chairs packed around the edges of the room. Everyone was in great spirits and the class was super-interactive. The years of knowledge from Garrigue poured out of me. Our organic ethos and my love of wine combined to form a powerful message. It was so much more than work. At the end of the class, Dorothy, the radio journalist, pulled me aside.
'You were great, Caro, gr
eat!'
'Thanks, Dorothy. It's easy to talk about something you love.'
'You should have your own TV show.'
I laughed and thanked her. A few minutes later everyone was gone and I was left alone with the chaos remaining after a fifteen-person wine tasting. Between trips carrying glasses down the two flights of stairs to the kitchen I read the comments on my feedback forms.
'Your passion for organically produced wine is inspiring. You make great wine and have a zest for life and knowledge. I hope to be able to attend your classes more often.'
'Thanks for taking the fear out and adding some mystery to the art of wine appreciation. We really enjoyed the class.'
'Excellent class. What clarity.'
'Awesome wines.'
I attacked my clean-up with renewed vigour. In the background, the sounds of Bruce Springsteen floated through the square. He was giving a live concert and his poignant songs filled the room. The streets were quiet with the odd couple wandering back from dinner in town. I returned Andrew's boardroom to a pristine state and let myself out through the massive door of their Georgian building.
Stepping onto the pavement I was transported back to my mid twenties and my arrival in the city. A decade of memories washed over me in a delicious wave. I carried the tools of my new trade – wine glasses, wine bottles, corkscrew and wine education booklets – back to my car and prepared to head back to Aideen and Barry. Before taking off I opened the window of the car and paused for a few minutes to listen and soak up the place. It was one of those moments in my life I would never forget. A turning point, the moment where I felt comfortable in my new professional skin. I had made the transition from consultant to wine professional.
The classes were window dressing; selling our wines to wine shops was critical. Dave, our largest wine buyer at the time, was my most important meeting of the week.
I went in to his offices with a hammering heart. After fifteen minutes of waiting he invited me in to meet one of their Australian winemakers, known as the 'Baron of Barossa', from one of the oldest winegrowing families in Australia. I felt sidelined, shoehorned in alongside a famous winegrower. We tasted his sémillon sauvignon blanc blend alongside our own, then his merlot alongside our merlot.
'That's a lovely sém-sauv,' said the Baron. My heart swelled with pride.
'Yours is delicious too,' I said.
'So how much wine do you produce, Caro?' he asked.
'We're small: 20,000 bottles.'
'Oh, yeah, small like us. We produce 25,000.' He choked on his wine. 'Did you say bottles? We produce 25,000 cases.'
For him 25,000 cases, almost fifteen times what we produced, was a small producer. It gave me a sense of the difference in scale between Australian and French producers. In France, we were close to the norm with many of our neighbours a similar size to us. In neighbouring St Émilion, the average farm was around 15 acres, about half our size. The Baron was called to go to lunch with the directors. Perhaps in a few years I'd be fortunate enough to be invited but for now I was a little-known producer with no market clout. The wine buyer and I got down to business.
'Caro, we have a new category management system. It forces us to focus on successful wines,' said Dave.
I felt my blood drain from my body. It was about six months since he had ordered from us.
'Your white wine now has a permanent place on our shelves. It is one of our core range that we want to have in stock on a permanent basis,' he said. 'We want to order all your stock of the new vintage sémillon sauvignon blanc.' Inside I was jumping for joy but I kept a cool exterior.
'What about the merlot?' I asked.
'I like it but it may be too tannic for our customers,' said Dave, then took another swig and spat a clean, high-pressure jet into the spittoon.
'It won a medal in the Bordeaux Wine Competition. We'll have the medals on the bottles in a few weeks.'
Dave looked through his stocklist.
'I haven't got much pure merlot at the moment. We'll try 1,200 bottles.' Then he offered me a price that was well below what we needed. I was desperate to have a foothold for our red wine so I agreed. It wasn't the 4,800-bottle order I had hoped for or the price I wanted, but it was better than nothing.
I called Sean that evening.
'Well done, Carolinus.'
'It's nothing to do with me. It's your great wines.'
When I hung up I was despondent. The price I had agreed on the merlot was so far from what we needed to cover the running costs as to be laughable.
'But look how far you've come,' said Aideen. 'How much does the reduction represent?' She did a quick calculation on her mobile. 'Look, you made more than that on wine sales at your classes this week. Remember this time last year you had no retail customers and now look at you. A regular stock item for them. It's mega.'
Aideen put everything in perspective. Compared to the previous year our progress was enormous. The following day, as I was leaving, a wine importer called looking for exclusivity on two of our premium wines. It was a boost to our morale but we weren't keen to jump into an exclusive arrangement and I played for time.
Ellie spotted me coming through the doors of Bordeaux airport.
'Mummy, Mummy,' she yelled, almost leaping out of the car window in excitement with Sophia hot on her heels.
I dropped my bags and ran to hug them.
The car and trailer were stuffed to bursting with barrels from a grand cru classé in the Pessac-Léognan. We had developed a relationship with the owner during Sean's days buying the wines for the bank he used to work for. Now they sold us a few of their best second-hand barrels each year. It was a fitting sight for tourists arriving into Bordeaux airport and I could see them staring at us both because of the welcome I got and for the barrels, an icon of our ancient profession.
'Sit next to me, Mummy,' said Ellie. I sat between them in the back seat so I could be hugged and stroked all the way back to Garrigue.
It was good to be back in my French home. The community of Saussignac was something to be savoured as our mayor regularly reminded us in his letters. Sophia started real school. I drove home from the post office at midday on Sophia's first day and saw her new Maîtresse about to enter her house opposite the school. She caught my eye and gave me the thumbs-up. Sophia had settled in. I felt a wave of community warmth.
Mitch O'Sullivan, the owner of a specialist wine shop in Eymet, a bastide town near us, loved our sauvignon blanc so much she wrote an article for a local paper about us. 'It's a gem with hints of bergamot and Loire Valley sauvignon minerality,' she said, congratulating us on our success. The good news kept rolling in. I considered for a second the horror of what we would have thrown away if we had sold the vineyard. We had come so close. As I worked the pump and Sean filled the 'new' barrels with our red wine we talked excitedly about the future; where we wanted to take our wines, biodynamic certification, a wine school and the potential for the ruin. I realised our adventure had only just begun.
Message from the Author
When I started this book it was a way to help me through the challenges of moving country and a dramatic change of life. Through the saga of our first year I felt impelled to tell the story. Now the story also has a message about our organic transformation.
Being a producer changed my buying habits. Every cent I spend has an impact on the market. It's basic economic theory but living and feeling it personally changed my ways. The consequences of chemical farming are horrible: cancer for the workers farming the land, long-term destruction of the land, pollution in the water and chemical residues in the end product leading to potential cancer for consumers; but it's hard not to be addicted to cheap food sold beautifully dressed-up in supermarkets, especially on a tight budget.
Our bakery laughed at me when I asked them for an organic baguette. I resolved not to buy from them any more. My miniscule purchasing power would make a difference, each purchase a declaration of what we believed in.
Sean and I
were in the kitchen cleaning up after the girls had gone to bed.
'I will not support non-organic,' I raved. 'I have to find organic suppliers so we can buy direct. If I can't source an organic baguette, I'm going to make my own bread. I can't be talking organic all day then supporting something else with half my purchases because it's the easy option.'
Sean laughed. I had never made bread in my life. I was still so far from a self-sufficient farmer's wife, my husband thought it was a joke.
'Don't laugh. I'm serious.'