Grape Expectations Read online

  'You have to go to service après vente.'

  'Where is it?' I asked, expecting him to point to a convenient after sales service kiosk.

  'Poil de Vache.'

  'Comment?' I said.

  'Poil de Vache,' he said, a little louder.

  'It's not in this shop?' I said, somewhat taken aback and beginning to wonder if he was swearing at me for being a foreigner rather than telling me where to go. I had a vague recollection that vache meant cow but could also be used in a less savoury context.

  'No, it's on the road to Sarlat about ten minutes from here,' he said even louder.

  'Quoi?' I said, certain I had misheard despite the amplification.

  'You need to take it to Agnostini Garage in Poil de Vache,' he yelled. 'He will fix it for you. He's our service après vente. It's near the road to Sarlat about ten minutes from here. Look, I'll draw a map so you can find it.'

  Too dumbfounded to reply I took the scruffy map and set off. About ten minutes later, a tiny laneway announced the hamlet of Poil de Vache. Having explored the entire hamlet in half a second and found nothing, I was about to give up my quest when I saw a faded sign half hidden by a tree, saying 'Agnostini 500 m'. The road led to a car garage in the backyard of a house. Monsieur Agnostini, an unkempt version of Monsieur Bonny, came out of the dingy interior.

  'Ah, another brush cutter. Don't tell me, it's the starter motor,' he said, waving his arm into the darkness where fifteen brush cutters of the same brand were lined up.

  'When will it be ready?' I asked. 'I need it by the weekend.'

  'Pas possible. It will take ten days to order the part then a few days to do it. Une quinzaine de jours minimum.'

  That little 'quinzaine de jours', nominally fifteen days, normally meant infinity. I did not have the time to argue as I knew that Sean and the two girls would be wondering if I was in Bergerac Hospital, having taken two hours to return the faulty machine. When I got back to the shopping centre, the two girls were happily playing on the toys near the entrance and Sean appeared relaxed. They were getting onto French time.

  Fifteen days later I phoned to see what had happened to the brush cutter.

  'The part still hasn't arrived,' said Monsieur Agnostini. 'I apologise for the manufacturer. Normalement it should be here by Monday.'

  The little word 'normalement' meant 'not a chance'.

  On Monday Agnostini was fiercely apologetic but the part still had not arrived. 'It will be ready in a few days. I will call you. Don't worry to call back. As soon as it's ready I will call you.'

  He didn't call. By the following Monday my French was remarkably good. He remained calm, apologising for the manufacturer's tardiness and promising the same promise I got on the last call. I hung up before he finished and called the shop. I explained to the store representative that I wanted a new brush cutter.

  'Madame,' he said imperiously, 'if I gave everyone with a problem machine a new one I would have no margin.'

  I offered to contact the European director of consumer affairs to discuss this statement and he promised that Agnostini would have the machine fixed by the following afternoon. I felt like he had done me a huge favour and thanked him profusely.

  When I picked up the machine Agnostini was so affable I couldn't be furious. I left thinking how great it was that a nationwide DIY chain supported a tiny garage like Agnostini operating in a backwater like Poil de Vache. I was succumbing to the frustrating but wonderful eccentricities of France.

  At last the garden could be transformed into a manicured haven of tranquillity. I needed one. Vachement.

  Sean was still recovering from his 'shark bite' and unable to do physical work apart from driving the tractor so we swapped roles for a while. My first job in the vineyard was épamprage.

  Épamprage is the removal of unwanted shoots on the trunk and head of the vine. We didn't have a machine so our vineyard required doing the equivalent of 25,000 slow, deep squats in the space of a few weeks. That's about 2,000 a day accompanied by a long, steep hike. This needs to be done at least twice a season. We had done one pass working together early in the spring.

  Sean had not finished the mechanical weeding so I had to hack through a thorny wall to get to the shoots. Long-sleeved shirts and long pants, while not ideal in 35 degrees, were a necessity.

  My day started at five in the morning to beat the heat. One golden, misty morning as I worked in lower Garrigue a snort announced a dainty deer a metre from me. She curved her graceful neck to get a good look at me then cantered away. Later I bent down to push aside some weeds and a brown hare leapt out. He bounded off, all legs and ears. Soon after I saw a snake as I walked back up to the house. I asked Myreille, a neighbour, about snakes. She and Olivier, her husband, owned the vineyard that ran along our border. They were similar in age to us and had a large family. Myreille had a job off the farm like many of our neighbours' wives.

  'Oui, c'est vrai,' she said. 'There are many. One type is so poisonous, if you get bitten you must get to the hospital within twenty minutes, or c'est fini. Et,' she said conspiratorially, 'il faut absolument ne pas avoir peur. If you are afraid, that will raise your heartbeat and then, c'est fini, even faster.'

  I wondered how one did not have fear when faced with a potentially fatal snakebite and a journey to the nearest hospital of slightly more than twenty minutes but nodded sagely and decided to be more careful with my épamprage in future. There would be no more diving in hands first. Now I stomped with my well-shod foot around the base of the vine before bending down to do the necessary. One day I caught Sean watching me from the window, laughing uncontrollably. I gave him the one-finger salute, which made him laugh even harder.

  Some days I wondered when it would end. The vines multiplied into never-ending rows on our steep slice of paradise. As my morale sank to an all-time low, and the heatwave rose to an all-time high, two friends arrived in a vintage Porsche with the top down, armed with tea, crisps and craic.

  John and Sam were keen to get their hands dirty. Sam had worked with Sean in the bank and John was his eccentric, hilarious and Porsche-fanatic brother. They had been in Le Mans for the race and were now enjoying a footloose trip around France.

  'Come on, Sammy Boy, let's go,' said John as I came downstairs the second morning. It was 5.30 a.m. and they were already heading out into the vineyard while I hadn't even had my breakfast.

  'Caro, darlin', you need a good cup of tea you can walk on,' said John. 'That was Mum's advice when I left Limerick for London twenty years ago. Make sure you have a good cup of tea to start the day, she said, you'll be amazed at what you can do.'

  I followed John's advice, brewing my Barry's Tea Gold Blend as the dawn crept across the sky each morning. Soon I was so addicted I ratcheted up to two bags. Tea I could walk on became my saviour.

  With the vines well into their season we also had to think about the next phase after the growing: the winemaking. We were looking for a young, keen, modern wine scientist, or oenologist. Lucille Deneuve appeared to fit the bill.

  Lucille could speak English but she always spoke to us in French. Our French dictionary was always within reach. We liked her. Well, Sean really liked her. She was a blonde bombshell, someone you would have expected to find in St Tropez rather than in the vineyards of Bergerac: pretty but bright, with a luscious body that made men look rather too closely at certain wording – those in a particular area – on the Bergerac wine T-shirt she often wore.

  She recommended that we talk to and taste the wines of other local winemakers so we could tell her what style of wine we wanted to make. Her suggestions included a name I recognised as the young fellow I'd sat next to at lunch on Cécile's training course several months before.

  A few days later we visited Château Court-les-Mûts, the property of the Sadoux family. Their vineyard was just over a kilometre from us on the main valley slope going towards Sainte-Foy-la-Grande. From our house we could follow a rural route that took us past the mayor's vineyard down to
the D14, the Route des Coteaux, offering the most stunning westerly views down the Dordogne valley all the way. The unassuming Pierre was a third-generation winegrower and their farm was the largest independent wine operation in the Saussignac appellation. We tasted his wines and talked about what had happened in the different vintages and how they made their wines. I was stunned at his openness. We would be direct competitors but despite this he shared his passion and knowledge without hesitation.

  Lucille returned for another visit sporting a slightly different Bergerac wine T-shirt that meant that Sean had to carefully check the new words printed in a strategic area. Despite my misgivings – how could someone so good-looking and so well endowed also be gifted at winemaking? – she seemed thorough and genuine. To top it all, she had worked at one of the top estates in Médoc, a favourite of ours, before becoming a consultant. It was serendipity. We decided to appoint her as our oenologist.

  Lucille did a tour of the winery and promised to let us know what we needed to buy before the vendange. The word vendange, harvest, struck excitement and terror deep within me. It was months away but I already felt my nerves tighten at its mere mention. There again, the little word 'buy' also gave me a frisson of fear as we had completely emptied the coffer for equipment.

  As we walked around the dingy interior of the winery I felt dread. It was dark and dirty. I had déjà vu to our arrival in the shuttered kitchen the first day at Garrigue but I could tell that this would take a lot more work than the stainless steel sink and kitchen cupboards. We needed to service the presses, clean and sterilise the winery from top to toe and purchase some small pieces of equipment. Still, the 'wish list' from our oenologist was not as daunting as I had expected.

  The following morning my brain churned through our precarious financial position as I watched the dawn creep across the vineyard over my steaming cup of two-bag brew, now a well-installed habit that offered me a deep sense of comfort in this unfamiliar world. I had finished an entire pass of the vineyard in three weeks. My fingers absent-mindedly stroked the mass of scratches on my right hand, testament to the thorny walls around our vines. It was almost time to start the weeding and shoot removal again but Sean was back on form and I could bow out of the vineyard and get back to my renovations.

  Chapter 8

  Summer

  Summer was upon us. With the long, hot days the fruit progressed at a rapid rate from hard, green peas to soft, sweet grapes in a few short months. Sean worked all hours.

  A party of AOC 'police' arrived including Joel, the vigneron with the mass of greying-blonde hair who had scared me the first time I met him, and our old friend from the Chamber of Agriculture, Monsieur Ducasse. They were on site for yet another contrôle (check) of the vineyards that we had declared for Saussignac production. This time they were checking the development of the fruit, the yield, the vineyard health and cleanliness – no weeds – to ensure they met appellation standards. Sean was out working in the merlot so I showed them the five rows below the pressoir that he had ear-marked for Saussignac, our dessert wine.

  'These vines are too loaded,' said Monsieur Ducasse, his eyebrows frowning to underline his point.

  'The grapes are too big and not ripening fast enough,' said Joel, adding salt to the wound.

  Sean would be furious if we were stopped from making Saussignac because of a few observations by this inspection team.

  'We only want to do five rows,' I said. 'Maybe we should look at the other vineyard Sean declared. Perhaps it will be better for the Saussignac.'

  Ellie was asleep safe in her cot so I locked the house and took them down to Lenvège, where there was a mix of ancient sémillon, sauvignon blanc and muscadelle white grapes. With foresight Sean had declared more vineyard than we wanted to do.

  'These are far better,' said Joel. 'But you need to do some green harvesting and some de-leafing.'

  Green harvesting is the removal of some of the grapes a month or two before harvest so there are fewer grapes per vine and hence less for the vine to mature, which is thought to result in better quality. De-leafing is the removal of leaves around the fruit zone so the fruit has sun directly on it, thought to aid the ripening.

  'You can harvest half of the grapes when you harvest your dry white so you won't have to waste them,' said Mr Ducasse, his eyebrows working overtime. 'And it's better because you don't want to leave the grapes here on the ground as they will attract bad rot.'

  A few days later, taking their instructions to the letter to ensure that we would have Saussignac in the range, Sean removed leaves on the rows we had chosen while Ellie and I meticulously ate the grapes that fell to the ground to make sure we didn't encourage any bad rot in the vineyard.

  With most of the house dating back to 1737 we were guaranteed a few surprises of the kind that inevitably accompany the renovation of an antique.

  The drains in our new kitchen stank and with the rising heat the stench had increased. A neighbour explained a drain 'fix' to me: force a hosepipe running water back and forth in the blocked drain until the hose appears on the other side and the water runs clear. It sounded easy so I found a hosepipe, rolled up my sleeves and donned hermetic gloves.

  Lifting the drain covers offered instant olfactory confirmation of the problem.

  After some exploration I found the best arrangement was lying on the ground with my arm buried in the drain. This was closer to the drain than I liked but effective and unexpectedly satisfying. I dislodged a bald tennis ball almost the size of the drain itself.

  The next section of the drain was not as obvious. I could find no sign of a cover so I assumed it went directly to the septic tank. A neighbour, Pascal, who lived in the house in front of Sonia and Fred, arrived to say hello. He was a wiry, handy man who loved dropping by to see how our renovations were progressing. He pointed out grains of rice in a pool of water on the track at the corner of the house.

  'Perhaps it comes out here,' he said.

  The pool of water was constantly full, even with no rain. Sean and I assumed that it was a bad drainage point. The water meter showed no sign of a leak.

  'It's what les anciens used to do,' said Pascal. 'The kitchen waste water emptied down the side of the house.'

  It smacked a little of the bathroom broyeur. I dug into the point where the trickle of water originated. A very foul whiff rose up and Pascal quickly said goodbye.

  I found the end of the drain buried about a foot below the trickle. After digging, pushing, pulling and cursing, a foot-long plug of ancient muck dislodged from the end of the drain pipe I had uncovered. It seemed unbelievable but this had been the main water exit for the kitchen and it looked like it had not been cleared since its construction.

  A few minutes later the water ran clear and I felt like I had conquered the world. I had solved the immediate stench problem but the longer-term solution of routing it to the used water tank would need the expertise of Jean-Marc, the plumber.

  The worst heatwave of the year hit as my mother arrived for a two-week stay. She had picked up that in the aftermath of Sean's accident we were not coping at all and had decided to come and help, plus she would see her granddaughters. My mother had been with us for the coldest winter and was now experiencing the hottest summer. When I opened the door onto the courtyard, it was like stepping into a massive oven. The car thermometer registered 45 degrees in the afternoons. We stayed indoors after nine in the morning and closed all the shutters. At ten at night as darkness settled we opened the shutters and enjoyed a few hours of relative cool before the blazing sun started the bake again. The only refuge outside was the girls' paddling pool set under shady trees.

  My mother could not understand why we had moved to a place with such an intolerable climate. It was either hoar frost or a heatwave and nothing in between. I tried to explain that the six months between their last visit and her current one had been delightful. It wasn't just the weather; she and my father were still unable to comprehend why we had left our 'successful' city
life. Sometimes I felt the same way… but I would never have admitted that to my parents. I wanted their unconditional support. Sean found it difficult to share a house with his mother-in-law so we hardly saw him. As it was, before my mother's visit he and I didn't talk much, thanks to him working long hours. After my mother left, our ability to communicate worsened and we both withdrew into our work: house renovations for me and vineyard work for Sean. Nonetheless, I was feeling more relaxed about Sean being out on the tractor and working with farm equipment, although I still felt angst each time he got the trimmer out.

  There was a broken tile and a persistent leak in the winery roof that needed fixing, and since no machinery was involved, I let Sean go up on the roof and passed the required material up to him. A few seconds later he lurched backwards, thrashing a piece of guttering around in the air.