In the early days I spread the word about my blossoming wine tour business by calling on hotel and B&B owners clutching a handful of leaflets in the hope that they’d encourage their clients to take a tour. As an incentive I offered a small commission which was enthusiastically accepted by business owners who hailed from the UK and other English speaking countries but not so much from the French owners. I think this is just one of the big differences in our cultures. Whereas Brits and the like are very open about business and making money the French are much more private. This was a gradual discovery for me but once I realised it, I worked hard to forge good working relationships with the people who were receptive many of whom became personal friends.

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One such B&B, sadly closed these days, was owned by Val & Mike, a lovely English couple who not only embraced what I was trying to do but looked after me as well. Walking into Val’s kitchen was like walking into a little bit of England as she regularly baked the best cakes and fruit pies I ever tasted. On many occasions I was sent home with a slice of something delicious and I regularly collected clients from their B&B as they drove more and more business in my direction.

There were many more people like Val and Mike, such as Peter who ran a beautiful set of apartments in the centre of Carcassonne that his designer wife had created. Then there was Marylin and Steve, an Australian couple who owned several little rental houses in a Minervois village. All these people kept my tours full all summer long as did Kay and Mark who run the superb Saine-Helene Chambres d’Hotes in the little town of Olonzac. Later, when this couple started running week long Languedoc tours, they chose my business to host the welcome wine & tapas tasting as well as run a vineyard tour day. I owe a great debt of gratitude to all these people, without them it would have been tough especially in the early days.

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Another group of People that were highly important are the customers. I wouldn’t be telling the truth if I said I can remember every single one of them but there are some that stand out. The two lovely guys from Scotland who came on a tour in the early days and were inspired to start their own tour business in Scotland. Then there’s Dawn from America who booked one tour for a group way back in 2014 and then toured with me many more times afterwards including a trip to Tuscany.

And then there are MY MILLIONAIRES. Well I call them mine because as far as I know they were the only millionaires I ever took on a tour and they did theirs in style. When they were young and broke they’d dreamed of touring France on motorbikes. Cruising the country lanes, visiting châteaux, wine tasting and eating the best cuisine in the world. It never happened. They just didn’t have the money back then and when they became successful business people, they were too busy. Then one day they decided the time had come but by then they felt a little too old to ride the bikes all day so hired me to drive the van as well as organise the ten day tour. They were two couples. The men drove their bikes and the girls sat in the van with me and all the luggage and boy, was there a lot of luggage!

The tour began in Poole where they lived and we took the catamaran across to Saint-Malo and from there drove to the Loire Valley for a few days then onto Bordeaux for several days then back up through Cognac to the Loire again. They stayed in top class chateau hotels and dined at the best restaurants, but I was happy to stay in B&B’s, much more my style..!

For me there are two standout days from that tour. The first took place in Bordeaux where while visiting Chateau Lynch-Bages, I found out my lovely customers didn’t like red wine. It came as a bit of a shock as obviously we were in one of the finest red wine regions in the world. But Bordeaux also makes wonderful white wine and for those uninitiated it is a wonderful place to find yourself. After the chateau visit we were lunching at a Michelin restaurant close by and as white wine had not been included in the tasting at Lynch-Bages my lovely clients asked me to order several bottles to taste over lunch.

I wondered how the sommelier would take it when I asked him to select six bottles of varying styles of white Bordeaux and no red, but the nose that had been held high was suddenly joined by a wide smile. ‘It will be my absolute pleasure,’ he said hurrying away to make the choices.

A true sommelier will not only select the wine, but they will also taste it for you to check its condition and I could see by the look on his face he was relishing this opportunity to taste as much as we were.

The other outstanding part of this trip took place in Cognac. In their lovely Birmingham accents my Millionaires had told me they had a lot of money and they wanted to spend it so with that glove thrown on the table I sought out a magnificent tasting at Rémy Martin. The day began when a chauffeured limousine collected my clients and took them for breakfast in the Rémy Martin wine cellar which was followed by a grand private tour of the estate and a tasting of various cognacs. They returned to the hotel in the afternoon to rest and make ready for Le Grand Finale, a candle lit dinner with members of the Rémy Martin family and a glass of Rémy Martin Louis XIII, known to be a favourite of Sir Winston Churchill’s.

Another group of people I must include in this memoir are the wine makers, artisan creators of cheese, olive oil, vinegar and honey and the restaurant owners I worked with. Many of them have thanked me over the years for spreading the word about the Languedoc and their produce and bringing people from all over the world to taste or eat but without these hardworking and passionate men and women I would not have had a business. This was a mutually satisfying and, I hope for most, lucrative relationship but one of equal and deep respect.

Chapeau mes amies !

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The 2014 season had been my sixth and in each of those years I’d seen a big leap in the number of tour bookings. Most bookings were day trips for people enjoying a Mediterranean holiday and a lot of them were staying in the medieval city of Carcassonne or close by. For many it wasn’t until they got here that they realised not only were they in a beautiful vineyard region but one they knew little about.

Most customers were enthusiastic wine drinkers rather than deeply knowledgeable wine geeks. All they wanted was a great day out with an entertaining guide with plenty of local knowledge and interesting anecdotes to tell. They were interested in wine and wanted to know more about it, but they didn’t want a snobby wine buff talking to them in wine-language they didn’t understand. Neither did they want to take themselves off to wineries. Firstly, it’s no fun if you want to taste but have to drive, secondly they wouldn’t know where to find welcoming wineries and thirdly many feared they wouldn’t cope with the French-Language.

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My formular was precisely what people were looking for which was great for my business but exhausting for me as to begin with I was just a one-man band. The previous year I’d hit the wall when I ran thirty tours in a row. It was exhausting and although I made sure every one of those tours was excellent, I knew I couldn’t keep up that pace, I needed to find help.

Enter Kate…

Kate had three main things going for her: She was English and spoke French fluently, she held wine qualifications and she’d lived in Languedoc a long time so knew it well. She became my right-hand woman and over the years we worked together she ran hundreds of excellent tours, bringing her unique humour and top notch wine knowledge to each of them.

Next came Marcel…

I met him at a lunch arranged by a mutual winemaker friend who introduced him as someone who planned to start a wine tour business in Languedoc..! It could have been a conversation stopper until she introduced me as the person who runs the best wine tours in the region. We threw our hats into the ring, joined forces and he bought his sommelier professionalism to the team. His tours were top class in both wine knowledge and humour. Later his wife joined the team creating delicious and unique alfresco lunches.

Then along came Carlos…

He’d worked at Château Ollieux-Romanis (You can read about that winery here) for a couple of seasons and as that château was on our Corbières & Lagrasse tour he knew first-hand how our tours operated. At the end of one of the visits he took me to one side and asked if he could join my team, saying he had learnt more about wine from me than he had working at the winery. Due to the wonderful way he took care of my clients, ran his tours with fun and laughter mingled with a deep knowledge of the local history he became a superb asset to the business.

And so ‘one had become four’ but that was no good without enough vehicles so over the next couple of years I also increased the number of tour vans to four and as I now called the team The Fab Four, it seemed fitting to name the vehicles John, George, Paul and Ringo..!

Over the fifteen years I ran my business a few other people joined the team, mainly during the tourist season including Alphonse and Gregg who will always be fondly remembered for their excellent guiding skills as well as their handsome good looks.

Then there was Natalie, an English student studying French. I’d met her a year earlier when she joined one of my wine courses and gained the intermediate level WSET. The following year as part of her university course she needed to find work experience to put into practise the French Language she was studying so of course I snapped her up. She transformed my working day by magnificently tackling all the jobs needing French fluency and joining me on research trips around Languedoc wineries. These days I’m like a proud auntie because since graduating Natalie has gone on to become a regional editor for Decanter writing articles about Languedoc and other French wine regions.

Finally there was Leanne, wife of a Languedoc vigneron who took on the important job of scheduling winery visits and booking restaurants and generally helping me with everything from Instagram to editing the website.

I couldn’t have done it without all these wonderful people to whom I raise my glass (filled with a fine Languedoc wine of course) and thank them from the bottom of my heart.

Footnote. Vin en Vacances is still going strong and is now owned by the redoubtable Carlos, my dear and much loved friend.

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I absolutely adored my home in Warwick; a 17^th century cottage within a stone’s throw of the town centre and a short walk of the castle. It took me a long time to come to terms with selling it but it was the only way I could buy a place in France and that was where I wanted to be. It was one of my usual coincidences that gave me the final push or perhaps it was fate - I’m inclined to think they’re one and the same thing…

August was always a quiet month for wine tours, probably because it’s a time for family holidays, so during the 2012 season with time on my hands I took myself off to explore a small Minervois village. It was the first time I’d visited this particular place and as I walked through its narrow streets the strangest thing happened. The hair on the back of my neck rose up and my heart started to pound. I had the strongest feeling I had found the village I wanted to live in.

I mooched around the narrow medieval streets then passed through an ancient gateway to cross a shallow babbling river then followed the lane up to a windmill where there were lovely views of the Montagne Noire. I continued to walk over rolling hills and past vineyards and olive groves bordered by dry stone walls and all the time the sense of belonging got stronger. It was a glorious walk that brought me back to the village passing a row of old cottages and one of them was for sale.

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The old stone house was pretty much boarded up but peering through one of the wonky shutters I could see it was in a ruinous state. Undeterred I took down the phone number from the sign but in the end did nothing as work ramped up again. Besides I’d need to sell my house before I could buy another. I had almost forgotten about it when at the end of September, just before I returned to England, I bumped into someone I knew from back home. I was surprised to meet him here of all places and I was even more surprised when he told me he’d moved to Carcassonne and had gone into business renovating houses.

‘In fact,’ he said. ‘I’ve just bought a house ripe for renovation in a very pretty Minervois village.’

Call it a second sense, instinct or female intuition but I instantly knew it was the house I’d seen and over a coffee we hatched a plan. He would wait for me to sell my house in England then when I was ready he would renovate my little French ruin. The wheels were put in motion, I was surprised at how quickly my Engish cottage sold and by spring, when I returned to France my friend had begun work on the house. It hadn’t been lived in for many decades and was in a terrible state. It needed gutting until all that was left were four walls; no floors or roof just a square stone tower into which we slotted a new home.

Those were exciting times. I would visit the site almost daily, usually after running a tour then I’d go back to my rental house where I spent the evenings working on a writing project, a new venture for me.

When I’d arrived in Languedoc back in 2009, I wanted to learn everything about the wines of the region and searched in vain for a book to help me. Languedoc wine was getting better known, slowly shrugging off its reputation for producing quantity over quality. I found an excellent book written by Rosemary George MW and another by Paul Strang, both focusing on individual wine makers and their stories. Although they were helpful, I needed a book that, in simple terms, explained what Languedoc-Roussillon was all about. I was looking for a bit of its history, the lay of the land, the terriors and what influenced them, the traditional grape varieties and wine styles and explanations about AOP and Vin du Pays.

No such book existed so I decided I’d write it myself.

It took me two years to write The Wines of the Languedoc-Roussillon. It includes everything mentioned above plus a section about wine growing and making and I also included passages covering local produce and snippets of history. It’s a book for everyone who wants to know about this patch of rural France and to bring it alive a local artist illustrated it with beautiful water colour paintings.

It also took two years to renovate my new home which I moved into in November 2014. I launched my book the following spring. Both projects had been the most demanding as well as exciting phases of my life. I had achieved two great ambitions – to live in France and become a writer…

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These ancient castles had carried out the same function in medieval times, and some of them had played a significant part in the Cathar Crusade. I have to admit until I arrived in Languedoc, I had no idea who the Cathar’s were or that Catharism is a religion; a Christian one at that. Neither had I heard of the Cathar crusade and what happened to followers of this faith 800 hundred years ago. But all that was to change as I was about to be launched into a piece of research that would take me nearly six months to complete.

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One evening after class my phone rang. It was fellow a wine tour guide, also called Wendy but operating in Bordeaux. She had a good client who had asked her to organise a week-long tour following the route of the Cathar crusade. It had to include winery visits and good Languedoc cuisine and Wendy wanted to know if I could help? I explained I could do the wine and food part but knew nothing about the Cathars.

‘Look,’ she said. ‘This tour is not until September, its March now, so you have six months to research and plan it.’

I actually relished the idea of creating a new tour and learning about the Cathars so I said yes and the next day mentioned it to my French teacher. She smiled and led me over to the window to point at a castle perched on a mountain.

‘Do you know what that is? Its Chateau Quéribus, one of the ‘Cathar Castles’ so it likes like you’re in the right place to start your research.’

This was yet another example of the coincidences that have followed me through life and I look upon them as confirmation that I am doing the right thing.

My French teacher knew a lot about the Cathars and over the month I soaked it all up and visited Quéribus as well as Chateau de Peyreperteuse close by. I bought several books written in English that explained the Cathars, visited just about every site linked to them and spent many days designing a five-day tour that included dining at some of the best Languedoc restaurants. By the time September came I felt confident that I could do a good job and indeed the clients loved it.

With all the work I’d put into creating this tour I knew a one-day version should be added to my list and so was born The Cathar Castles & Roussillon wine tour. It was an instant success and especially popular with American clients. The day would begin with a long drive from Carcassonne all the way to the village of Maury in the Roussillon which took nearly two hours. I always worried people would find this too long but in fact they loved the opportunity to see more of the landscape and it gave me the chance to tell the story of the Cathars and the crusade against them.

For our first stop I would choose a winery in the village of Maury and this being France, the wine made there is also called Maury. These days Maury wine can be dry but for centuries it was always sweet, and it was that style of wine I wanted to introduce my customers to. If you’ve never tasted a sweet Maury then please I beg you, go and buy a bottle, especially if you like chocolate because it’s the perfect pairing. Ask any chef and they’ll tell you if they’re serving a chocolate dessert the wine to reach for is always Maury.

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After eating a great lunch in the village of Cucugnan the rest of the day was spent exploring Chateaux Quéribus and Peyreperteuse both of which take a bit of a hike to reach. Over the years that I ran this tour I was always surprised by how eager people were to walk up the difficult, steep rocky paths but the couple that surprised me the most were octogenarians from the USA. They were a sweet couple who’d been married for ever and had made the trip to Languedoc especially to visit the castles. They were a petit pair and although I was concerned they’d find the hike up very hard, I was even more worried they’d be unable to get down again. But they did it, returning proud as punch and delighted to have achieved a long held dream.

If time allowed, I liked to finish off the tour with a drive through the Galamus gorge. It’s a twisting narrow road, barely wide enough for my 9-seater vehicles to squeeze through and with only a few passing places, meeting a car coming the other way could be quite hairy. I must have driven it at least a hundred times so I was confident but that’s not always the case with drivers you meet coming the other way. On one occasion we came across a lady driving towards us who had got herself into a bit of trouble. Cars were stacking up behind her and no one could move but sitting in my van was a UK policeman. I’ll never forget how he hopped out and started directing the traffic and it wasn’t long before he had the situation solved.

I have so many fine memories of this particular tour which I think became my favourite and in fact, in October 2024 it was the last tour I ran as the owner of Vin en Vacances. It felt very special to finish my reign with this one…

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My first ever visit to Languedoc was about thirty years ago. It was a family holiday with my late husband and our children and we’d rented a cottage in the depths of the wild and rugged Corbières for two-weeks. We were attracted to Languedoc because it would satisfy our children’s enjoyment of swimming in the sea and our love of France and its ancient buildings. Plus because wine was one of my husband’s passions he was interested in what was happening in the then ‘up-and-coming’ Languedoc wine region.

It took a few days to drive south from our home in Warwickshire, and it wasn’t until late afternoon on the third day with the children fast asleep on the back seat, that we pulled up in the village of Lagrasse close to our final destination. We had food in the cool box, but we needed bread and hoped to pick up a bottle of wine too. We’d stopped the car at the top of a promenade of plain trees shading a long straggly row of ancient stone buildings. In amongst them the boulangerie was sadly closed but a little restaurant next door seemed busy so John went inside to see if they could help.

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I rolled the windows down to take a deep breath of fresh air. It was a sultry July evening, the cicadas (cicales in this part of France) were chirping, the sun was dipping low and the sound of gentle jazz music wafted from the restaurant along with the smell of garlicy cuisine. It was all so relaxing and I immediately felt the stress of the journey melt away. In its place came a strong feeling that I’d arrived in a place that had been waiting for me all my life.

It’s strange how we are sometimes given glimpses into your future without knowing it. That holiday above all others, is imprinted in my memory and as I write this I poignantly remember how I felt the next time I drove into that village many years later. This time I was on my own, John had died a few years earlier and I was overwhelmed by the sharp focused memories that came slamming back in full technicolour. I remembered how much he’d loved Languedoc and had used to muse about coming here to start a wine tour business when he retired and here I was doing it in his memory.

I knew, of course, that I had to create a tour that included Lagrasse. Not only is it close to my heart, but also because the Corbières produces some of the best wine in the region.

As always, the creation of a tour begins with getting to know the most picturesque routes to villages and wineries, so I spent a lot of time just driving Fifi around getting to know the place. I wanted the lunch stop to be in Lagrasse and again fate had a hand in that. I was drawn to the place where John had bought the bread and wine all those years back and found it was now owned by a beautiful and highly talented woman called Elspeth. She ran her busy restaurant with aplomb and always with a smile on her face, placing plates in front of us heaped with delicious food especially the fruit tarts that we all tucked into so greedily.

The Corbières is the largest vineyard district in Languedoc and contains at least three distinct areas; mountainous, coastal and plains. Some of the mountains are in the crumple zone of the Pyrenees where you find almost every soil type. Then, stretching westwards and inland the soils are mainly limestone and clay but there is also sand and alluvial. The climate is hot, dry and often windy but where there is altitude the growing conditions are less hostile. All this is to say that the wines made here reflect the vines struggle against nature, resulting in hearty, rugged wines much like the land and its people.

As you drive around, you’ll come across signs telling you which terroir you are passing through. There are eleven altogether but in recent years there’s been an initiative to classify the main ones which are Les Terraces des Lézignan, Montagne Alaric, Terroir de Lagrasse, Corbières-Durban and Port Mahon. There is also the Boutenac which is currently the only one to attain cru status which it did back in 2005. That’s where I headed first to find a winery for my tour.

I came across Chateau Ollieux-Romanis which has a long history, an interesting story and produces top class wines; everything I wanted for my Corbières & Lagrasse tour.

Their story begins about a couple of hundred years ago when the owner at that time had two daughters and no sons. Thanks to Napoleon’s inheritance laws, a father must leave his estate in equal shares to his children, no matter if they are daughters or sons. Very fair indeed.

On this occasion when the father died, his daughters had each married and didn’t want to share the chateau or its winery so they divided the land and the buildings into two. To be sure each half of the property was seen as separate entities, they named one Château Ollieux and the other Château Romanis, and for good measure painted the shutters and doors different colours. Green for Château Ollieux and a deep claret for Château Romanis.

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All proceeded happily until those sisters passed and other members of each side of the family inherited and gradually both sides became distant from each other. I have the feeling that a family rift had somehow formed but those intimate details were never shared with me. However, somewhere along the line Château Romanis stopped wine production and the buildings were no longer used. Ollieux was still thriving when I made my first visit. It was owned by a strong and rather terrifying woman called Madam Borie.

She had three children and at that time her only son lived in Paris with his beautiful wife and children and working in the financial world. Although he was born in the Corbières I don’t think returning was part of his plan, that is until his formidable mother decided she must retire. Her daughters were happy to do some work at the winery but they didn’t want to run it, so she called Pierre. I wish I had been the fly in the wall when he put the phone down after that conversation and turned to his chic wife to tell her he was leaving the world of expensive city living and swapping it for the life of a farmer.

Shrewd Madam Borie had been right though; it was a good move to call him back to his roots. Pierre brought his business brain to the rather ramshackle domaine and set about making big changes. One of the first things he did was buy the winery with the deep claret doors, rejoining once more Ollieux to Romanis which Pierre told me was the thing he was most proud of. And so he should be, Château Ollieux-Romanis is one of the leading lights in the Corbières these days.

My Corbières & Lagrasse wine tour went through various guises over the years but always followed the model of two wineries, lunch in Lagrasse and something cultural or foodie. Château Ollieux-Romanis was invariably the morning visit and Elspeth’s restaurant was where we ate lunch, that is until she sold it. I was devastated. I tried others and we did have lovely meals elsewhere in Lagrasse, but nothing could hold a candle to Elspeth’s cooking.

In the season of 2012, I arrived in Languedoc on April 1^st as usual and was walking through Carcassonne when I bumped into Elspeth and I told her how much we missed her cooking. She invited me over to her home in Lagrasse and cooked me a fine lunch and explained that although she was supposed to be retired she was now running a B&B. From what I could gather she was just as busy as ever, especially as she often cooked dinner for her guests. They would eat her sumptuous food around the long kitchen table where I was sitting and it was then that I had a lightbulb moment. How would she feel about cooking private lunches for my clients? She instantly agreed and for the next several years that’s what we did. It was so special taking my clients to Elspeth’s lovely home knowing she had shopped, prepared and cooked the delicious lunch just for us.

The Corbières and Lagrasse tour became one of my most popular tours and because year on year I had many returning clients I knew I had to keep designing more. I vowed I’d do that when I returned in 2013. I also decided the time had come to look for a permanent home in Languedoc. My business was thriving and at last I was happy again. I knew the time had come to sell up in England and move permanently to La Belle France.

I would love you to ❤️ this post to help other writers and readers find me.

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One of the things I enjoyed most in the early days of my new business, was designing tours. I loved discovering routes that passed through the most stunning scenery and would spend days seeking out-of-the-way hidden places. I wanted to take people off the beaten track to show them things they wouldn’t easily find for themselves. From the beginning I decided to include things other than wine such as historical villages and foodie visits to honey, olive oil and cheese producers. It was also a given that a traditional Languedoc lunch would be part of the day and it must be made with fresh seasonal produce. I decided my range of tours would be based on the several wine districts that surround Carcassonne. I also knew from the get-go that I would design a tour around an incredible winery called Domaine Gayda.

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I truly believe it was fate that made me enter a wine tasting competition in London back in 2007 which resulted in an invitation to Languedoc that changed the course of my life. There I met Tim Ford, the man behind the competition and the managing director of Domaine Gayda and it was he who opened up all the possibilities to all that came later.

When I met Tim his winery was in its fourth year. He’d built a beautifully designed traditional style building made from reclaimed local stone making it look like it had stood on that hill facing the majestic Pyrenees for ever. However inside it gleamed with new stainless-steel tanks and impressive modern equipment. He had modelled the estate on something you would find in South Africa and included a restaurant alongside the tasting room. Although such places were common in the New World, back then it was a one-off in Languedoc. It sat alongside tumble-down old wineries whose owners gave no thought to enticing people in to taste and buy wine.

I spent a wonderful weekend with Tim and his wife Barbara and as I was leaving Tim invited me back that September to be part of the team working in the winery during the harvest. I knew the theory of wine making, I’d passed exams on it, but this would be my chance to experience first-hand how wine is made. Returning to Languedoc felt like coming back to see old friends and I loved every minute of it. I learnt a lot about wine making especially how much hard work it takes and I also got to know the region better. While I was there the seed of an idea to start a wine tour business lodged itself in my head and before leaving I shared my dream with Tim. As I drove back to England something Tim had said played optimistically over and over in my head.

‘If you come back and start that tour business, remember you are always welcome at Gayda, in fact treat it as your own, you’re part of the team now.’

The Domine Gayda & Limoux tour became a favourite with my customers, especially as we didn’t need to be accompanied by a member of staff as I would lead the tour myself. I could recount first-hand stories about my time working there, explaining how I sorted the grapes and monitored the fermentations. I also ran the tastings myself then afterwards we’d enjoy a fabulous lunch in Gayda’s restaurant while gazing at the breathtaking Pyrenees.

I had a formula for my tours; a morning winery visit & tasting, followed by lunch, followed by another winery visit and we’d finish off with something cultural or foodie. Because Domaine Gayda sits next door to the Limoux wine region it made sense to include it but I didn’t think I knew much about the Limoux area until I recalled something from my study days at Coventry University. The curriculum had hardly mentioned Languedoc, in fact I think only half a measly page was dedicated to the largest vineyard in France. However sparkling wine and Champagne had a whole module which included a wine called Blanquette Ancestral which proclaimed to be the world’s first sparkling wine.

Legend has it that the winter of 1531 was a cold one with temperatures so low that the fermentation stopped. The monks didn’t realise the temperature sensitive yeast had simply gone to sleep and went ahead and bottled the wine. Not realising sugar and that the yeast were still present but sleeping soundly all winter, only waking when temperatures rose in springtime. The warmth kicked off the fermentation again which produced CO₂ that couldn’t escape from the bottles so dissolved into the wine and made it fizzy. Many of the bottles exploded but when those that remained intact were sold to the people of Limoux they loved what they called ‘lively’ wine.

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The monks figured out what had happened and henceforth replicated the production method by chilling the wine to stop the ferment before bottling, then waiting for the spring weather to do its magic. The story has an interesting ending because about a century or so later, news of this fizz came to the ears of another monk who was living in the north of France. His name was Dom Pérignon and the rest, as they say, is history..!

For some reason the legend had stuck in my mind and although I remembered the name of the abbey, I couldn’t recall its location so I was thrilled to discover it was in Limoux. I rushed over to pay a visit to the little abbey which brims with history and a warm welcome. I wandered around the church and medieval buildings, spent time the peaceful cloisters but going into the actual cellar where it all happened was the icing on the cake. I knew straight away it would be the perfect cultural visit to include in my very special Domaine Gayda & Limoux tour.

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John and Nicole are the owners of a small organic winery in the Minervois called Close du Gravillas. They were two of the first people I met when I was searching for wineries for my tours. I was drawn to their pioneering spirit, driven by a passionate desire to make the best Languedoc wine possible.

Nicole is a true Occitanne, born in the Roman city of Narbonne whereas John hails from the plains of Kentucky where bourbon is the drink of choice. They met at a party when John was living in Paris and had gone to Narbonne with his boss for the weekend. They fell in love and eventually John made his home in Languedoc and somewhere along the way Nicole got the winemaking bug. I’m pretty certain, being a vigneron had never been in Johns sights and for Nicole, the closest she’d come to wine, apart from drinking it, was a job in the export office of a winery.

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Chasing her dream Nicole went off to college to learn how to make wine. It wasn’t a highfaluting oenology school, more like a 6-month course at the local agriculture college where alongside learning how to ferment juice, she was taught to plough and fix the tractor. Pricing wine and earning enough money to live on was an important part of the curriculum. This was about twenty-five years ago and at that time people looked down their noses at Languedoc wine. It was seen as low quality, cheap plonk and Nicole was told she’d need a minimum of fifteen hectare to produce enough wine to make a living because of the low prices.

Towards the end of the course students were encouraged to find work experience jobs and Nicole was lucky enough to find a placement with a highly regarded winemaker based close to Montpellier. Later she would also secure another work placement in Burgundy. She had no way of knowing that these choices would have far reaching consequences and strongly steer her wine making career. This was mainly because these wineries had something in common - limestone soils which influenced everything she did from then on.

Because of the hot climate in Languedoc and the Cotes du Rhône, these regions are known for making powerful red wines that are spicy and peppery with high alcohol levels. Nicole didn’t want to make those styles of wine, she was seeking elegance, freshness and complexity, not a big clout of hot fruit. During her work experience she became convinced that limestone soils would help her achieve this and if she could combine them with altitude, to help mitigate the southern heat, she thought she would be onto a winner.

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There is a lot of limestone in Languedoc but not much altitude. The best option was to head to the high Minervois, to the village of Saint-Jean-de-Minervois that sits on a limestone plateau at about 300m. The village is famous for its sweet muscat and not for the refined red wines Nicole dreamt of making. It’s a small settlement of just forty-nine residents at last count, of which seven were wine makers. All of them thought her a bit odd, coming to the land of Muscat to make red wine. They also dubbed her the ‘Americain’, it sort of summed up her foreignness and strange ideas. Unable to find a winery to buy, they bought what had once been an old-people’s home on the edge of the village. It was painted a garish pink and was ripe for renovation, plus it had an old stable they could convert into their winery. Next, they set about buying land – not much, only six hectares on which they planted the red varieties Nicole believed she needed.

It takes at least three years for new plantings to become established but much longer for them to reach the kind of maturity that produces grapes fit for making a fine wine. Nicole and John needed something to do until that day came, so decided to buy a plot of land that was already planted to vines and found what they were looking for in a nearby hamlet. The vineyard included a block of pink Grenache (Grenache Gris) on one side and a block of Carignan on the other. The vines were ancient with the Carignan being planted in 1911 – over 100 years old..! They were slightly reluctant to buy the Carignan because in those days no one believed it capable of producing good wine, but it would help them practise their wine making skills, so they went ahead.

Being inexperienced they thought they’d make a rosé from the pink Grenache but the problem with that idea is Grenache has a tendency to be high in alcohol which isn’t what you want with a quaffing wine. Sure enough, when it came time to pick, the potential alcohol was 14% so they decided to make a white instead which is pretty easily done with pink grapes, you just don’t use the skins as that’s where the colour resides. Nicole also chose to ferment in large oak barrels. Not because she wanted the wine to be oaky but because she liked the roundness and complexity barrels transmit to wine. The Carignan was fermented in stainless steel tanks but matured in similar large oak barrels and because in both cases they wanted the wine to taste of the place where it grew, they used the wild yeast living on the grape skins to carry out the fermentation.

That first vintage went well. The wines finished fermenting on time and then spent some months maturing in the barrels until the day came when John and Nicole would taste their first finished wine.

Now, you know how it is with your children. They are the prettiest, the most handsome, the most clever, the most gifted of any children you’ve ever met. This is because they are yours and you are naturally inclined to be proud and perhaps a little blind. Well, the same can be said of the wine you make and when John and Nicole tasted theirs, they were blown away by how wonderful it was. But were they right? They realised they may just be in love with their ‘children’ and knew they should get an opinion from someone reliable. Nicole trusted the guy near Montpellier, the one she’d done the work experience for, so decided to take her wines to him for an expert verdict.

He tasted the white first and while Nicole held her breath his eyes fixed on hers and she saw them fill with incredulity.

‘You made this? From pink Grenache?’ He asked, his voice high with amazement.

Nicole nodded, swallowed hard and waited for him to voice his judgement. When it came, it confirmed she had indeed created an incredible wine, one that few people believed Languedoc was capable of. Nicole had been right to make white wine from the pink grapes and her selection of large Austrian oak barrels, that impart much less oak flavour than French ones, was part of the key to the quality. However, I think it should be recognised how important her natural impulses were. She used her instincts to decide when to pick, how to ferment and how much intervention (very little, just careful monitoring) to use. Perhaps only a woman’s instinct would have led to the creation of this wine. Its elegant but rich, bone dry yet luscious and mesmerizingly complex. The limestone and the altitude have played their part beautifully, endowing it with minerality and cool clarity.

This wine, once destined to be a simple rosé, was such an unexpected triumph that she felt she needed to give it a name that hinted at how it had been conjured. She christened it L’Inattendu, The Unexpected.

Next was the turn of the Carignan and it had a big act to follow. Had Nicole taken a humble grape variety and produced another fine wine? She had. However, she refused to take the credit, putting it down to the age of the vines but allowed that perhaps her preparedness to wait for the right moment to pick, might have had something to do with it. If there was one thing Nicole knew about Carignan, it was that it’s a late ripener. If you pick it too soon you could end up with a green and stalky wine with rustic tannins. The reluctance of some wine makers to wait may be one of the reasons wine made from this grape is maligned. Many baulk at the idea of waiting, fearing autumn rain might spoil the harvest but it was a gamble that Nicole chose to take rather than make an inferior wine.

When it came to naming this wine Nicole wanted to reflect the influence the age of the vines had had so chose to christen it Lo-Viehl which, in the old Occitan language means ‘The Old One’.

L’Inattendu is still my favourite Languedoc white as it is with some sommeliers, and the wine is now sold in many of the best restaurants in Paris, London and New York. Lo Viehl helped put old vine Carignan on the map as did John’s superb marketing skills. This couple not only made a loving marriage they became successful business partners. Nicole brings to the mix her wine making skills, thoughtfulness and instinct and John the ability to talk to the world in English with a personality that opens doors. He’s not a bad tractor driver either..!

Much of my success is because of these two wonderful people who I am proud to call my friends. John and Nicole’s story fascinated hundreds of my customers over the years. They loved tasting the wines Nicole and John hadn’t come here to make, then later, when the vines they’d planted in the early days reached maturity, we were able to taste the elegant red wines Nicole had dreamed of making all those years ago.

As well as enjoying a visit to a small organic winery, my customers loved the drive onto the limestone plateau where they stared at the limestone rocks and wandered at the ability of the vines to grow on such a Luna landscape.

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The second year I decided to live in a busier Minervois village, Caunes-Minervois. It’s a village with a long history going back at least a thousand years and from what I could gather it seemed to be the Minervois’s epicentre. The population was and still is made up of people from several countries including the USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Estonia, Holland and of course Britain. Even so, we immigrants are far outnumbered by locals.

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I’d already made a few friends in that village and was looking forward to getting to know more, however meeting wine makers was top of the list. I needed to expand the number of wine domains I could include in my tours. I didn’t expect this to be difficult, after all Languedoc is the largest vineyard in France with over 5000 wineries.

People are often surprised with how I selected the wineries I worked with. I did it by instinct. I would drive around looking at the shape of the land, the parcels of vines, how they’re tended – I didn’t want pristine rows, I wanted weeds..! Scruffy vineyards are a clue to how the land is being farmed, often indicating its done organically. I’ve found farmers who shun chemicals are usually passionate about wine making and those were the sort of people I wanted my clients to meet.

This is how I met a winemaking father and his two sons in the village of Félines-Minervois. I’d passed by their vineyards, most of which are high up in the hills sitting in stunning scenery. They were small parcels rather than huge blocks of vines but what most delighted me was seeing them being ploughed by horse. I knew instantly this was a place I had to visit. I parked up in their yard, strolled into their tasting room and was greeted by the youngest son who had a gleaming smile and luckily for me spoke excellent English. I asked to taste the wines and as is usual we began with the entry level. It was so good that my mouth watered at the prospect of tasting the whole range, especially the top wine. When I did, it astonished me. The quality was world class and I said as much. The son beamed broadly then proudly told me his family’s story.

They had lived for generation in the village of Félines-Minervois and originally they’d been sheep farmers. In the 1920’s the village, along with the majority in Languedoc, built a cave co-operative and wine making families stopped making their own wine and took their grapes along with everyone else’s to the co-op. The aim was to make enough quantity so that the co-op could compete with wine merchants who, up until then had dominated the market. This is one of the ways Languedoc became known as a bulk wine producer for the masses.

Back in those days country folk didn’t trust banks. If they made any money, they would hide it under the mattress but with the advent of cave co-ops many people saw a way of making interest on their savings. They’d buy a parcel of land, plant vines and the whole family would tend it. The grapes they harvested would be taken to the co-op and would bring them in a few hundred francs. That’s what this young man’s family did, planting vines where the sheep had once grazed. When the grandfather died the young man’s father took over and continued in the same way. That is until he had an accident and broke his back and although he recovered, he was not able to work his old job. He needed to find another way to make his living.

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Options were few in rural France but that turned out to do him a favour. It made him look closer to home at a time when wine making was becoming fashionable. He asked himself could he become a wine maker? It would mean turning his back on the village co-op, but he didn’t think he had a choice, he had two boys to raise. So that year instead of selling his grapes to the co-op he became the first person in his family to make wine. It would also be the first time wine had been made purely using only their grapes. He had no idea what his vineyards were capable of producing until he tasted his first wine and that was when he knew his land was a jewel in his hands.

Over the next few years he worked hard, practising the art of wine making. As well as the unique terroir he was farming, he seemed to have an inbuilt talent. Every year the wine got better and better and locally he became known for making some of the best wine in the region. He was pleased with the local reviews but felt he needed a higher endorsement to acknowledge the quality so he decided to enter his top wine into one of the most prestigious wine competitions in France. It was an ambitious step. Not only would his wine be up against some of the most celebrated wines in France but also the competition was to find the finest of them all.

Back then Languedoc wines held no regard in the world of wine so his chances of winning were slight to say the least, however the wines would be judged blind and he hoped that as the judges didn’t know it was a Languedoc wine they could not be prejudiced.

After the tasting the panel of experts ranked the wines in order of quality and only then were the names and provenance revealed to them. If the father was shocked when his wine won 1^st place, the judges were appalled. They couldn’t believe it was a Midi wine and called for a re-trial. Fresh bottles were opened and the tasting was done again and guess what? The fathers wine won. The judges were astonished. One of them said, ‘what magic is this?’ And so it was that from that day forward the father was dubbed ‘The Wizard of Félines.’

I loved the story as well as the wines and as the tour season ramped up, I brought customers to visit this winery at least once a week. I realised that my tours were all the richer for stories like this so sought out other wineries with interesting anecdotes to share.

There was Emmanuel who I met in the car park of the village supermarket. His family had once been prosperous wine merchants. He’d been born in the hulking 8^th century château that dominates the village. But times change and by the time Emmanuel took over there wasn’t much money or business left. He sold up and went to Paris to make a life there but when he married he recalled his carefree childhood growing up in a sleepy Minervois village. He wanted his children to have the same experience so decided to return and learn how to be a wine maker. Although he’d long since sold the château he still owned the old winery next door. It was too large for what he planned to do so he restored only part of it leaving the rest as it had been when it was built. The first time I saw it I felt as though I was stepping back in time. It is the perfect example of an early 1900’s winery with its ancient wooden foudre (large wooden vats) and ‘modern’ concrete cuves.

His winery became one of my regular visits but because he was a one-man band and often too busy to greet us himself, he would leave the key under the mat for me..!

Gradually I found more Minervois wineries, each with an interesting story to tell. I had also begun to explore other parts of Languedoc, finding wineries in the Corbières and Limoux with owners that also had interesting tales of how it all began for them. With friends like these my business was flourishing with new customers as well as previous ones returning year on year.

My experience as a tour guide was growing and I was learning more about growing and making wine which in turn made me a better wine teacher. I was also combining all my talents; people skills, driving, love of France and its food and of course my now even deeper wine knowledge. I was always pleased to go back to England to see my family and friends, but it was in Languedoc where I felt I was doing my life’s work. I toyed with the idea of leaving England all together to make a new life in France but in order to afford it I would need my business to work harder. On the drive back to England that October I decided I would return for the 2011 season. I’d see how that went before doing anything rash and looked forward to the next April Fool’s Day when I’d return to beautiful Languedoc.

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It was April 1^st 2009 when I left England and drove south to the rental cottage I’d found when I’d stuck a pin in a map of Languedoc. I was heading to France with a dream of starting a wine tour business. Two days later I entered the Minervois, a district just north of Carcassonne and stretching eastwards from there. I was driving my beloved Audi cabriolet Fifi, who was ten years old at that time. It was a sunny day but breezy and too cold to put the roof down. She and I had done a lot of exploring together but this was the most exciting adventure yet.

As I bowled along the narrow lanes in search of what would be my home for the next six months, I felt my heart fill with joy at the prospect of living surrounded by vineyards in the depths of rural France. OK, so I couldn’t speak French and knew only one person living here, but I wasn’t going to let little things like that get in the way of my dream. After all I knew about wine, I’d been teaching the subject for quite a while and was confident in my knowledge. What I didn’t expect was that this experience would expand my understanding of wine at least a thousand fold.

The warming weather had encouraged the vines to wake from winter dormancy and their branches were sporting tiny sprigs of new leaves reminding me of green ribbons tied into bows. At that time of year the colour of the earth beneath them was a rich burnt umber, moist from spring rain and growing by the side of the dry-stone walls were wild almond trees dotted with pink and white blossom. I didn’t know it then but when the heat of the summer arrived the land would be parched and the grass yellow but the vines would remain lush, their juice-filled grapes hanging heavily beneath the foliage. I would leave this place in October and in later years I came to realise I was departing just as the landscape was about to change colour, slipping into its autumn attire of bright scarlet, dazzling gold and rich orange.

As soon as I’d settled into my cottage, I began to explore taking Fifi out on daily runs, getting to know the area. I loved driving the quiet lanes, roof down breathing in the perfume of the garrigue; a dense thicket of aromatic shrubs. Not only was it beautifully scented but in springtime it flowers, and my senses were assailed with the intoxicating scent of lavender, rosemary, thyme and sage. Garrigue was new to me and was a lovely surprise especially as I loved to hike. I spent a lot of time that first season walking the limestone hills, passing holm oaks and juniper trees and brushing past bright yellow broom and cistus sporting their papery pink and white flowers.

I hadn’t been prepared for the beauty of this place or its incredible hidden history, it’s near deserted villages and some lively ones too. At the heart of the Minervois is Minerve, a village that became my favourite place of all. I loved spending time strolling the narrow ruelles (village streets) or following gravelly limestone trails above the deep gorges that had sliced a natural fortification around this tiny settlement. The village is built on a limestone rock between the gorges so it’s almost an island between the two rivers, the Brian and the Cesses. They meet at the foot of the village to flow southwards by one name, La Cesses.

Less than a hundred people live in this village and in that early spring when I first stumbled upon it, it was a tranquil place to spend a little time. Later, when August arrived it would buzz with tourists but never became crowded. Now sixteen years after finding it I still think of it as somehow belonging to me but I’m happy to share it..!

You’ll find it on a limestone plateau called Le Petit Causse where it withstands a very Mediterranean climate which means cold winters and extremely hot, dry summers. The white limestone is barely covered by the shallow soils and it’s hard to believe that the south facing vines clinging to the hillsides can survive without irrigation. But deep below the surface, the limestone has been hollowed by rivers, streams or just rainwater and the vines will send their roots several meters in search of a drink. Along the way they pick up the minerals in the soil which are reflected in the flavours of the wine.

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Although it’s the red wines that garner the most praise, personally I love the white wines from this part of the Minervois. That might be because I don’t have a very commercial palate and prefer bone dry, mineral and complex wines that aren’t too fruity although you can find those here too.

I soon became besotted with this part of Languedoc and wanted to show off my newfound love to as many people as possible. So the first tour I designed was called Minerve & the Minervois Wine Tour. Of course for a wine tour I needed to find wineries to take my clients to and had a deeply enjoyable time seeking out producers that not only made great wines but were happy to welcome me and my tour groups. I’d explored and memorised routes through the stunning scenery and prettiest villages. I’d rooted out some excellent country restaurants that served traditional and well-made dishes. Finally because I wanted my customers to be immersed in everything the Minervois had to offer, I’d also found olive oil producers and cheese makers happy to receive groups.

By the beginning of May the tour was ready and I headed off to the tourist office to deposit flyers but I suspected they alone would not bring me the business I needed to make a go of this new life.

By necessity my tours would need to be for English speaking people (my French just wasn’t fit for the purpose of taking French clients out for the day..!) I needed a strategy to attract anglophones and struck on the idea of approaching English speaking B&B owners to ask if they’d promote my tours to their guests. It worked well and along with a newly built website and some excellent reviews from happy clients my business began to roll. It was slow at first but with enough impetus to convince me to return the following year to continue to explore more of this magical place.

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Half of the story is set in Languedoc, in a village surrounded by vineyards growing the grapes that make the sun drenched wines of the Midi. One of those grapes is called Carignan and, without giving away too much of the story, some of the plot involves a vineyard of very old Carignan vines. The idea of the Wine & Book Pairing Dinner is to give people the chance to taste a range of Carignan wines, paired with dishes while listening to me talk about the grape and reading an exert from the novel.

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If you’re a wine enthusiast there’s a good chance you’ve heard of this grape however, until 2007 I hadn’t, despite holding one of the highest wine qualifications and teaching the subject for years. Back then it wasn’t a popular grape, in fact many people looked down their noses at it.

I came to Languedoc to start a wine tourism business and one of the first people I met was John from Clos du Gravillas, a wonderful little organic winery set amongst the limestone hills of the Minervois. He and his wife had purchased a plot of Carignan when they had just started out as wine makers a few years earlier, admitting they knew very little in those days. Discovering the plot had been planted in 1911 was a surprise but when they made, then tasted their first vintage, they were shocked at how good it was.

Wasn’t Carignan supposed to make astringent, acidic, tannic wines? That’s what everyone said so why didn’t theirs conform to this bad reputation?

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For many years Carignan had been blamed for the poor quality of wine made in Languedoc. The fact that the wine was bad was true, but it wasn’t the fault of Carignan. Grapes don’t make wine – people do, and in the days when this reputation was earned the region had been enticed into making quantity over quality. Result? Bad wine…

It all came about when an insect devasted the wine industry during the late 1800’s by killing nearly all the vines in Europe. This slashed the availability of wine down to less than a quarter. People were desperate which you might find funny but remember, wine was essential in those days as untreated water caused disease and death. By adding wine to it the alcohol killed the bugs making it safer to drink. France needed wine badly and Languedoc stepped in to help.

Encouraged by government grants people planted grapes everywhere. They had to be fast growing varieties that yielded high amounts of grapes and three varieties in particular perfectly fitted this description. They came from Spain and one of them was Carignan.

Huge swathes of land were planted with these grapes and massive quantities of wine produced, more than enough to overcome the shortage however, the wine tasted awful. There will be several reasons for this, but high yield will have been the main culprit. By pushing the vine to give lots of grapes this meant they weren’t ripe when they were picked. No wonder the wine tasted soar, green, thin and acidic.

Carignan is a prolific producer especially when it’s a young vine but, as with all varieties of vine, as it ages the yield naturally reduces. The other thing with Carignan is the grapes are late to ripen, so you have to patient plus the ripeness is variable so its necessary to choose which bunches to pick or not. Johns vines were over 100 years old when he bought the plot and the yield was low but still viable. When the plot was young it would have been quite possible to make 2 or 3 bottles per vine but now John needs 2 or 3 vines to make one bottle.

I fell in love with this grape mainly by buying the Carignan from Clos du Gravillas but also from other Languedoc wineries. Then when I travelled to Catalonia and visited the Priorat region where they grow Carignan but call it Samsó, I fell in love all over again.

I think because I’ve been so influenced by this grape, the wines and the people who make them, Carignan naturally had to feature in my novel and I think its all the richer for it.

The French Bed is a Romance-Mystery novel set in Paris and Languedoc and is available to buy from Amazon UK, France and USA as well as other countries.

And if you’ll be in Languedoc on September 27^th and would like to come to my Wine & Book Pairing Dinner please drop me a message.

Now don’t worry, I’m not going to get too technical here, I just think it’s a good idea to know a bit more about the stuff you’re swallowing.

Wine is made by adding yeast to a vat of grapes or grape juice depending which style/colour of wine you’re making. The yeast eats the sugar and converts it into alcohol and CO2. Roughly, for every 17 grams of sugar per litre in the juice, you get about 1% alcohol. Therefore the higher the sugar content the higher the alcohol level in the finished dry wine.

Small, independent wine makers follow the fermentation process in exactly the same way as the factory and co-operative producers, but that’s where the similarity ends.

In a factory situation everything is regulated, it needs to be. They are working with huge quantities, using stainless steel tanks each containing thousands of litres, possibly 100,000 or more. If anything goes wrong with a vat containing that much wine they’ve lost nearly 140,000 bottles. So nothing is left to chance. The wine is controlled to the nth degree so that it finishes on time and in a style the factory intended.

In smaller wineries the tanks are a fraction of the size and in many cases the winemaker will approach the fermentation in a non-interventionalist way. He or she will often use the wild yeast that grows on the berries and will closely watch the route the yeast decides to take each year. That’s the artisanal approach. Very little control and the wine finishes in its own way.

Additives & Subtractions – I don’t know a factory that doesn’t add anything to wine, or remove anything either. I’m not just talking sulphites; I don’t have a problem with them actually; it’s the amount that is added that I object to. ‘But it gives me a headache,’ I hear you cry and yes its true some people do react to sulphur but the other and probably most likely cause for the headache is histamine. Nearly all wine contains it and it’s the yeast and the fermentation process that produces it.

So no, I’m not only referring to added sulphites, I’m talking about more than 70 other things that can be added such as acetaldehyde for colour stabilization, root arabic to give the wine body when it lacks it, activated carbon (how do you think those pale, pale rosé wines are made - colour is removed), ascorbic acid if it lacks enough natural acidity and they can remove it too by using calcium carbonate. Its the same with tannin, it can be added or removed and the list goes on... In small artisanal wineries these practises are rare.

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After the wine is made and matured its ready for bottling and at this stage it can be fined and filtered then, in the worst cases, put through various stabilizing processes such as pasteurization.

Fining is fine..! It means to remove any particles in suspension which might discolour the wine or cause a problem down the line. But how is it done? Egg white, bentonite (clay from Wyoming) to name two and in the old days, bulls blood..!

Filtering – this is OK too and usually done at the point of bottling, but its not essential and some wine makers think filtering can remove character. That’s why you sometimes see ‘non-filtered’ written on a label.

Pasteurization – do you want to drink sterile wine? Wines put through this process are often destined to be shipped long distances to be sold in supermarkets.

I could go on; there are so many routes a wine can be taken down and I avoid most of them by buying from small producers, preferably organic because the rules on additives are far tighter.

I also like to pay a decent price for my wine hoping that this will allow the winemaker sufficient funds to avoid cutting corners. After all, wine makers aren’t making Coco Cola. They’re farmers first, then skilled wine makers, usually passionate people who care deeply about the wine they make and then they’re marketers and sales people, that’s a lot of hats to wear. It’s hard for a small winery to make money so no-one goes into the game to do that, but I think they should at least make a living and paying a reasonable price is my way of supporting the small independent sector.

Take Emmanuel and his wife Leanne of Vignoble Puy He’s a young man (40’s) who farms 22 hectare of vines organically in the Minervois, here in Languedoc. He chooses just 10% his best grapes to make his wine and the rest is sold to negotiants (factory producers). A few years back his vines were hit by an unusual frost and he lost 75% of his potential harvest for that year, plus it would affect the yield for the following year.

He was devastated. How was he going to survive it?

By thinking creatively…

He needed to be better known in order to sell his 10% directly to the public at normal retail price rather than selling in bulk to cafés and restaurants as he had been doing. And so was born ‘Vine Guardians’, a vine adoption programme that gives people the opportunity to have their name placed at the end of ‘their’ row and receive a case of wine from ‘their plot’. I have to admit I helped them get started with the idea but now they are forging ahead on their own and making a great success of it.

This week I went along to one of their events, ‘Planch'à la Vigne’. Emmanuel was manning the BBQ, producing tasty food paired with the wine he made from the grapes grown in the vineyard where we sat, served by Leanne. It was a balmy evening. The cicada’s were trying their best to outdo the live music and people sat at long tables chatting, eating and imbibing. I looked around and thought, yes, this is what wine should be about. Convivial evenings like this, drinking wine that won’t give you a headache (unless you drink too much..!) alongside people who appreciate all the hard work that went into making it.

So the next time you choose a bottle of wine I hope you’ll give some thought to the journey the wine took to get into the bottle and raise your glass to the person who made it.

I would love you to ❤️ this post to help other writers and readers find me.

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Looming above Provence are the Prealps and then the Alps themselves, giants in the far north. Nearer to hand is the great Mont Ventoux (first sketch) that stands at 1,910 m, made famous by the Tour de France cycling race. A stone’s throw away are the incredible Dentelles de Montmirail; a row of jagged limestone peaks standing above the Gigondas and Beaumes de Venise vineyards. You could be forgiven for thinking the name indicates a row of pointed teeth for that’s what they resemble, but in fact dentelle is the French word for lace. I’ve spent a lot of time hiking through them and for me these are the most appealing of all the mountains in Provence.

These peaks are higher than Languedoc’s, but the magnificence of our lower mountains is not diminished by their size. There’s something mystical about the Pyrenees. They are often invisible, shrouded in cloud which is why I’ve dubbed them the ‘shy mountains’. In fact, I’d lived here a full six weeks before they made an appearance and that day I couldn’t believe my eyes as I drove to my French lesson swearing they hadn’t been there the day before !

Languedoc has vast mountainous areas. The Pyrenees mark the border with Spain, then travelling east you enter the tree-clad Montagne Noire followed by the Carroux in the Haut Languedoc National Park. This place is a magnet for those seeking spectacular wilderness, solitude and wonderful walks and hikes. Continuing east are the Cevennes, sitting on the south-east edge of the Massif Central. There are several popular and probably false etymologies for the name but the one I like best is the legend of Cebena, the Goddess of Languedoc. It would have us believe that when Julius Caesar arrived in Narbonne, capital of Roman Gaul, he named the range after her.

Arriving in the south of France one of the first things that hits you is the sense of history which stretches back to early Roman times. Provence however is not all about the past, despite its ancient buildings, it has moved with the times and is firmly planted in the 21^st century. The population is a little over 5 million, double that of Languedoc and it’s quite obvious there are more people, you feel it the moment you cross the border. The other thing that strikes you is the feeling of affluence. Everything is well kept, manicured even. There are many more second-homers plus tourism greatly swells the numbers during the season; the necessity to appeal to tourists ensures Provençal villages are far less scruffy than dear old Languedoc’s.

For me, less inhabited Languedoc feels wilder but being far less reliant on tourism means it’s poorer making it feel much more real. Life here is slow and it sometimes feels like I’ve stepped back into the1950’s. It’s charming in many ways but visitors are often frustrated with the long lunches and lack of urgency. But life in the Midi, as this region is called, is very family-oriented and people work only to have enough to enjoy life. Yes, there are big businesses here but on the whole things don’t revolve around making a buck or tempting tourists on every street corner.

Although the overall climate in both regions is of course Mediterranean, Provence tends to have clearer skies all year round and it was this light that lured artists there. Cezanne captured the bright colours of the landscape and people have transposed them onto the shutters of their houses, painting them apple green or azure blue. The architecture is a lot fancier than in Languedoc and one of the striking things are the ‘perched villages’, settlements built high on ridges which in the days when invasions and battles were commonplace, protected the inhabitants. The pretty houses are built from pale limestone which makes the perfect backdrop for the profusion of roses, wisteria and star jasmine that cling to the walls. In June Provence is a riot of colour with everything in the garden blooming as well as the rows of lavender striping the fields. Strolling around these villages under the shade of the ancient plane trees admiring beautiful renaissance architecture provokes a feeling of calm serenity.

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Most Languedoc towns and villages were once fortified, such as Carcassonne which can look back to a violent history that includes the Cathar crusade over 800 years ago. Some perched villages can be found but we have another type of fortified village, the circulade. These villages are built in the shape of a snail shell with only one gated entrance that when shut and barred would protect the inhabitants. The architecture is plainer and the traditional stone houses are flat-fronted and often three stories high. It’s normal for them to be built on the edge of the street with no front gardens so that their doors open directly onto the road. Unfortunately, during the 1950’s there seems to have been a craze for covering the stone in what is called crépi. It resembles cement and I’m pleased to say many owners are now chipping it off to reveal the stone beneath which ranges from dark shist, much like slate, to the pale limestone also found in Provence.

The light in Languedoc is lower than Provence due to cloud almost constantly hovering over Languedoc’s mountains and I think this might have influenced the colour palettes chosen to decorate the houses. Shutters and front doors are painted a dark brownish-red or blue-green which suits the slightly darker stone but don’t get the impression Languedoc isn’t equally as colourful as its neighbour. In the spring when the fields are crammed with wild flowers and orchids grow wild everywhere its beauty will often catch my breath. to see what I mean take a look at this video I posted on Notes recently …

You’d be hard pushed to find lavender growing commercially, for us it’s mainly fields of vines, olive groves and orchards. The dry-stone walls dividing the fields are interspersed with wild almond and cherry trees and when these blossom the landscape is punctuated with pretty dabs of pink and white. Take a look at this short video to see what I mean

In both regions, when the vines wake from their winter slumber they are soon smothered in bright green foliage pulsating with vibrancy. But I’ve noticed a change in Languedoc of late. Vines have always been the main crop with hardly anything else planted but because the consumption of wine all over the world is lowering, in harvest season I am just as likely to get stuck behind a combine harvester as a grape harvesting machine.

Something else both regions have in common is garrigue, the name given to the wild, low-growing scrub spread across the hillsides and edges of vineyards. It’s a mixture of herbs; rosemary, thyme, lavender and sage and bright yellow bushes of genista, or broom as we call it in English. There are also several types of juniper as well as wild olive trees, stunted oaks and small pines. As you can imagine, the natural perfume of the south is an intoxicating herby scent especially when the breeze is blowing.

Talking of breeze, the south of France is a windy place and both areas boast their own particular strong wind. In Provence it’s called the Mistral which blows fiercely down the Rhône valley often reaching incredibly high speeds. I remember waking one October morning to a vivid blue sky and bright sunshine and thinking how lovely that was only to be corrected by my neighbour. She warned of the coming wind that clears the sky of cloud as it makes its progress south.

Languedoc is probably more windy than Provence and some will tell you the names of seven winds, however the main one is the Tramontane, a classical name for a north wind. I don’t think it’s as cold as the Mistral but it can blow just as hard and is said to send men mad. Tourists in both regions might not like these cold winds but they are a blessing to locals for their cooling effect during summers high temperatures. Wine growers are also happy to have the cool aeration in the vineyards. It keeps the vines healthy after humidity or rain and because of it much less spraying against vine maladies is needed and both regions can farm organically far more easily than others.

And so to the comparison; if I were judging a beauty pageant I’d have to give first prize to Provence. It’s picture post card perfect whereas Languedoc is raw and wild. To put it simply, Provence is sophisticated and well-behaved and Languedoc feels like the intriguing country cousin who tells better stories sitting in a dusty bar with a glass of wine.

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Down here there’s a lot of markets to choose from and many happen weekly such as the one held every Saturday in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon. This lovely old town sits majestically on the right bank of the River Rhône opposite the city of Avignon where once it was reached using the famous but now long gone bridge. This town is about two and a half hours from where I live but it’s so worth the trip. Sometimes I come the night before and treat myself to a day in Avignon or head off into the Cotes du Rhône and go wine tasting. More of that later, but first the market…

The Villeneuve-lès-Avignon brocante market isn’t big but the quality of goods on offer is usually high especially if I’m looking for paintings. The art here is nearly always good and some at bargain prices too but I’ve bought all sorts of things from here.

I remember one trip with a friend who needed quite a few items for her new home. She came armed with a list that included lamps, dishes, baskets and paintings. We found a stand that seemed to have almost everything she wanted but of course nothing was priced so we started by holding up objects and waving them at the vendor with a question mark on our faces. ‘Dix euros’, he said – bargain we thought.

The next item was waved and solicited the same response, 10€ and so it went on. My friend bought several things from ‘Monsieur Dix’ as we dubbed him.

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I usually stay at the market most of the morning but when I’m done mooching I often stroll into the pretty town, built of pale limestone that dazzles the eyes in the Mediterranean sunshine. Or I go up to the hilltop fort of St Andreé that looms high above the brocante market. It’s a bit of a hike but if your legs are strong enough you’ll be rewarded with the chance to sit in a beautiful garden with views across the mighty river Rhône to the papal town of Avignon.

Villeneuve has some great food shops and boutiques as well as a plethora of impressive buildings which speak to its illustrious past. One of my favourite visits is to the 17th century vast Carthusian monastery in the heart of the town. It’s a ruin now so you won’t see any of the white robed chartreuse monks but even if they were still there they’d be hard to glimpse. This is a closed order for men and women with a focus on contemplation, solitude and silence.

Much of the towns’ long history is linked to the Papacy. Avignon is where popes resided during the 14^th century and Villeneuve became a retreat for cardinals. It would have been a cooler place to take a holiday while the pope headed up to Chateauneuf-du-Pape, a village half an hours drive north of the city in what is now called the Cotes-du-Rhône.

The wine made there is probably the most famous of French wines and although it’s lorded as being one of the finest it is in fact remarkably variable. Tracking down a good producer is highly important, and in my experience some are not as good as a simple Cotes du Rhône. I’ve tasted jammy dull reds that taste of boiled sweets and others that go to the other extreme and are mouth drying and astringent, but I’ve also drank sublime wines that have stayed in my memory for ever.

Interestingly Chateauneuf-du-Pape was the first appellation ever drawn up. Appellations aren’t just about protecting the name. They also protect the wine style and the age old traditions used to grow and make it. Most people think of red wine when they hear the name but a good proportion is made white these days and they’re some of the freshest and best hot climate whites in France. They can be a blend of several grape varieties but nearly always Grenache blanc, Clairette, Roussanne, Bourboulenc and in some cases Picpoul and Picardan are added too.

Up to thirteen grape varieties can be used to make the red and some of those are white varietals which might account for the variability. The blend always includes Grenache noir, Syrah and Mourvèdre and possibly Cinsault although it’s one of the only Cotes du Rhône wines that can be 100% Grencahe.

Although I like Chateauneuf-du-Pape my advice is travel on. If you’re looking for a name, then Gigondas is my favourite or if prestige doesn’t matter then a good Cotes-du-Rhône village such as Séguret is hard to beat plus the village makes a lovely visit as described in this La Ramonetta’s post.

Barjac is an ancient and pretty ‘Renaissance’ town also on the right bank of the Rhône and about an hour and a half north of Villeneuve. The fairs and market of this town date back to the 16^th century and its one of largest and best. You can buy just about anything at this famous brocant market which takes place every Easter with a slightly smaller version happening in mid-August.

It’s held in a large square bathed in the shade of ancient Plain trees with the old town built from honey-coloured stone as the backdrop. It’s always well attended with a gentle atmosphere of relaxed gaiety and I love to stroll along the narrow cobbles streets (known in France as ruelles) browsing the shops as well as the stands which extend through to the town.

Cotes-du-Rhone wines wines are grown around the town of Barjac but better still just 10 kilomters north is the Ardeche region which is far more famous for its river than for wine. However these days they are making some excellent examples which are well worth seeking out.

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L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue is possibly the most famous of the southern French antique & brocante fairs. Its good, of course, but expensive. However, I love the town itself which has a rich history based on La Sorgue, a swift flowing narrow river that flows around part of the town. In medieval times it acted as a moat to protect the town then later in peaceful times it was used for milling olive oil, paper and wheat and for powering the looms that wove silk and rugs. The waterwheels are still in place and make for a lovely stroll along the river.

L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue is in the Vaucluse department, home to some of the most beautiful villages and scenery in Provence. I recently spend a few days there and made a visit to Carpentras Sunday morning brocante market. It runs all year round under the ancient plane trees on Allée Jean Jaurès. I bought some lovely old plates to hang in my wall and went home with some of the excellent Vaucluse wine and the inspiration to paint a picture of this stunning area.

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I really enjoyed designing the tours. I selected great wineries that made delicious wines and found beautiful routes through stunning landscapes to reach them. Of course, the wine had to be good but it was the people who made them that were crucial to the experience. I didn’t only want to take customers wine tasting. I wanted them to be fascinated by the stories they heard and understand the hard work, passion and commitment it takes to be a wine maker.

I also wanted to immerse my customers in Languedoc’s culture, so the tours included visits to beautiful villages, goat farms to taste local cheese and to honey or olive oil producers. I even designed a tour that included a slow cruise along the Canal du Midi enjoyed while sipping chilled rosé and learning how the Canal is the oldest in Europe.

The tourism season was a busy one for me and my team. It started in March and finished abruptly mid-October by which time we were all pretty tired and happy to take the winter off. Previous to buying my cottage in 2014, I’d always returned to my home in England for the winter but that year I spent it decorating and getting the cottage just how I wanted it. I loved it but I was very lonely. Every day I would take a walk through the vineyards pinching myself that at last I lived in France but also wishing I had someone to share it with.

Languedoc is very quiet in the winter months and its cold..! The second winter in my cottage was one of the coldest and loneliest times of my life so I vowed I’d go back to England the following year and thank goodness I did. That’s where I met my ‘new’ husband in January 2017. His name is Fisher. Well actually its Kevin but that’s not one of my favourite names so with his permission I call him by his last name and it really suits him.

When we met he was retired and living in the UK but just three months later I’d managed to lure him to France. He wasn’t exactly kicking and screaming but we both knew it was the only way to find out if we could make a life together. Languedoc spun its magic, and he fell hopelessly in love with the region as well as with me..!

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One day when I was out running a tour he climbed over the garden wall to explore a ruined building next door. When I came home he showed me a video of the dilapidated old winery. It was like stepping back in time. Cartwheels lent against the crumbling walls, harnesses and bridles still hung on hooks and there was even a carriage hanging from the rafters minus its wheels. In the days when it had been a working winery, horses had ploughed the land, hauled the harvests in and moved the barrels. In fact, up until the 1940’s horses were counted as the second most important inhabitants in the villages around here.

Abandoned nearly seventy years ago the building stood empty and forgotten and seemed about to fall down. I knew the owner and I also knew the building had been up for sale for a long time, mainly because he was asking too much money for it. But I don’t think that was why it hadn’t sold; more likely it needed someone with vision and deep pockets. Our pockets were shallow but we had buckets of vision or, as many of our friends put it, a wealth of stupidity…

We offered half the asking price and were refused. There was a bit of ‘backwards-ing and forwards-ing’ and in the end we walked away but a week later the owner caved in and we bought our ugly ducking in November 2017. Fisher and I had been together less than a year…

We had a Grand Design but no grand budget and that meant no money for an architect, but we found a woman who could draw plans and set about designing it ourselves. We would turn the stable into the garage and keep the rest of the ground floor open plan. Upstairs was just one enormous space enclosed by the four stone walls and what remained of the roof. It was a blank canvas and we had fun deciding how to divide it up into bedrooms.

This floor was reached by ladder and choosing the position of the staircase was key to how we would design the whole space. We thought of various options but in the end put it on the wall that divides the living area from the stable. Organically that decision led us to create a bedroom above the stable then we divided the remaining space into three further bedrooms, all with en-suite bathrooms - it’s a big-ish house, 285 square meters.

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Once the plans were drawn up we submitted them to the marie (townhall) and very quickly received permission to go ahead. The Old Winery is in a prominent position by the river and I think they were keen to have us rescue it and remove the eyesore.

Miraculously we sold my cottage and Fishers UK house very quickly and with the money set to work with a husband and wife team who got things going. Through them we contracted a local construction firm to carry out all the big works starting with a concrete block and beam ceiling. This replaced the wooden beams and flooring which broke our hearts, but it was the right decision. The wood wasn’t in good condition having been left open to the elements for decades plus it tied the walls in which were rather unstable..!

But all was not lost. From the outset we were determined to reuse as much of the original materials as possible and preserve what was feasible. We managed to find two fantastic artisans who built our floating staircase out of the old ceiling beams. Homes were found for all the carts and cartwheels, keeping one for ourselves and Fisher had a grand old time re-purposing all the old metal bolts, handmade nails and other ironmongery lying around the place. We had to have the wine press removed, it wasn’t a pretty thing, just a big rusty screw thrusting from the floor exactly where we wanted to place the kitchen. Below it is a huge underground tank where the pressed wine would have flowed and this we repurposed by hooking it up to the gutter and collecting rainwater.

In the days when The Old Winery was built, wine was made in foudre which are massive wooden barrels that reach the ceiling but they were not ideal. Often they would leak and controlling temperatures was impossible. If it was a cold day fermentations would stop and if it was hot they would race. Our place had once been filled with them, but modernisation had also come in the form of concrete tanks of which we had two, one inside and one out in the courtyard. These we also repurposed making a wine store and pantry with inside one and Fisher has set up as his art studio in the other.

When we began the project it’s fair to say we didn’t know one another very well and had no idea of each other’s strengths or talents. Fisher is strong and practical and was able to get involved with the heavy work right from the start while I took on the role of project manager. I also planned the interior design but couldn’t really get my hands dirty until the building work was complete. Lockdown saw me painting the whole thing myself and I have fond memories of the ‘thinking time’ that gave me – space to plot my novel…

We moved in during May 2020 and spent the rest of that year finishing it off. It had taken nearly three years to complete and certainly tested our relationship, but we got through it pretty much unscathed. It’s our proudest achievement, that and meeting each other and making a wonderful new life. And somehow its seems very fitting for a wine nut like me to be living in an old winery.

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Life After Death

In my head a 1000 voices whispered encouragement, urging me to France. They couldn’t be drowned out by the voices of doubt, I was deaf to them, I knew I needed a new life. John, my husband had died a couple of years ago and not only had I lost him I’d lost myself as well as all the plans we’d had for our lives.

After his death for at least a year I’d walked in a trance, seemingly functioning but a crumbling wreck on the inside. I’m someone who needs a plan, but I didn’t know how to begin again.

Then I enrolled on a wine course…

John had loved wine and I’d happily followed him around wineries on our French and Italian holidays. By studying the subject of wine I felt connected to him. It also woke a passion and I found I had a talent for tasting.

I don’t do things by half and five years later I was a fully qualified wine teacher running my own wine school and teaching at one of the major colleges in Birmingham.

I was happier but not fulfilled…

We were always going to live in France one day. John had planned to run wine tours and tastings for holiday makers, and I’d toyed with the idea of running a B&B. It had been a pipe dream but why not make it come true? Why not run a wine tourism business and give life to John’s idea?

But how was I going to make it happen, I didn’t even speak French..!

Fate stepped in. I won a wine tasting competition and was invited to Languedoc, a place we’d visited many years previously on a family holiday. Returning brought back lovely memories and also John’s words; he’d predicted one day Languedoc would be an important wine region and he was right, things were happening…

I took a 6-month sabbatical, bought a Renault Espace and stuck a pin in the Languedoc map and found a cottage to rent in the Minervois.

I knew hardly anyone…

But I knew me and I knew I could do it…

If not then I’d just go home, what had I got to lose?

I spent that first 6 months exploring Languedoc, meeting wine makers, learning about the magic of terroir and discovering routes for my wine tours which slowly but surely took off.

When the time came, I reluctantly returned to England with my head full of plans and ideas for a permanent life in France. For the next few years I split my time between countries, teaching wine studies in winter and running vineyard tours in the summer.

During one of those summer days I took a walk in a village I’d never been to before. As I strolled around I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck. I’d found my place. This was where I belonged. Rounding a corner I saw a ruined cottage ripe for renovation, so I bought it. Okay, it wasn’t that straight forward but within eighteen months I’d moved in. Life was good. Fourteen years had passed since John had died and I knew how proud he’d be of me. I’d made our dream come true and now I was ready for the next chapter…

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Wine snobbery – I can’t bear it…

If there’s one thing that drives me crazy its people who describe wine in a painfully prosaic way. I read one such review a few weeks ago that sent me crawling to the loo to throw up. The writer described the wine as ‘redolent of the warm scent of hay before harvest and with the texture of quince skins after the fluff has been rubbed off.’ Can you relate to that? I certainly can’t. Tasting notes should be helpful as well as beautifully written. Oh, and hay before harvest is just grass…

I’m one of a handful of lucky people who have tasted the white wine described above and it was fabulous. It would appeal to someone who likes to be slightly confused by a wine’s flavours, enjoying the difficulty in pinning them down. For me it was layered with yellowy-green flavours such as quince and overripe slightly bruised apples and it had a honied aroma, not sweet, more waxy really and that texture continued on the palate. It had body, so the weight in the mouth was more like mango juice than apple and its flavours lingered allowing me to savour it for a long time.

My point is describing wine is not easy, I liken it to learning a foreign language – the language of wine. I have a friend who personifies wine which I think is very clever. For instance, he describes a cheap and cheerful Sauvignon blanc as the girl who greets you at a party with an air kiss. She’s fun to begin with but after a while you want to move onto something or someone more interesting…

A simple Merlot, something in the lower price bracket from Languedoc or Chile perhaps, he dubs a Dave wine. Everyone has a Dave in their life. He’s the uncomplicated friend, sturdy, often plump and always there when you need him. But he has a cousin who is rather more gallant and impeccably dressed who lives in a Bordeaux château most probably in St Emilion or maybe even Pomerol and his name is David…

Its fun having a go at describing wine so why not try it next time you open a bottle of wine and see if it reminds you of anyone?

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