50 YEARS UP!
Fifty years ago today on June 8th I finally fled school and, convinced by Brigitte Bardot, Inspecteur Maigret, Le Moulin Rouge and croissants that the French way of life was the one for me, immediately crossed over the English Channel.
As it happens, that same year –
1965 – a young journalist called Hugh Johnson also set off researching his
first book; ‘Wine’. But he can tell his own story … and rather well, I guess. Which
is why pictures of our younger selves currently adorn the Laithwaite’s Wine box
you may just have received.
My story is … somehow I ended up
with a job in a wine-making village called Sainte Colombe, near Bordeaux and it
was like living in the Middle Ages. They were all still wearing clogs, and
berets, the men were in ‘bleu de travaille’
the women in floral aprons, the grannies always in black. No Grand Estates here; they were all small
farmers. From sunrise, men worked their small, tidy little plots of vines with
oxen, mules or horses, weaving plough and harrow in and out between their vines
and they all developed that front-row prop-forward look; massive, thick necks
and shoulders. The women did the ‘petit
facons’; the lighter work, trimming and tying vines with willow shoots. They
often worked in groups to help each other; it was all very sociable. There was
laughter and Ooooh! such rudery. I couldn’t speak French but certainly understood
the gestures!
At midday the siren down the valley
in Castillon-la-Bataille would moan, and everyone would just vanish. They went
to the most important part of their day; their ‘soupe’ which was actually a lot
more than soup, and then their very necessary little ‘sieste’. All went silent
except for the frantic cidadas in the sun. When it cooled, everyone came out
for a bit more work until dark, maybe tending the lettuces, carrots, tomatoes
and such that they grew as catch-crops, between vine rows near the house. Or
they’d collect wood – over which many still cooked – or scythe the road verges
to fatten up their delicious rabbits. They’d pick fruit and nuts from trees that,
back then, dotted their vineyards, collect corn for chickens, pigeons and
ducks, and they’d go hunting for cepes
and mushrooms. The men would climb up tall scaffolding towers in the woods and
shoot at anything – truly anything - that moved. The women would milk
the cow, feed peelings to the pig and corn to the poultry, then kill something
for dinner. Evenings, the men would be
in their cellars for remontage, or
filtering or bottling or sampling with friends; essential checking on how the
wine was coming along … ho, ho, ho! There were no TV’s, no fridges, no cars, no
tractors. The village of Sainte Colombe was poor … but seemed very happy.
I was English, a Lancastrian - firmly
Lancastrian - born amid tall, black chimneys and mills in 1945 … though I had grown
up mostly in prettier, southern towns. However my favourite place as a boy was
always Uncle Noah’s ‘Top o’ t’Hill’ farm on Rivington moor above Bolton. Constant
daydreaming about that traditional small, tenant farm; the tractor-driving,
haymaking, milking and collecting eggs, got me in so much trouble at school.
So is it at all surprising that I
totally fell for Sainte Colombe, its people and ancient way of life? I
did. So much so that I – we – still live
there 50 years later. Except that’s not quite true; since 1965 I’ve sort of ‘commuted’
between my Saint Colombe home and my other – UK – home, near the Thames Valley headquarters
of Laithwaite’s Wine; the wine company which
grew from its beginnings in little Sainte Colombe. The Company grew up, went out and travelled
and trekked, and still keeps going around the entire wine world.
It grew because since 1965, the good
wine-loving people back home had shown great interest not just in the wines but
in what really went on in the wine world. Encouraged by them, I started writing
and talking rather a lot, as I busily poured the wines … and I have never
stopped. I have, it seems, no off-switch for wine words.
But
now, getting on a bit, not ‘wine trekking’ quite so much and getting all
soft and nostalgic, I’m going to go back
to the beginning and tell the story of 50 years in wine, in blog form. Then, if you
seem to like it (all comments welcome) maybe someone will make it into a book. Like
someone did once before; (‘Laithwaite’s Great Wine Trek Part 1’ can still be
found – very cheap - on the web and in secondhand bookshops!)
It’s a very long story, which you
might find a scary thought. I certainly do. But, God willing, I’m going to tell
it all anyway: How it was my Sainte Colombe friend and mentor who gave me – unemployed
and pretty much unemployable – the idea of starting a Company called ‘Bordeaux
Direct’ with its long-distance delivery-round; how my girlfriend had to come in
and sort out my finances – her words: ‘the mess’; how Fairy Godmother Sunday
Times waved her magic wand; and the twenty five profitless years that ended in
a heart attack. Then how everything had to change for the next twenty five roller-coaster
years to now, where things – touch wood – don’t look too bad at all, really.
I plan – I will try very hard - not
to bang on too much about me. Instead, I want to tell the stories of the wine
men and women in every wine region of the world who have taught me wine. And
I’ll pass on just what they taught me, about how the wine world really works,
which is often somewhat odd, and not always what you find in wine books.
The first character on stage, the
one who started the whole thing rolling, is my maternal grandmother; ‘Big Nana’
Florence Rudd, who never knew anything about wine.
Nana
Rudd ran her
corner grocery
shop and the family too. A very strong personality, she had me – and my long-suffering
parents – well under her thumb. Maybe she inculcated some basic business sense
in me, but it would have been very
basic. Later on, £700 of her hard-earned
savings was vital in getting our business started. (Note to would-be
entrepreneurs; always ensure you have the right sort of Granny; usually much
safer than one of those rapacious ‘Dragon’ types … as we found out the hard
way!)
It
all began one hot summer’s day in 1964, when staying with us in Windsor, this
formidable, Lancastrian 'rescued' a lost French tourist (who wasn't lost at all,
but just couldn't get a word in edgeways) and dragged her home for a reviving tea.
Our Florrie’s attempt
at noble action set a whole, long chain of events in motion that has led us to
today’s Laithwaite's Wine: “the most successful wine merchant on the planet” – really?
Because
that French lady came from … (trumpets
off) ‘BORDEAUX’.
To be
continued
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