My Life in Wine - Part 7

The Bordeaux Run

Concentrating has always been my problem, especially this morning, as last night we won The IWC Wine Merchant of the Year. Which affected me in so many ways. But I must make the mental effort … let's go back forty five years…

to when I would leave Windsor at six for Southampton and that very new thing, the tiny Thoresen overnight ferry, that you could actually drive on to, (previously, when you went abroad they used a crane.)  It was a Norwegian boat, so … a nice smorgasbord, then a bit of kip, and off at 7.00am into smoky, industrial Le Havre. Once over the Tancarville Bridge though, it was all lovely and rural. Cows, apple trees, black-and-white cottages and whiskery old guys on bikes fetching the baguettes. The Pays d'Auge. In later years I led a few wonderful calvados, cider and camembert customer tours here. But most of my life I have just hurtled through … with many miles ahead.  

How I loved that trip. 'Brown Sugar' belting out of the cassette player, tonking along; (those old Transits could shift). Narrow windy roads, Pont Audemer, Bernay, Gacé, Alençon, Le Mans (down the Mulsanne straight, knocking ninety) Tours, Poitiers, Ruffec, Angouleme, Chalais St Medard – names gouged deep in my memory – and into the vineyards, past the old co-op, St Genes and finally Sainte Colombe around 6pm. For a cool Vin de Noyer and a long chat with Monsieur, while Madame, clattering in the kitchen, got supper.

By now, four years after arriving Chez Cassin I was welcome to sleep in the house. And use a real bathroom. But this was not all good. French internal walls are very thin. And the Cassins snored. Boy, did they snore. 

Anyway, next day was my 'rounds' . To Libourne for some Saint-Emilion (I didn't persuade everyone that Castillon was a better bet), then south over the rivers; the deux mers to get the Graves, and Sauternes, then east to Sainte Foy and along the Monbazillac road up the Dordogne to get the Bergeracs, etc. Then back west on the northern valley road, (to avoid the deadly main D936) to Le Fleix, Villefranche and then the co-op of Francs. They were lazy buggers there. Expected me to drive right into the cellar and load up myself while they finished their little grillade outside. They enjoyed a lot of grillades there. I didn't stick with their wine too long, though I really liked old Conchou, their long-suffering President. The co-op is now defunct.

Then on to Puisseguin, Château Guibeau and my old Co-op. A full van-load in one wonderful day, plenty of gossip and many tastes of this and that. 

But I couldn't then just drive home. There were Les Papiers and Les Formalites. With every wine I had to collect papers; green acquis verts. (Getting caught by the Gendarmes with wine and no green papers, meant prison!) So, the next day had to go to the big customs hall in Bordeaux with my declarations for export. The UK was not in the EEC yet; exports were therefore under TIR rules. Transports International Routiers.

With dread, I would climb the stairs up to where the Dragon Lady sat and glowered behind her desk array of rubber stamps. She hated me. She hated everyone. All papers had to be in perfect order or got thrown back. When all was apparently OK she would perform with her stamps, a routine that would have impressed Keith Moon. Bang, bang, bangerty, bang, crash, thud and repeat and repeat. It was Very necessary not to grin during all this. Final scowl and I was free to go … once the van had been quarantined with a lead seal. All that took a whole day. A less good day. But still good … back to Madame's dinner, and sleep … if I could. Then a six am start to get to Le Havre before 6 pm when the freight office closed.

The return overnight sailing was taken up with even more form filling for the UK Customs and Excise. And that labour was vastly increased when, due to the country being in a bit of a mess, the UK government slapped on a load of emergency currency and import controls.  You were supposed to pay a deposit of 50% of the value of your importation.  I just didn't have that money.

But, luckily, imports under £50 value were exempt. Customs said it was OK for me to divide my cargo up and 'import' every customer's order as a separate importation. My wines sold for between 13/6d and 18/6d and the average order was two dozen bottles. So it worked. All orders/ imports were under £50; so no deposit needed. But it was a full night's work for me and plenty more for the Customs guys in the Southampton Customs Long Room. They probably didn’t love me for that. When we docked, I'd park up the van, then walk into town, to Barclays to withdraw the necessary duty money. Sometimes this was not forthcoming and I'd have to find a phone box and plead with my bank in Windsor. No money, no clearance, and me stuck in Southampton Docks for days. But Barclays – decent chaps – always relented … after the usual lecture on the need for better fiscal probity.

Then back to the Customs Long Room, deposit papers and money and pray they don't order a full turn out. Which inevitably they did. I must've looked a bit dodgy to them. Drive in the shed, wait for dockers to roll up from their nice Docker's Club over the road, because I wasn't allow to touch 'owt. However, these were good dockers. Maybe they could see I was earning a lot less than them. They had pity, they behaved impeccably. The customs man would do his count, sign me off, the dockers reload absolutely every bottle, and off home for the next month, delivering and hopefully, selling more. 

Customers liked the direct delivery a lot. Some would invite me in for a drink – tea – and chat. They wanted to hear about Monsieur and the others. Which taught me something valuable: for a surprising number of people, it is not 'tasting notes' they want, but some knowledge of how their wine is made, where, by whom and why like that?

I was a long way from running a proper business, but I'd found a passion. Which is a big deal. Not everyone is blessed with the gift of work that evokes passion … so that work isn't actually work at all. Selling was fairly hard – I don't think I'm a 'natural salesman' – but not too hard. People were just really nice to me. Maybe it wasn't so much that the wines were nicer than what they were used to, maybe it was they actually felt sorry for me. Maybe they liked to help a young guy with a new idea. Anyway, they bought. Thank God.

People these days often ask, "did you see it becoming such a big business" and I say no. I didn't look forward further than the end of the month; the next trip. That was my reward. Sure, I wanted enough money to be able to hold my head up and buy my round, with my friends, all of whom had good jobs. Certainly I needed to pay rent on my cellar (I gave up the office above it, as unnecessary and too expensive) and my share of a flat in Windsor … and I had to eat. My mum slipped me food parcels and I bought nouilles wholesale to share with Bernard. This was his idea … and obsession; nouilles – French pasta – every meal. Nothing is cheaper. Bernard was a French guy who worked with me a while. He was from Draguinan, a friend of Remy Ott, scion of that legendary Provence wine family, who I'd hung out with on the Bordeaux Uni wine course that I did. Bernard just turned up one day and joined me as a salesman sharing the job of leafleting the area and giving tastings in people's homes … or sometimes in the back of the van (you can make a Transit box-body into quite a comfy little tasting room with wine box seats and bits of old carpet). He was good, Bernard. Had the patter. And the accent. But French. He met a pretty au-pair girl … and that was him gone.

So I never expected at that time to do more than just get by. Anyway, in those days it seemed to me you were actively discouraged from trying to make money.  I was told that top rate UK income tax was 98%. Unbelieeeevable! So what on earth was the point of making money?

I also heard, many a time, the old wine trade saying: "the only way to make a small fortune in wine is to start with a big one". Added together, these things caused me to set up a business that just did not pursue profit. Initially I actually wanted to be a cooperative. But Monsieur counseled strongly against that; he knew the problems too well.

I just decided I would aim to reward myself in the currency of pure pleasure rather than in what, in the quaint term of the day, we called pounds, shillings and pence … though that changed to decimal around this time. Suppose I do make some money and they let me keep a bit of it, what will I do with it? I'll probably spend it on having a nice time in the South of France. So why not cut out the taxman … legally; graft for three weeks selling a hundred or so cases of wine. Then as reward, jump in my van and bomb down to Bordeaux, sunshine, good food, my friends and my lovely France for a few days. They can't tax me on that can they? Well, they didn't. And for twenty years that was my life. In time I went way beyond Bordeaux. Didn't actually drive back every case myself, of course, but the principal remained the same and we made no profits … even when we tried to. So we paid no 98% tax. Took a little salary but that was all. 

Starting a business in the Sixties was not really what you did. Not cool.  This was, don't forget, still the age of steam trains. (OK, also lunar landings … but that was America.)  But encouragement to set up in business? None. Advice available? None. Small, starter premises? None. Finance? None. Computers? None smaller than a barn. Phones? Wait two years. So everyone went off to be a lawyer, accountant, teacher, union leader or banker. Fine people all. But that didn't get the country very far, until years later, somehow the idea spread that running your own business could actually be the best fun there was.

I have always tried to keep the level of fun high in my business. Wry smiles and winks all round at my constant refrain "but it must be FUN!"  Bonkers Chairman Tony.

Actually, there was plenty small enterprise back then. Always is. Just kept under the counter.  For me my introduction to this was Mervyn, his family and the Daves. Mervyn came from the council estate up Dedworth, worked at the garage over the road but could fix much more than cars. He could fix Anything … or find you a bloke called Dave who could. He could get you anything at unbelievable prices … not knocked off or anything. He was quite straight was Merv, he said.

So whilst there was no official support for new businessman, there was – and, though things for us; now, the proper, pukka Large Company, are all very different, I believe there still is – an underground network of unofficial small scale, self-help in Britain. Best not write too much about it though. 

Merv's brother, Roddy could do your accounts … and also deliver your boxes in London with a never-surpassed charm before customers had even left for work. One of his other brothers was a legal clerk, much better than many a lawyer. I forget what his third brother did, but I remember it was useful. His Dad wielded a demon broom and his mum could stuff a thousand mailing envelopes an hour.  My van was impeccably maintained in a discrete lock-up in Maidenhead by a genius called … Dave. My phone lines were sorted in hours thanks to a Dave who did moonlighting outside his GPO hours.

So what with the trips, the nice, kind customers, Merv and the Daves it was a great life. Maybe I worked for peanuts – well, doughnuts rather than peanuts (the daily warm, penny jam doughnut was the highlight of my day). But I loved it, I bloody loved it all.