Time is flying. It’s been a while since we’ve met here, the days in the vines gradually growing longer and the work piling up, as it does every spring. I find less and less time to use my creative brain and find my focus more and more turning to the task at hand: growing grapes. Spring has arrived with a bang, bringing with it unseasonably warm, sunny days. The vines have been coaxed out of their winter dormancy and are growing at a speed I almost cannot believe. My schedule now revolves around the weather forecast and the will of the vines. No more planned days away from Jura, only a feeling of rushing to stay ahead of the work.
I have almost grown accustomed to the feeling of running in the summer. There’s always something extra that could be done. Sometimes the amount of work that is required during the growing season can feel inundating: that the rest of life’s priorities can fall away in favour of a singular focus on the vineyard. And this is where today’s story begins: taking a moment in the busyness of life to appreciate the work you’ve done, how far you’ve come and how just a glimmer of gratitude can be really grounding when there world seems to be spinning around you.
Preface: The Big Bang
The question was “do you believe in destiny?” I had to give it a lot of thought. My obvious answer, as a rather pragmatic person, is no, but I cannot deny the feeling of luck and happenstance that has imbued my life with really incredible opportunities. That while I don’t adhere to magical thinking I cannot deny that I feel a lot of gratitude for the moments that have brought me here today: to what I think it one of the world’s most beautiful vineyard sites, in a bucolic French village, supported by so many wonderful people near and far. But there have been specific moments that I cannot rationalize that have made it all happen. J offers a scientific explanation: That since the Big Bang the arrangement of energy and atoms in Universe have been on a predetermined trajectory, and that all we are today was decided at that instance of cosmic inflation. I let out a dismissive “mmhmm…”, but could it be true?
Chapter 1: ice cream luck
The end of summer 2016 was arriving in Canada, and I had still not done any of the essential summer activities before harvest arrived: lunch at the bistro on the lake, a swim out at the point and an ice cream from the local shop. I decided to make a day of it and do everything on my list. En route to the bistro I drove by the ice cream shop and declared that as an adult, I had every right to eat an ice cream before my lunch. I stopped, ordered a cone and plopped down on the little bench in front of the store to enjoy my treat. Coincidentally the house across the street was putting up a FOR SALE sign just as I was sitting eating my ice cream. “What a cute house!” I thought. I called my friend, a real estate agent, to see what the deal was.
By the next day I had bought the house. It took every penny of my savings and a large part of my salary each month; but the adorable 1.5 story century home was mine. I was terrified, as I had never committed to one place or such an investment in my life. What I didn’t know then that this was the beginning of the road to everything I have been gifted with today, a pivotal moment in the Big Bang destiny.
Chapter 2: first sunset of the Summer
It’s May, I have just arrived back to Canada from harvest in South Africa. The southern hemisphere harvest was an incredibly formative time, it clarified my understanding of winemaking and how a harvest works on a practical level. I was back home, full of energy and motivation and ready to put my new skills into practice. All my colleagues had also returned from their winter séjours and we were awaiting the busy summer tourist season to begin. The energy was joyful and celebratory. C went to his stash of wine to bring us a special bottle. I can remember the exact scene: the warmth of the setting sun, the cool late spring air, the laughter of the guys as we huddled around one small table. The wine was relevatory, unlike anything I had experienced in my still limited time as a wine drinker: energetic, salty, a richness without being fat. It was a Ganevat chardonnay, and my mind felt expanded on what wine could be, how a bottle of fermented grape juice could be emotional.
Chapter 3: the answer is right under your nose
Flash forward 3 years and I’ve made my way to La Combe. I’m trying to learn everything there is to know about organic wine growing and natural winemaking. I arrived speaking no french, knowing nothing of rural French life, and facing a steep learning curve for everything in the vineyard. There were many days of total frustration: of not understanding or being understood, of making mistakes, of trying to prove that I was a strong and capable worker. There were also days of total exhilaration: so many laughs with my new colleagues, glasses of wine shared, a magnitude of new knowledge acquired.
My favourite days of vineyard work were always in the farthest vineyards next to the village of Grusse. High on the hillside, surrounded by nothing but cow fields, forest and the occasional passing cyclist, there was a tranquility and beauty of the place that was astonishing. The best part was our view: across the valley a bit higher on the hill was a vineyard, surrounded by forest, with a small cabin built at the very top. I always thought to myself, “it’s so beautiful, imagine if I could have something like that for myself one day? What a dream that would be.”
Two years later a man comes to the domaine, with vineyards to sell, as he is starting to plan for his approaching retirement. I happen to be there, cleaning the press with a Karcher in my hand. I had just coincidentally mentioned a couple months ago to JFG that if… by chance …he knew of anyone renting a little bit of vineyards, I was ready to strike out on my own little project. We all pile into a car to go see the vineyards for sale. We tour around a few sites in the neighbouring villages before arriving to Grusse. As we continue on a little farther I’m speechless when we stop at the vineyard I had been peering on from across the valley the last years. It was extraordinary: 3ha of vines, all 5 grapes from the Jura AOC. I couldn’t believe we were there and I immediately told myself that I would find some way to make the dream a reality.
Here our story circles back to the ice cream shop. Buying that house in Canada, by total chance, without really thinking it through, and then selling it again 5 years later, let me have enough investment to buy the vines and set up a tiny cellar in the Jura. I have no investors. While this comes with an incredible amount of risk, as well as some very lean early years, I have freedom in the project to explore the winemaking I want and practice the type of ecology that interests me. Were all these coincidences predetermined at the moment of the Big Bang? We’ll never really know, but I am certain I have stumbled across an incredible array of opportunities that have brought me to where I am today.
Fin: a day to celebrate
I retell this chain of events in the context of how lucky I feel to have had incredible opportunities in my life, I’m not sure that its destiny, but I certainly feel like so many important parts of the path I have taken have been determined by seemingly insignificant moments of coincidence. It’s decided that it should be celebrated, to take a moment from the incresingly stressful vineyard work and appreciate the luck and hard work I’ve put into building the domaine. To be honest I have never done this: step back and appreciated how far I’ve come, how much I have accomplished.
So every year I will stop on April 13th for a celebratory ice cream cone (the day I finally signed the papers to buy the vineyard). A nod to the first ice cream cone I ate, on the bench at the end of Canadian summer, that lead me to the house, that let me create a life in France. I cannot overstate how fun and joyful it is to celebrate yourself. To give yourself permission to find gratitude for what you’ve been given and what you’ve done. I highly recommend that when life starts to feel like you’re swimming under water to make a conscious effort to remember that you’ve also come a long way, that we can celebrate the bizarre and seemingly trivial moments, because sometimes those are actually the most important.