Every so often Jules would come back, look at my work and give advice. I was learning, although slower than I would have liked.
When I walked down the hill at the end of the day, I no longer saw any romance in wine-making. It was mind-numbing, tedious work. But also I had a weary sense of having accomplished something.
“So how did it go?” my wife asked as I opened the door and walked in.
“It will take two more days,” was all I said.
Two days later, in the mid-afternoon sun, Pierre Luc, Jules and I sat with a glass of wine on the south side of his stone house. Jules silently smoked a home-rolled cigarette that he pinched between his thumb and index finger. With the pruning done, Pierre Luc had become loquacious.
“I can relax and wait for the budbreak.”
He saw my inquiring look.
“Oh—that’s when the first growth shows up on the canes. After that the new canes shoot out, the leaves open and little clusters appear. They look like tiny grape clusters, but they’re just flower buds. The flowers open, the bees do their work and then the grapes set.” He smiled and took a sip of wine. “Spring is an expectant time of year, like the early stages of a pregnancy, when winter is behind and the growth of summer lies ahead.
“I never wanted vineyards. As a child, I watched my father lose heart when the Viognier variety of grapes he planted was a big flop. Nobody bought his wine. After his death, I just let the vineyards go. But now look at it,” he said with a sweep of his arm. “Viognier has become popular and is beginning to sell well—and I have lots of it. All I need is a good year and I can pay back the bank.
“Come, look here,” he said, standing up and motioning for me to follow. “See there at the top of the slope how the vines are smaller up there. That’s because the top drains first and the vines get less water. Down lower you can see the vines are bigger and can produce more fruit.”
He turned to look at me. “The colder air gathers at the bottom of the hill. Worse, in wet weather the roots sleep in the water and we get disease and rot. Each vine, each row is different, growing, maturing and yielding different grapes.”
I listened, beginning to get some idea of the challenges a vigneron had to deal with. Even with all the modern knowledge, the problems remained fundamentally the same—the land and the weather. And even though I had no vines, I was in the middle of wine country, and I wanted to know what it took to make the wines I enjoyed so much.
Pierre Luc was displaying an optimism that I hadn’t heard before. There was none of the despondency that I had seen last summer when his wife had left with Violette and he had been living alone. Their return in the fall had changed him. All the same, I knew that he hadn’t tended a vineyard, made wine or ever worked at anything.
When I returned home, I told Hélène about the day’s work and what Pierre Luc had said. “He didn’t do a minute’s work with us and has never tended a vineyard.”
“You’ve read Tom Sawyer?”
I stared at her, but she had turned her back and continued ironing. I felt troubled by all of this because I sensed that Pierre Luc was divided between his family responsibilities and his lazy ways with his old chums who hung around the Bar des Amis.
Cover Art
Across the valley from the villa, Montagne Garde Grosse reaches an altitude of 944 metres. On the peak there is a telecommunications tower and a cleared space where paragliders take flight on warm summer afternoons when the thermals are rising from the valley below. The village of Nyons rests there, hemmed in and sheltered by Garde Grosse and a set of hills, from the bitter winds of the Mistral from the north and the Vent du Sud from the south. Warmer than the surrounding countryside in this microclimate, Nyons takes the nickname ‘le petit Nice’.
Chapter 3
truffling ~ dog tales ~ cycling for croissants
WE DECIDED TO GO into Nyons for the outdoor morning marché that has been held every Thursday for centuries. It was small at this time of year, with only the most diehard merchants in attendance, dressed in heavy winter coats to fend off the cold, stamping their rubber boots on the ground and rubbing their hands together. Their faces were ruddy, and as they talked their breath sent puffs of mist into the air as if their words were visible. The couple that sold roasted chicken were more fortunate as they could bask in the heat of their rotisserie where banks of chickens turned on skewers. We shared in the warmth while Hélène reacquainted herself with madame and bought one hot off a skewer.
By noon, the regulars were gathering at La Belle Époque and already the bistrot looked busy.
“Bonjour, Monsieur/Dame!” the owner’s wife smiled warmly.
“Bonjour, Madame.”
“Comment allez-vous?” she asked.
“Bien, merci. Et vous?”
Then her husband came over to shake our hands and lead us to a table.
The menu du jour posted on the chalkboard on the wall read: ‘escalope de veau avec sauce blanche’. We both ordered the veal, and when the plates arrived at the table the waitress turned out to be our friend Alice from the nearby village of Vinsobres.
“You’re still here!” Hélène exclaimed. “I thought you were moving back to Quebec.”
“Oui, oui. That is true. But it didn’t work out. Here, my parents can look after my daughter while I earn some money. She will start school next year. Excuse me, I’ll come back. The boss wants my help.” And she headed off to serve other tables.
Every now and then she stopped at our table to get in a few more words. As we left, Alice waved at Hélène and held one hand up to her ear.
“I’m to call her tomorrow, and we’ll get together to catch up on things. I think she’s met someone . . .”
When we opened the door of the house, the telephone was ringing. Hélène moved quickly to answer it.
“Bonjour, Suzette!—Oui, oui. Nous sommes arrivé dans la tempête hier soir.—Oui! C’était terrible. . . .”
Hélène had adopted the clipped provençal argot of Suzette, so I gave up listening and went back to the bedroom to finish unpacking my suitcase. A few minutes later I got a summary.
“That was our neighbour, Suzette. She knew we were driving in last night and was worried when we didn’t arrive on time. She says we were lucky. The TV5 news announced that a semi-trailer had jackknifed on the A8 Autoroute and several people died. She thought we might have been involved. Oh, and with all the fresh snow Jean wants to go skiing in the Alps. Are you interested?”
“Yes, but I am going truffling with Marcel tomorrow.”
I had jumped at the chance to actually see how a dog finds truffles, and I wanted to dig one out with my own hands and smell its earthy, pungent aroma. A truffle, however, is a fungus like the mushroom that matures in the fall and raises its cap above the ground to send spores into the air. A truffle never breaks the surface, remaining out of sight while it matures during the winter.
Marcel lived in Bouchet and was one of those self-contained, hardy farmers who knew how
