Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Monsieur told us that heart problems had forced him to sell the property. I completely un-
derstood: with the quantities of chocolate I needed to manage the stress of Garrigue I was
sure I would have heart problems in a few years myself.
'Vous avez fait des travaux!'
said Monsieur Battistella. 'It's good to see Garrigue getting
back its beauty. We had gardens all around the house. And down here,' he pointed to the
jungle to the left of the house 'there are stone stairs down to a well. We built the chimney
with the second level of the house but never used it. It will work perfectly. Now, when can
I collect my two hundred litres of red wine?'
We had forgotten the
ancien droit
that meant we had to hand over 200 litres of our pre-
cious wine to Monsieur Battistella.
'The malos aren't finished,' said Sean. 'You can have some white in the meantime. We'll
call you when it's ready.'
Monsieur Battistella took a few litres of dry white but he wanted red. After the sweat that
had gone into it, handing the wine over for free was difficult. But the chimney meant our
flue would remain inside the house, providing more warmth than if it had gone up the ex-
teriorwall,andthebathroomwouldbetoastyinwinter.Thatwasworthatleast200litres,if
the malos ever finished. We regularly did a malo paper test and intermittently a laboratory
test but we had heard that it was possible to tell just by looking at the wine: little bubbles
would appear and it would become lively, plus if we put an ear to the barrel we would hear
a 'pop-pop' like popcorn. Sean was worried. He continued to heat the red wine but nothing
was happening.
The wood stove was installed with a perfect exit through the chimney, just in time for the
serious cold of December. On Christmas Eve I took the girls up to bed and returned to find
Sean listening to Christy Moore with tears rolling down his cheeks. This was the third time
in our lives I had seen Sean crying. The first was on Sophia's tumultuous first day of her
life, the second was when I announced I was leaving.
'What's happened?' I said, worried sick that one of our parents had died.
'I miss home, Carolinus.'
I sat down and we talked about the things we both missed about Christmas in Dublin:
swimming at White Rock in freezing temperatures on Christmas morning to help clear the
head after too much wine, walking up the Sugar Loaf in Wicklow on St Stephen's Day, but
most of all our friends and the craic.
The life of a vigneron was solitary, even though friends and family came and went. It was
stressful, risky and lonely. But it was also wonderful. We were following our dream and we
