Travel Reference
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Iexplained whathadhappened andhowwehadjustputGarrigue upforsale. Andrewwas
incredulous. He had been a major supporter of our vineyard and a loyal direct customer.
'I don't think you should give up,' he said.
'We just can't see how we can make it work given the time frame and resources we have,'
I said.
'Well, this is more than a friendly catch-up call. We've decided to wind up the company.
After costs, there is some money to divvy out, including enough to cover your loan to it.
That might help you to hang in there.'
'Tell me more,' I said, excitement mounting. He was referring to a loan I had made to a
start-up about ten years before. I had written off the sum long ago, not expecting it ever to
be repaid.
As Andrew filled me in I did a quick calculation. The money would meet our shortfall on
running expenses for the next twelve months, which would give us the breathing space to
develop the new business lines of tourism and holiday rental. I ran through to Sean.
'We've been saved,' I shouted.
'Calm down. What's going on?'
'We can take Garrigue off the market.' I felt a strange sense of déjà vu back to the days of
'it's on, it's off', when we tried to buy Garrigue almost three years before.
'I feel like we just won the lottery,' said Sean, a smile spreading over his face as the impact
of my news sank in. Then he looked serious. 'But Carolinus, we have to decide if it's worth
investing this second chance in Garrigue. We need to be sure we aren't throwing our energy
into something that will deliver nothing in the long run. The farm has to be financially vi-
able, it has to make a living for us. We've got to be rational.'
There it was, rational. We had to be rational, but I wasn't. If I had been rational, I would
have walked out the first time a mouse launched itself at me or the first time my back felt
broken from stacking too many cases of wine or the first time I came back from a full
morning of shoot removal. No, it was not rational, but Sean was right, it needed to make
enough money to feed our family and to fund a modest retirement.
Once the girls were asleep, we worked for hours on a new business plan. Going over the
history of the business we could see how badly we had misjudged the time it would take
to have the wine business operating as a going concern. The red wine had taken eighteen
months longer than expected to be available. The costs had been much higher than estim-
ated and we hadn't planned forthe excruciating level ofsocial charges despite ourconsulta-
tion with an expert accountant. Add the low yields of the organic road we had chosen to
that and it wasn't pretty.
We looked at different scenarios and discussed potential income streams deep into the
night. Our average wine prices had to increase considerably. We had to sell our wines for
what they were worth. With optimistic projections, higher wine prices, the self-catering
cottage and the wine classes, we could find sufficient income to keep the wine business go-
