Ever dreamed of owning your own vineyard in France? Meet the couple who made it a reality

There is warm, dappled sunshine ripening your grapes and the promise of a harvest, winemaking and thousands of bottles of wine. Who wouldn’t want to be part of that lifestyle? If you enjoy wine then owning a vineyard is a natural progression, isn’t it?

You could choose to plant in England, lots of people are doing that, but for a ready-made solution there are websites full of vineyards for sale in France, most of them with picture perfect houses on site. This could be the start of your new life.

I talked to James Kinglake who, with his wife Catherine, decided in 2003 to up sticks from London to buy a vineyard known as Domaine Begude in the Limoux region of France. Catherine was brought up in Yorkshire and has maintained her connections here which is how I managed to catch up with them. Their wines are now available in Majestic and other retailers in the UK, while James has also built up important markets across Europe.

“It has been extremely hard work,” said James. “While I have never thought about giving up, I do wonder sometimes whether my bank manager has hoped I would.”

James and Catherine bought an established 29-hectare vineyard on rolling slopes in the cool region of Limoux. At its heart is the classic blue-shuttered house where they and their daughter Millie live. Did they have any experience of vineyards? “We both did a viticulture course at Plumpton, which is the place to learn about viticulture in the UK, but to be honest we learnt more in a couple of days at Domaine Begude.” The vineyard was planted with a range of grapes, but was in a fairly run-down state, so there was replanting, deep-ploughing and trellising to do, as well as fitting out a winery. The soils were not in good condition, so James set to work ploughing in around 3,000 tonnes of cow manure.

“The best thing we did was to bring in an estate manager/winemaker. We had 80 applications for the job and many candidates turned up with briefcases and written plans, but Laurent immediately went out into the vineyards and walked through the vines. He has been with us from the start,” said James.

Laurent is an essential part of the team. James was keen to get back to France to start bottling the 2019 vintage but was detained by the ban on travelling. While he is held up in Yorkshire, Laurent is on-site at the Domaine, looking after the vines and the new vintage wine which is in the tank.

There have been changes in the vineyards over the years. At the start they were planted essentially to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay with some other vines such as Gewürztraminer and some Viognier. “We had to take out some Grüner Veltliner, and we have added some other Pinot Noir clones. Plantings of Viognier have expanded. We also have some Sauvignon Blanc which used to go to a restaurant chain, but now they have closed we are hoping it will go to a major UK retailer,” added James.

“The real challenge of owning a vineyard is that it is essentially a farmers’ life. There is always something to do in the vines and we are totally dependent on the weather. One year the vines developed mildew which devastated the crop. We made just half the amount of wine that we need to just break even. That was hard.

“One major change is that we are now completely organic with certification. That means that we have to comply with all the rules of organic viticulture and be inspected to verify it. Since then the wines have definitely become better.

“The other major change is that we pick the grapes on taste, not analysis. This is the most important decision of the year so I spend all my time in the vineyards with Laurent and with Richard Osborne, our consultant, tasting the grapes and choosing when to pick.”

Pick too early and the acidity is too high, pick too late and the alcohol makes the wine heavy and unbalanced.

“I love the creativity of it all, deciding which particular piece of land is right for which variety, deciding on how the wines are made, creating special top cuvées such as the wild ferment Arcturus [Vinceremos, £37.99] and the top cuvée Capella Pinot Noir [Majestic, £40]. This year we are going to release an orange wine, made from Chenin Blanc and Gewürztraminer.”

The full range of Domaine Begude wines is available at Vinceremos of Leeds (www.vinceremos.co.uk). Domaine Begude Pinot Noir Rosé (£9.99) captures delicate wild strawberry characters. I also think that the 2018 Pinot Noir (£10.99) has exceptional style and depth of flavour. I am particularly fond of Etoile (£15.99), a barrel-fermented Chardonnay that has a finely balanced creamy style. However, if you are new to Domaine Begude, start with the elegant flavours of Terroir 11300 Chardonnay. (£9.99, Waitrose).

So, instead of owning a vineyard, would James go back to how life used to be? “Definitely not. We enjoy the lifestyle, but don’t think that you can make lots of money. Taxes get in the way of profit, so we buy a piece of kit instead. Last year we bought an automatic punch-down machine which has improved our wine enormously.”

So if you enjoy hard work, punch-down machines and the vagaries of the weather, buying a vineyard may just work for you.

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