A Vineyard in the Dordogne - How an English Family Made Their Dream of Wine, Good Food and Sunshine Come True. Jeremy Josephs
that was but a foretaste of further trouble to come.
For the demonstrations rapidly spread into the provinces, with massive strikes and sit-ins around the country, involving over ten million workers. Not to be excluded, France’s school students needed little encouragement before taking to the streets, listing a series of grievances and demanding urgent and immediate reforms. In the normally sleepy city of Béziers in the sunny southern region of Languedoc-Roussillon, the state-run Lycée Henri IV was obliged to shut down early, thereby prolonging the already generous summer break, as its pupils occupied classrooms and distributed leaflets setting out their case.
There were not the slightest signs of any such stirrings or discontent, however, at the privately-funded and fee-paying Pensionnat de l’Immaculée Conception, only half a kilometre away. Popularly known as the PIC and created by a religious order at the beginning of the nineteenth century with a view to meeting the educational and religious requirements of the sons of the local bourgeoisie, the school occupied rather drab premises in the heart of the old town, dominated by the imposing fortified cathedral of St Nazaire, and overlooking the meandering River Orb. The pupils might well have read about the troubles in the press or watched television news reports, but every boy there had just one thing on his mind: to pass his baccalauréat math-élém, which meant a disproportionately heavy dose of physics, maths and French, and in so doing acquire the first and most important stamp on his passport to eventual success. With only a few weeks before the examinations were scheduled to begin, this diligent and devoted approach to study was particularly well exemplified by the twenty-year-old Henry Mondié. Having already repeated two school years in his academic career to date, including the key class of terminal, he had no intention of sitting for his ‘bac’ a third time. He would succeed in the summer exams of 1968 or never at all.
Maurice Mondié, Henry’s father, might well have wished his own position was otherwise. But the fact was that he would have had much difficulty in offering practical assistance to his son should he happen once again not to score sufficiently high marks. For although he was a wine-grower by trade, with over twenty hectares of vineyards to his name, his estate had only ever been capable of generating one income, not two. And since his father was only forty-eight at the time, with retirement many years away, Henry knew perfectly well that he himself was unlikely to find a future in the vineyards of the Hérault. So too did his younger brother, Claude, who had no intention of toiling the land and was hoping to pursue a career in either banking or commerce.
The Mondiés were from the small village of Cruzy, twenty-five kilometres west of Béziers and not far from where the historic Canal du Midi cuts its way through the attractive reddish landscape on a small part of its long and winding journey from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. With vineyards stretching out as far as the eye can see and producing for the most part the red vin ordinaire of the region, Cruzy fell within the Minervois and St Chinian appellations (vintages). Unlike the smart vineyards of the Médoc, where the vines often surround a show-piece château, the Mondié’s estate consisted of fifteen different plots, in many cases separated from one another by nothing more than the garrigue, the rocky scrubland of the south of France.
Dark-haired and dark-eyed like the majority in the Midi, Henry had spent a very happy childhood close to the vineyards of Cruzy before being sent off to board in Béziers at the age of eleven. Cruzy, with its population of just 1,500, had been the centre of his world, with relatives, friends, school and catechism all within walking distance of his home. Although a small village, it boasted the magnificent church of Ste Eulalie, dating from the days of Pope Urban V, with a coquettish statue of the Virgin Mary inside, her hips inclining slightly to one side, and carved in the best traditions of the Italian Renaissance.
Proud of their Occitan past and always anxious to respect both local and regional fêtes, the people of Cruzy, like those throughout the region, led a life that revolved around the production and consumption of wine. Each stage of the complex process of winemaking was the subject of intense scrutiny and heated debate — from the art of planting to the skills of bottling and storage. Whenever Maurice Mondié bumped into a neighbour or acquaintance in Cruzy’s village square or Béziers’ allées Paul Riquet, named after the engineer who constructed the epochal Canal du Midi, the conversation would inevitably turn to wine. And in the best traditions of village life every viticulteur seemed to know every other winegrower’s business: what grape variety he was cultivating, where it was being grown, how many hectolitres he was likely to produce, precisely what stock was stored in his cave (cellar) at any one time and an informed opinion on the key issue of the most advantageous time to sell. In fact, by contrast with the many parts of France where talk of the joys of food is paramount, here the importance of wine surpassed even that sacred ritual.
Maurice Mondié might not have been able to guarantee a future to either of his sons. But that did not mean that life in the vineyards had not served him well. His twenty hectares constituted a sizeable asset compared with other holdings in the area, and he was very much the petit seigneur of his domain. This brought undeniable advantages, such as working entirely at his own speed, and with more than the odd day off he would often stalk through the garrigue with his lightweight Plume rifle slung over his shoulder, in search of rabbit, partridge or hare. And since his wine often fetched healthy prices from the local cave coopérative (wine cooperative), to which he sold his entire produce en vrac (unbottled), thereby avoiding the costly processes of bottling and labelling, there was seldom any shortage of money for Maurice and his wife Juliette. For this reason it never once crossed his mind that he would in due course do anything other than enrol both of his sons at the Pensionnat de l’Immaculée Conception in Béziers, unquestionably the most select school in the area. For Maurice, tending to his vines was more of a way of life than a mere means of employment and, master of his own destiny as he was, it was a thoroughly pleasant way of life at that.
For his son Henry the greatest pleasure of growing up in such an environment was the simple joy of being out in the open. The undisputed highlight of his week was to be able to join his father, who, together with four or five of his workers, would have set off for the vineyards earlier during the morning to avoid the searing heat of the sun. These excursions would always take place on a Thursday, the day off from school in France during the fifties. Securing his balance on his red Motobécane bicycle, and drinking in the beauty of the landscape all around, he would pedal off to meet up with this small and informal party of workmen. But first things first. For Mondié junior always made sure that his arrival was timed to coincide with their hard-earned break for lunch. Then, settling himself among the adults in the tiny, ramshackle hut built on the site of the vineyard, he would look on as each worker in turn produced from a small container a delicious meal of sausages or stew. The men took turns to heat up their lunch over a camp-fire of old vines and with the smell of herbs and seasoning soon filling the air it was never long before the boy’s mouth would begin to water in anticipation of the dish which his father would patiently prepare for him.
Henry Mondié’s wholesome outdoor lifestyle was brought to an abrupt end, however, when the time finally came, as he always knew it would, for him to be sent off as a boarder to Béziers at the age of eleven. At first he found it difficult to adjust to the new and rather strict regime, where concern for the boys’ moral well-being was accorded as much importance as their instruction in Latin and maths. But he at least had the opportunity of returning to Cruzy every weekend, only half an hour’s drive away, when he would often accompany his father on an impromptu tour of inspection of his scattered parcelles of land. In addition, there was also the vendanges (wine harvest) to look forward to, which invariably took place in September and thus overlapped with his return to school. Aware of the importance of wine-growing to the livelihoods of almost everybody in the area, the ecclesiastical authorities responsible for the running of the school would issue a series of special derogations, allowing wine-growers’ sons to remain at home for the duration of the harvest. During these few frenetic weeks the impression was given in and around Béziers, as in countless other wine-producing regions of France, that virtually every able-bodied person was hard at work in the vineyards, having heeded the urgent summons to assist.
Not that it was particularly glamorous work. At the age of twelve and thirteen Henry would find himself working alongside women