These enigmatic facets of undiscovered space exist in a fantastical realm to me, but for others they are a way of life, and far from adventurous, they dictate strict adherence to old ways; traditions that define culture within tight geographical confines. France is no exception. 

The soft bronze countryside along the A-7 motorway racing south from Paris to Montpeyroux unfolds like softening clay.

Save the occasional toll booth, the calmness of this road runs un-assailed until it splits outside Avignon sending the highway in two stark oppositions: towards the silent Pyrenees range separating France from Spain to the west, and the high spirited uber-vacation destinations of Monaco and Cannes to the east. Fortuitously this crossroads sits atop a fertile spate of land near the village of Chateau Neuf du Pape.

By chance, it coincided with a road trip I was planning through Europe and on the third day of my trip, I pulled off the motorway and turned into the fading crepuscular light of the foothills, with little idea of what to expect.

Sensing my trepidation with idea of getting lost in the foothills of the Pyrenees at night, Phillip agreed to meet me in Gignac, a larger village closer to the motorway and easier to find in the darkness should I become lost.

Montpeyroux is small, and nearly invisible save a small abbreviated notation on the map that looks like the smudged erasing of misplaced pencil marks. 

According to Phillip the size of the town is insignificant because “it has all the basics, a wine cooperative and a church” All the basics of life, wrapped into religion and wine may sound antediluvian, perhaps even over simplistic but in the South of France where the church is more representative of a penitent respect for cultural tradition, and wine is the life blood of the earth, simple is crucial.

If you are American, you come from a culture where entrepreneurship is the norm.  Pioneering is the basis of the USA psyche, living the American Dream is ingrained in the culture;  business avant-garde skills and concepts nearly all come from this country.  So you may think that entrepreneurship is natural for all cultures around the world.  It is not.

Phillip and Christine both work for Jean-Jean, Frances second largest winery, and therefore they are anchored both domestically and professionally to France’s deep cultural roots. While the company is large, the precision and pace of Jean-Jean remains undeniably French, and further explains the country’s position as one of the world’s most prominent producers of wine, but certainly not the most prolific.

This has been of little importance to them for some time, because they’ve always felt that the mass production of any precious commodity decreases value, both real and perceived.

Honorable as this sentiment may be, globalization has allowed producers from up and coming wine hot spots such as Australia, New Zealand, and South American to challenge France in the consumer market. By not effectively focusing on the trends of an increasingly wired world to educate people about their products and culture, access, cost and an information gap have hurt them dearly. It’s foreign to few, even inside France, that communication has never been their strong point. People don’t like to order what they can’t pronounce and don’t like to buy what they don’t understand; the French have done little to abate this phenomena. Their refusal to make their product accessible, such as exporting their bottles with English translations, has hurt them dearly.

Phillip claims, as do many Frenchman, that these problems are deeply rooted in the complicated and anachronistic practices of the AOC, the French wine governing body. Add to it the recent problems with America and the French wine industry is in its most perilous state in memory. But we both agree that while this may put some producers out of business, it will never eclipse the French market, because they possess a magic ingredient that few others are able to claim: their product is their country and their country is their culture.

Phillip attempted to explain this sentiment to me when talking about the South of France, “you can never just visit” he said “You must live here for a year and see how it changes from season to season. The south is the wine harvest in autumn, the south is the mistral, and the south is the way you make love to a woman in the summertime”.  Where else, I wondered aloud, should one be in love or imagine how love should be, than a place of such indulgence.

These are the reasons that people continue to seek out France, because the perception of passion is deeply ingrained in penitence to culture, to the slowness, precision and tradition of a grand notion of life. 

I worry though that the French may not see the future in the same golden light with which they view the past. Narcissism is deadly when practiced perpetually. To be assured of an ideal without recognizing the importance of protecting against its demise is foolish, and claiming that it is the burden of the consumer to learn where the grape comes from, is pompous and arrogant. This is where much of the world’s opinion of the French is derived: the frustration that while what they have is beautiful they don’t quite feel the need to explain it. 

In Montpeyroux, this sentiment is literally hanging on the front doors of homes, in the form of a large Moroccan hand, its skeletal fingers stretched outward to ward off evil spirits. The inhabitants claim it helps to ward off evil spirits; ghosts of the past; ghosts that are standing right outside their front doors. But are they also prohibiting access to the living, breathing people of the world? Phillip and Christine’s door is absent a knocker, and I ask them if they don’t share in their neighbor’s superstition, “We just moved in, I might get one soon, but maybe not.” He says with a common shrug of indifference. It’s never final with the French, always a constant state of indecision.

Their home however, is immaculately precise, architecturally relaxed and cool, a result of its near 300 year age.

They paid just 88 thousand pounds for three bedrooms, two baths, a large porch, a backyard a garage and a wine cellar; it is as I feared, an incredible steal for the price. Christine greets me along the curved tile stairway with three kisses instead of the customary two I’d grown used to in Paris and Phillip disappears immediately into his cellar for wine to quench our thirst from the drive up the dusty road into town. When they’re fully moved in Christine winks, I’ll have to come back and dive into Phillips collection, which she says is over 1000 bottles strong. Dinner, I’m warned, will be a long affair and I’m encouraged to enjoy a lengthy aperitif on the veranda with Phillip as she finishes her preparations. 

This may seem like a lavish vacation, but their not overly wealthy, and this isn’t their retirement. They haven’t turned their backs on the future, they’re fully aware of its advance and that’s why they’ve been able to embrace the past in Montpeyroux, a town as ideologically different from my home as it is from Paris. It’s hard not to covet what they have, to avoid dreaming of the adventure one would find in the provincial lifestyle of Mayle and Mayes. But I have to remind myself that while this is my adventure it is their life, and it is as sacred to them as my journey is to me. As we sit on the veranda and the cool dry autumn air sings across the hollow top of an open wine bottle it’s easy to fall in love with this culture, and equally impetuous to openly loathe the prospect of its demise. But just as the penitence to cultural tradition is a premier facet of French wine, the magic of the country, most notably here in the south, is similarly able to weave beauty seamlessly into everyday life so that it ceases to seem indulgent. Phillip and Christine believe that the importance of culture and a respect of its place are naturally resistant to change. As a foreigner, I admit, this sounds pompous and arrogant. But, it’s merely simple French charm thinly dusted over with the mountain sand covering the street below. Christine raises her hand slightly, palms facing up, her lips pursed in a typical French expression. “What use is it worrying about things that haven’t happened yet?” And because little ever happens in the hills of southwestern France, I’m able to relax and not worry so much about the future. I’m lost in une belle époque, and suspended in cultural disbelief. Can this place exist? It can and it does. Montpeyroux exists to remind us what life can be if we dream it, and it’s comforting to know that this fantasy is attainable. Christine and Phillip are living the dream, and I am here for a few short days, sharing in with them. Perhaps I’ll stay lost for a while. Perhaps the smudged pencil marks of Montpeyroux will rub off and vanish, and I will go happily into the fading purple light of the Pyrenees in autumn, where the smell of petrol was never intended to mix kindly with the muskiness of ripening fruit.

The following are the previous articles that Will Sullivan wrote for the magazine:

From Pub Culture Into The Graveyard Of Ambition ~ A Rainy Day In Galway ~ By Will Sullivan

Luxembourg ~ A Confluence Of Culture ~ by W.B. Sullivan

Cremona, Italy ~ Violin Making

To contact Will - bauston@hotmail.com

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