Vineyard (Feely)

What does it take to follow your dreams? The wine filled my mouth with plum and blackberry sensations. 'Delicious.' A picture of a vineyard drenched in sunlight formed in my mind. Sean drew me rudely back to our small suburban home. 'How can they be in liquidation if they make wine this good?' When Caro and Sean find the perfect vineyard near Bordeaux their dreams of a new life in France are about to come true. They arrive, with a toddler and a newborn, to face a dilapidated farmhouse, and challenges including accidents with agricultural equipment, cultural misunderstandings, and money worries. Undeterred, they embark on the biggest adventure of their lives-learning to make wine from the roots up. Filled with vivid descriptions of delicious wines, great food, humour, and stunning landscapes, this is a unique insight into the world of the winemaker, and a story of passion, dedication, and love. Do Caro and Sean succeed in their thrilling quest? Is completely changing your life a good idea?

Can you build your dream life? Or will it break you? 'We have to get to the next level, or we have to get out,' I said. 'To make the farm viable we have to have more vines and more accommodation,' replied Sean. Both would take investment we didn't have. Getting to the next level and overcoming challenges that include bureaucracy, renovation delays, and unseasonal frost, will take courage, ingenuity, and luck. On a winter's day frost is beautiful, but on a spring day after bud burst it spells devastation. For Sean and Caro, a couple whose love affair with wine and France has taken them through financial and physical struggle to create their organic vineyard, it could spell the end. Until they receive an unexpected call that could save their skins. This book is about life, love and taking risks, while transforming a piece of land into a flourishing organic and biodynamic vineyard and making a new life in France. It includes evocative descriptions of nature, delicious food and wine, and voyages to wine regions of Napa and Sonoma in the USA, and Alsace, Bergerac, Bordeaux, and Burgundy in France. Do Caro and Sean save their skins and thrive?