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Question: what's an Anglo-Australian married to an American doing in the sunny south of France? Answer: making wine, of course. James Herrick, who can trace his heritage back to the 17th-century cleric and poet Robert Herrick (best remembered for the line "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may") is at the forefront of a renaissance which is rapidly transforming the reputation of the Languedoc-Roussillon region away from that of wine lake and undrinkable plonk and into the "California" of France. He might not have gathered so much as a single rosebud since his arrival some seven years ago at Domaine de la Motte, just outside of Narbonne, but he has certainly gathered more than his fair share of grapes, his 178 hectares of immaculately manicured vineyards making him by far the largest, and most successful, producer of Chardonnay in the entire region.
That's not to suggest that Herrick's company, Global Vineyards, has in any way become part of the French mainstream. Far from it. "We are completely apart from the small farmer subsidy system and the state-run co-operatives," Herrick affirms with a confusing mixture of pride and cynicism. "If you are small and inefficient, the French government will throw money at you. But if you are big and trying to be efficient, it won't. You are penalized - no grants for buying presses, planting new vines or anything like that - so it's really not a level playing field at all."
Not that Herrick has lost so much as a single match. In fact he seems rather to enjoy rubbing the locals up the wrong way, albeit in a manner that blends friendly energy with relaxed impatience. For, by insisting on planting only grape variety and making his wine exclusively from it, he is flying in the face of the most entrenched tradition of French wine making - that of terroir - and the Appellation Contrôllée system that supports it. And there can surely be no doubting that Herrick's New World views would be enough to have guillotined were he to do so much as whisper them in the scared, hallowed caves of Chateau Lafite, Rothschild and the like.
The French would like to have you believe that the only thing that counts is le terroir - that magic spot where the grapes were grown," he explains. "But as far as I am concerned it's the varietal argument that holds most sway. Given the right grapes you can make good wine virtually anywhere - even in your bathtub - so long as you keep it clean, mind you."
In a move that Herrick describes as ruthlessly commercial, he chose to put his money (some £7 million of it) where his mouth was and set up shop in the lion's den itself - France. And in one its most conservative regions at that.
"My view is that people will eventually decide to select a Chardonnay or Riesling rather than a Bordeaux Appellation Contrôllée. And when they do - and there are signs of this happening already - I would still prefer to be in France as opposed to, say, Portugal or Spain, because in this trade French wine is simply the best there can be."
He likes to label himself a failed student of philosophy, claiming with some pride that he dropped out of Sussex University in the seventies in order to become a stagiaire ("Cellar rat is the best translation, if you ask me," Herrick helpfully explains) at Moët & Chandon in Champagne - and it was there that he fell in love with the wine business, eventually moving on to a highly successful career in sales. The son of a New Zealand father and Irish mother, Herrick had spent his formative years on a Suffolk apple far, before eventually finding his way to Australia in 1982.
"I fell in love with their wines too," Herrick admits, "but I couldn't figure out why they weren't selling them well or aggressively overseas. So I started up a business with a couple of friends, Mark Swann and Robert Hesketh, who remain my partners today, and together we made our own wine - selling it to the United States. We then began to try to analyze why the French weren't making consistently good white wine - and decided to have a go ourselves. That's how I came to be based in France. It was a business decision, but you also have to a romantic attachment to the commodity too."
Despite his many battles with bumbling bureaucrats (one of whom categorically assured him that it would be impossible to grow Chardonnay on his land and tried to block the Credit Agricole funding for his project as a result), Herrick has not time for those who sneer and jeer at the French, even though local reaction to his venture has been decidedly mixed.
"I wouldn't dare peddle the line that it's an Englishman coming over here and teaching the French how to make good wine. I have far too much respect for the French to say that. They have been doing it well for hundreds of years. But I do think that we are the cutting edge of creating an innovative process in France, and it's fun to be a Brit being one of the innovators here. We are attacking the greatest wine country in the world. But things are changing over here too - for now we have the local viticultural school coming round with the message 'this is one other way of doing it'. I don't think that we are massively better than everybody else in the region - we just try to make premium wine. Besides, the vast majority of local growers don't have the responsibility of seeing what happens to their grapes - it all gets crushed and bottled collectively. Whereas I care passionately about how good my grapes are, because it's my name (James Herrick Chardonnay) that ends up on the bottle."
Although his first wines only came through in 1992, British merchants Oddbins and Unwins could hardly acquire his produce quickly enough, demand often outstripping supply. Nor did it take too long before Sainsbury, Tesco and Waitrose likewise began to place their orders. In fact so popular has his Chardonnay proved, that he was persuaded to produce his first red, Cuvée Simone (named after his wife), which is likewise receiving rave reviews. Simone, born and brought up in San Francisco, has had little difficulty in adapting to the French way of life. Not that she has too much time to dwell upon such weighty issues, since she has her work cut out looking after their three children. Unlike many English-speaking couples who seek out integration at all costs, the Herricks' message is both concise and clear: vive la difference!
On the labeling of James Herrick Chardonnay you will see the Latin words Virtus Omnia Nobilitat printed in bright, gold lettering. It's the family motto which can be traced back to the 17th-century poet himself. "It means courage ennobles everything. And since it does require a certain amount of lunatic bravado to take on a vineyard in the first place," Herrick reflects, "I guess there must be some truth in it."
The main Web site of freelance writer Jeremy Josephs is at www.jeremyjosephs.com Please check there if you might be interested in engaging him as a writer.
Many of his articles are available online. Please check the sitemap for a complete list.