A Good Year

"Why then are you here? What can we teach you that your university cannot?"

"While what is taught is good to maintain consistent high quality for volume production there is still a place for a combination of traditional and modern methods in the production of premium boutique wines such as we produce in our winery. There is much to learn from tradition." That seemed to please him.

He walked off into the depths of the cellars and returned with a bottle in his hand. Pulling the cork he poured some into my glass and handed it to me. I looked at the colour and was expecting the worst, it had a slightly brown tinge to it. I picked up the cork and sniffed it, it had a slight musty smell to it, and close inspection revealed a thin line of wine the full length of it. Without comment I handed him the cork. "I haven't tasted this wine yet, but its smell and the cork tells me that I will be disappointed with it." I took a sip. "I was right, it has oxidised, it is bad."

He took the glass from me and tasted the wine. In disgust he spat it out. "You are right, it is bad."

"We are losing less than one percent of our production now. My father believes that the use of screw caps will prove to be both a blessing and a curse. It will preserve the wine so that in ten years they will be as good as when they were bottled, but they will not get any better. Good wine needs to age, the flavours need to develop and that is why we still use corks, we believe they allow the wine to age. We have a lot of money riding on this."

"What you say is not the way that we have made wines for generations, we see no need to change the way that we do things."

"If you are happy with your wines then don't, I am not going to tell you that I am right and you are wrong, because wines that I like, you may not like. Wines are a subjective thing, one of our winemakers told me once that price and reputation count for nothing; if you like the wine, buy it, if you don't like it then don't buy it."

"Where do you sell your wines?"

"Mainly through our cellar door and mail order, we have an extensive mailing list, and we supply one specialist retailer in each capitol city, although we have found lately that we have to restrict our supplies to this market because we don't make enough to give them what they want."

Pierre and I became inseparable, we spent time in the cellars tasting wines, we spent time in the vineyards testing the grapes and I was invited to eat with the family and given a room in the family house, I had become part of the family. Pierre's mother was a brilliant cook and my clothes were beginning to shrink.

A couple of days before the grapes were ready to pick Pierre and I were in the cellars watching the workers finish the cleaning of the press and the fermentation vats in readiness for the harvest. "Jenny," He took me into a dark corner behind some casks and out of sight of the workers, his arms were around me and his face was centimetres from mine. He saw me glance at the mattress on the floor. "This has been here for several generations but until recently it was a straw filled palliasse and not comfortable, so I had a mattress put here. I was conceived in this corner, it is tradition."

"I hope that you don't intend to get me pregnant here." I was going to add that it would be impossible but his lips got in the way again, and when he stopped kissing me the subject had changed.

"It is going to be very busy when we begin to crush, and we will not have this time with each other for some weeks. I wish to spend all of the available time with you, not just walking around this place, but with you." To reinforce his words he kissed me again, his soft lips pressed against mine, his arms closing tighter around my body.

I did not resist, in fact I openly encouraged him, my tongue pushed against his lips and entered his mouth, meeting his along the way. My arms circled his neck and held his head to mine. My hips pushed against his, forcing him against a barrel, he didn't seem to mind.

When my eyes had become accustomed to the darkness I noticed that the mattress looked to have been used more than once, and I would guess that I was not the first girl that Pierre had brought into this corner. I told myself that there was nothing wrong with this, after all I liked Pierre and it was obvious that he liked me, and what I had felt when my arms went around his body told me that he was pretty well put together and the bulge in his pants right now spoke of a good sized cock, not huge, but then not small either. I figured that I wouldn't be disappointed.

His hands went to the buttons of my top and he lifted it over my head revealing my bra. Yes I was wearing a bra, not one of your frilly lacy sexy things, or your uplift bra, but a very practical sports bra, one that I could take off at night, wash in the hand basin and hang over the towel rail and it would be clean and ready to wear the next day. He lifted it over my head and stood admiring my tits, which if I had to, I would describe as my best features. They stood there without sagging, they were well rounded and the nipples were responding to his caresses in the best way possible for both of us, they were making both of us horny as hell.

I worked on his shirt until I had it off revealing a trim body with the makings of a six-pack and a brushing of black hair covering his chest. The hair felt great against my nipples. I felt his hand slide under the waist band of my slacks, and my panties and his finger push into my pussy. I couldn't wait to get his pants off and get a glimpse of his cock and I guess I took him by surprise at the ferocity of my attack on his clothes. Within seconds his pants were at his ankles and I had dropped to my knees in front of him and engulfed his cock with my mouth. With my arms around his tight butt he had no option but to stand there while I blew him off, not stopping until I felt his cum spurting down my throat. You think he was surprised, hell he couldn't have been as surprised as I was, this was the very first time that I had done anything like this, my previous sexual experiences had all been very ordinary, a small amount of fumbling fore-play and a short burst of missionary fucking until he had shot his load and then it was over, but here I was, taking total control of the process away from Pierre and enjoying the experience immensely.

We lay on the mattress and he regained control, his fingers tracing patterns over my body causing me to tremble as his caresses hit the right spots. I lay there in anticipation of him bringing his tongue into play, after all I had been hearing stories about the Frenchman's prowess with the tongue, and let me tell you, if I found the stories are true I would not be disappointed. His tongue did things to me that were beyond what I had imagined possible and before long I was a quivering, whimpering mess begging him to put this weapon away and get the real one working.

While his tongue did wondrous things to my pussy and even more wondrous things to my clit, his cock was perfection to the insides of my pussy, sliding in and out in perfect time to my needs, and his finger replaced his tongue in caressing my clit. I had never, ever, experienced anything quite as sensational as this and for the first time ever I experienced an orgasm, and for the first time it was followed up by I don't know how many others before he pulled his cock from me and emptied himself on my stomach.

"Why did you do that?"

"I do not want to give you a child."

"Well if you'd asked I would have told you that there was no way that I would be touring around Europe with the ever present possibility of meeting someone like you who I would have sex with, and not come prepared. I'm on the pill silly, so next time you can come inside me, okay?"

There were several next times before we had to leave our little boudoir and go in for dinner. Pierre's mother looked at us strangely when we walked into the dining room. She signalled for me to follow her into the kitchen. "You and Pierre, you have been making love this afternoon?"

"Yes we have."

"It is not for me to tell you what to do, but you are not the first that he has done this with, and when the harvest is complete he will not be too sad to see you leave, you understand this?"

"Yes. You should know that I have no illusions that this will be any more than a casual thing between us because I will have to return to Australia to begin my studies, to work on our next vintage, and make my next wine. So you see, this to me has no future."

The next weeks were frenetic, I was placed in charge of one of the picking teams, they were all English speaking back-packers so it seemed logical that I should be in charge of them. We picked in the morning until it got too hot and the berries began to shrivel and then I went into the cellars to help with the crush. I worked beside Pierre and his father as the berries were crushed and the juice drawn off for fermentation. They still used the traditional methods and when I tried to get them to change what they were doing I was met with glares from both of them and gave up, choosing instead to observe and hopefully learn something from the way that they did things.

Because, at my suggestion, they had waited a little longer before they picked the grapes, this vintage would have a slightly higher alcohol content than previous years, something like 13 percent which was low by our standards and even lower than some of the heavy Shirazes that were coming in at over 15 percent. The first indication when we tested after fermentation, was that it would be a good vintage and Pierre's father took me aside and quietly thanked me for my suggestion to delay picking. "I would like for you to come back next year and we will check out this wine."

"I would like that, and I would also like it if you and your wife could come to Australia and visit with us when we are putting down our next vintage, so that I can show you how I make my wine, would you come."

"We will see." He left it at that.

Pierre and I made love for the last time the night before I left, and he made many promises that I was sure that he wouldn't keep, and that didn't bother me, because I made promises to him that I had no intention of keeping. He professed his undying love for me and, was hurt when I explained to him that I couldn't respond in kind because I had my future to consider, and I wouldn't guarantee that this would include him, especially if it meant me relocating to France. I didn't expect him to come to Australia.

Again there was a break in the writing of this story, I had too many things happening in my life and just finding the time and motivation to sit down and actually write, was just too difficult. The story was saved and filed for at least another six months. Plus, I was at a loss as to where it was going, I had digressed too far from the original concept and I found it difficult to establish this new direction. Did Pierre stay in France? Or would he find a pretext to come to Australia?

It was on that note that I left them and caught a bus back to Paris where I took the train back to London and was reunited with Susie and Meg. They had enjoyed themselves immensely but not with the Spanish guys that they had left Paris to follow. I was regaled with stories of their sexual adventures through Spain and Italy, which they thought would make me jealous. I was certain that much of what they told me was exaggerated, but what the heck, I could play at that game, so I told them of my torrid relationship with the son of a world famous vigneron who had fallen so far under my spell that he was prepared to give it all up to follow me back to Australia, and that it was all that I could do to persuade him not to give up his life for me.

They laughed when I told them of my attack on his clothes and how great his tongue was, and I detected a note of jealousy when I told them of how many times that I came every time we made love. But, as all good things have to end, we found ourselves on the plane back to Australia.

My parents were waiting for me when the plane landed and they asked dozens of questions about my trip on the drive home. My father in particular wanted to know if I had picked up any winemaking tips. I explained my experiences, leaving out the sex of course, with Pierre and his family and we both agreed that there was little to be gained by following their methods, so it was off to Roseworthy to be taught by experts.

My course included both viticulture and winemaking so I was busy, too busy to get involved in the social aspects of university life. Don't get me wrong, there were several guys who I found interesting, and who were obviously interested enough to ask me out on dates, but I declined citing my workload and family commitments, but in the back of my mind I got the feeling that there could be another reason for not wanting to go out on a date.

That feeling was answered for me on a Saturday morning in December. I had completed my year's studies, and was helping my father in the Cellar Door sales area, explaining the intricacies of our wines, when a familiar face walked through the door. At first I didn't recognise him with the sunlight behind him, but as he moved further towards me I knew who it was, Pierre!

I completely forgot all about the people that I was serving and ran around the end of the counter and flung myself into his arms, showering him with kisses. When I eventually calmed down I looked at him, "What are you doing here?"

"You didn't know I was coming?"

"No, how could I, I haven't spoken to you since I left France."

"But my father has been speaking with your father for months now, it was they who arranged for me to come here." I looked at my father who had a sheepish look on his face, he had decided to surprise me. "My father told me that I was no use to him moping around all the time like I was, and that I should come to Australia to see you and get you out of my system, oh and to maybe learn a little from you and your father."

I turned to my father, "And to think that you knew about all of this and didn't tell me, how could you?"

"You were moping around too, and when Pierre's father sent me an Email to ask if Pierre could come here to learn about winemaking and how you had impressed them, by the way, the wine that you helped to make is turning out to be one of their best ever, I jumped at the chance for you to decide one way or the other what you wanted to do with your life. While I have great hopes for you here, if you choose to return to France, then your mother and I will back that decision."

Pierre was placed in the guest room, that just happened to be right next to mine, and after showering and changing into fresh clothes he joined us around the barbeque as my father attempted to destroy some perfectly good steak. Actually my father is an excellent cook and the steaks were done to perfection. We hadn't bothered about starters, choosing instead to get right into the main course which consisted of steak and a fresh garden salad that included a couple of the region's famous products, Kalamata olives from one of my father's friends processing plants, and goats cheese from a local cheese-maker. Pierre was suitably impressed with them.

The wines that we had with the meal were from my first vintage and the extra bottle age had done it no harm at all, it compared favourably with one of my father's fifteen year old Shirazes which was served after mine. Pierre chatted with my father about his plans to help with all aspects of the upcoming vintage. My mother and I cleared up the dishes and took them into the kitchen and loaded the dishwasher.

"I understand that you and this Pierre got on very well while you stayed with his family."

"Yes, we became very good friends."

"More than good friends, at least that's what Pierre's mother has told me."

"Is there anything that I have done that you don't know about?"

"Probably not. Look, what you do is your concern, just be careful and don't do anything that will destroy everything that you have worked towards from the time that you were a little girl."

"Don't worry about that. For now I'm about having a good time and I don't intend to let anything spoil it."

It was close to midnight when we all headed for bed. Pierre's room was further down the hallway than mine and we stopped at my door to say goodnight. "This is my room." I said between kisses, "As you can see there is no lock on the door, so if you want to come in for a chat or something, feel free."

He felt free, and it only took him ten minutes to decide that he wanted to see me. I heard the door quietly swing open and the silhouette of a naked body slip into my room and under the covers, where he was met by my naked body. "What took you so long?"

"I had to shower." His mouth found mine and cut off any further conversation.

Decision time again. Do I continue with the romance or do I draw the reader into the hard work involved in the grape harvest and the making of wine. The romance at this time was secondary to the work involved, to the point that I could not just write it off in a few sentences. This was the life chosen by Jennifer and Pierre, and to gloss over it does no justice to the hard work and dedication that they have to demonstrate. It also gives context to their personalities.

"We have a lot of work to do starting from today." Dad said at breakfast, "The Sauvignon Blanc are just about ready to pick so we need the crushers cleaned and ready, the bins and buckets for the pickers thoroughly cleaned, the fermentation vats prepared as well as the press. So it's noses to the grindstone and hands to the wheel for everyone, holiday is over. And just so you don't get any ideas there's no mattress in the corner."

"Dad! Jesus, can't we have any secrets?"

"Just winding you up."

"I don't understand how you say it, noses to the grindstone, winding you up. What does this mean?" Pierre asked.

"Noses to the grindstone means we're in for hard work, and winding us up means that he is joking with us, having his idea of fun."

"Oh, I see." He had a puzzled look on his face still. "I think I will not understand your sense of humour."

"Don't worry, I'll explain it as we go along. We can discuss it later. . . " I stopped there, Mum and Dad could draw their own conclusions without me actually coming out and saying it.

It was hard, hot and sweaty work, and it wasn't only the steam cleaning that brought on a sweat, the humidity was higher than I could remember it, and this would mean that it would be uncomfortable for the picking gangs when they arrived. They were due to start in a week, and everything had to be in readiness, because once the picking began it was pretty much a 24 hour day for the cellar crew, and that included me and Pierre. Love making would be non-existent for the duration, although the odd kiss and cuddle could be arranged.

By the time that the picking began we had everything ready, the holding tanks had been cleared of a vintage, the bottling line worked non-stop clearing enough capacity for the upcoming harvest. It was time to catch breath for the hard times ahead. Pierre and I took every opportunity to work up a sweat and catch our breath in the knowledge that we would be on short rations for the foreseeable future.

It was clear and sunny, the temperature was in the mid-teens (Celsius) at 6:30 when the first picking gang arrived. Dad went out with them to show them which rows to pick and to drive the tractor that would bring the bins back to the crusher. After the grapes were crushed and de-stemmed, the juice was pumped into the fermentation tanks. These were white wine grapes so the juice was separated from the skins straight away. The natural yeasts had been killed off so I added the right amount of yeast from a culture that we had been preparing for the vintage. We had a thermo-syphon system in place that would circulate the juice through a heat exchanger to keep it at a constant 21°C so that we could control the fermentation.