My second stop was a Chateau in the Loire valley named Bel Ebat. It was owned by Jeff and Oscar, a gay couple with three boys, who had lived in America and London before settling in France. Jeff collected me from the train station in the nearby town of Chinon and we drove through blazing sunshine to the Chateau. The Bel Ebat estate was nestled behind a stone wall across the road from a small vineyard. Scattered around the estate were several other buildings, four of which had been converted into guesthouses; a small cottage, a gatehouse overlooking the vineyard, and two barns. Each was a self-contained unit, with the interiors pristinely designed by Oscar, who welcomed me on arrival.
The estate had an interesting history, including a fire at the Chateau many years before, suspected to be an intentional arson attack by the former owner seeking an insurance payout. The subsequent owner had attempted to restore the building, ran out of cash and was forced to hand the estate over to the stonemasons who had been working on it. The building’s exterior had been restored before it was then sold to Jeff and Oscar, but the interior remained unfinished. English was the first language at Bel Ebat; the kids spoke English and French, Oscar spoke Spanish, English and French and Jeff was American.
The first evening, Oscar cooked pizzas on an outdoor stove and we ate at a long table set out under a red maple tree. Three of the guesthouses were occupied at this point and we were joined by a Parisian family and an American couple who lived in Buenos Aires. Whilst the kids swung around in the tree, the grown-ups chatted around the table, and I found myself talking to one of the guests; a big Texan guy called Chris who always wore sunglasses. After telling him about my travel plans, he was reminiscing about the years he spent travelling for work in the oil industry. When I told him I was thinking about heading to South America, he mentioned he’d been to Mexico.
“Y’know, back in those days” he said, “you could get a piece of pussy for like, five bucks! These days it’d be more like thirty”. He nodded at me solemnly.
This wasn’t the travel advice I’d expected, so I made an expression of concerned sympathy, and commented on how nice Oscar’s pizza was.
“Still, it’s way cheaper than marriage” Chris chuckled, picking up a slice of pepperoni.
I decided it was the right time to start clearing up the dishes and carried a stack of plates into the kitchen of the Chateau.
The kitchen had a high ceiling, tall windows and exposed beams. In an annex to the side sat a round breakfast table with peaches and nectarines piled in the centre. There were no doors to the kitchen, so swallows regularly flew in and perched in the beams, cheeping loudly. By the time the dishes were washed, most of the guests had gone to bed, so the rest of us sat down for another bottle of wine and enjoyed a selection of goats cheeses set out by Oscar; a specialty of the region.
My work at Bel Ebat consisted mostly of gardening. The vineyard needed flattening out before a tilling machine could be used to turn the soil, so I spent four days with the vines, digging up turf and getting bitten by mosquitos. This was tough work and the temperature regularly reached above twenty eight degrees. Each morning after working on the vines, I helped clean the guesthouses with Jeff, then we would all eat together at the outside table. This is how I spent most of my time until the fifth day, when two of Jeff’s friends arrived from New York.
Sandy and Kat were staying for a long weekend to drink wine and see the Loire Valley Chateaus (Les Chateaux de Loire). We got along well, so every afternoon for the next three days they invited me along to go wine-tasting at local vineyards. One of our stops was La Noblaie, Chinon. On arrival, we were shown into a chilly wine cellar (un cave). Along the walls, about twenty oak barrels and ceramic amphora were lined up, each full of wine. A server explained that, as the wine aged, the materials would subtly alter the taste and by mixing together wines from different barrels, you could tailor the flavour profile of the wine.
We started with a rosé; young, apparently, grown in clay rich soil (terroir) and aged in a stainless steel vat. Then another rosé; older and aged in an oak barrel. Kat nodded vigorously, “ah, you can really taste the terroir, can’t you?”.
I could just taste rosé, so waited for Sandy to say something.
“Mmm yeah, that’s real nice” she said, and we exchanged a glance.
The process was the same for the reds and whites; the server would come over and describe the age, soil type and aging medium of the wine before pouring a small glass for each of us and moving on to the next customers. Kat had a lot to say as we tasted each one, and by the end I had just about learned to distinguish a young wine from an old one. Mostly, though, I just enjoyed drinking it, ignoring the bucket that was provided to spit the wine into. I was feeling very cheery by the time we drove back to the Chateau.
The last day at Bel Ebat came around all too quickly. Besides the work, my stay had included three wine tastings, a couple of restaurant meals, Oscar’s homemade pizza and blazing sunshine. Jeff and Oscar gave me an open-invite to return whenever I wanted, and given that my next stop was only an hours drive away, I decided that I would find an excuse to come back before my birthday nine days later. It turned out to be very easy to find an excuse, but I was none-the-wiser as I headed to my next stop; an organic vegetable farm in Preuilly-Sur-Claise.
