When Francophiles Karen and Nick Kitchener, decided they wanted more from life, they swapped high-flying careers for their own vineyard in Gascony. By Richard Webber.
“Many people reach a point when they begin evaluating their lives and Nick and I were no exception. Sure, we both had good jobs in IT and enjoyed a decent standard of living, but that no longer fulfilled us - we wanted more than commuting to work each day and paying off the mortgage. But the deciding factors behind our decision to move to France were that we weren’t getting any job satisfaction, didn’t feel like we were achieving anything and hardly ever saw our children.
Once we’d decided to do something different with our lives, the allure of moving to France and realising our dream of owning a vineyard was impossible to ignore. After all, Nick and I spoke French, it wasn’t far from our family in the UK and we’d holidayed there since we were kids and loved the place.
We couldn’t afford to retire, though, and needed to make a living, and that’s when we turned to our dream. We’d always loved wine and visited vineyards on holidays so decided to find one of our own.
Deciding to combine winemaking with tourism seemed logical because we felt there was a natural fit: this area is spectacularly beautiful, peaceful and relaxing and there is a definite pull-through, in financial terms, between wine and tourism. For the French, especially, visiting vineyards and staying on them is very important and they’ll actively search out properties on vineyards or farms when on holiday.
While Nick concentrates on the wine-making - and he’s self-taught - my job is the sales and marketing of all aspects of the vineyard, including finding new clients, replenishing stocks, phoning clients to get orders, advertising, PR and organising tours, tastings and lunches, which happen throughout summer. We also attend markets and festivals and sell our wine. As well as all that, I control the bookings diary for the holiday cottage and chambre d’hote.
When we began searching we knew location was important and started looking near airports serviced by budget airlines, initially in Bergerac. Unfortunately, properties were either too expensive or not suitable so we looked further afield and discovered Domaine de Lauroux, which is a mile from the village of Manciet, just off the main route from Toulouse to Mont-de-Marsan. The village has most of what we want, including a Michelin-starred restaurant. We get Parisians visit just to sample the food at La Bonne Auberge.
Read the full story in our June 2008 issue.
For more information about the Kitcheners’ B&B and self-catering holidays, visit www.lauroux.com
