On vintage soil

Life in the vineyards of Aude is a dream come true for Leicestershire-born Katie Jones who now successfully exports her wines back to the UK, as Brigitte Nicolas learns

- Brigitte Nicolas

Growing up in a family of Francophiles in Leicestershire, it seems Katie Jones was always meant to end up in France, it was just a matter of how and where.

“I have always loved France from when I was about 10 years old. We always had exchanges going on at home and my parents were very much involved in our local twinning association, so France was my dream very early on,” Katie says.

It was as an adult, when she was working for a Southampton wine importer that the opportunity to move permanently to France arose. She had taken a trip to one of the French winemakers the company worked with – a co-operative in the small village of Tuchan in Aude – and they offered her a sales job there and then, which she was more than happy to accept.

“When I first got here, the whole village was out having one of their summer village fêtes which last all of the weekend,” Katie reminisces.

“Everybody was sitting underneath the trees on the promenade having a big meal and there was live music and I just thought ‘I've made it’.”

Katie spent 15 years with the cooperative and worked her way up to export and marketing director, at which point she felt it was time to strike out on her own.

The move was partly prompted by her parents who still lived in Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire but wanted a slice of France to call their own. Together, the three of them bought a small vineyard in Maury. At first, they were somewhat hands-off. They paid someone to work in the vineyard when they weren’t there and sold on the grapes they harvested.

BREAKING WITH TRADITION