Domaine du Fossile

Our story begins the same as countless other expat stories. We all start with the breathless tales of our first fateful visits. Then we wax eloquent about our passionate devotion to the amazing food, the charming culture, the profundity of living in a place with kitchen doors older than the nation of our birth. And then comes the plunge – the purchase of an apartment or house, the putting down of tentative roots. It’s thrilling and intimidating and at times you begin to seriously question your judgement. But one persists and eventually we realized that our personal journey had France written into the road map from the start. So we followed it.

Then a vineyard appeared unexpectedly in the cards. And we jumped on it. Crazy? Yes. Stupid? Maybe. But how many opportunities arise in one’s lifetime to be wildly irresponsible? (Okay maybe a few but this one seemed worth it.) We wanted to be more than consumers. We want to contribute to the world in a meaningful way and that, for us, meant becoming producers. Working with a team, creating a product from scratch, delighting ourselves and hopefully others with the wonders that leap directly from the soil – that’s what lights our fire. After many years of starts, stops and detours, we feel that this is our “thing” to share and honored to bring these gifts to the world.

Make no mistake – this is farming. It’s hard work and can be wet, dirty, occasionally life-threatening and frequently back breaking. And rewarding. (At least that’s what we hope.) We are being brutally honest when we say we have a LOT to learn. We absolutely do not want to convey a message of gossamer- veiled sun-drenched days of romping in vineyards and kissing butterflies. This is life without the soft focus lens and in the coming days there will be hilarity, embarrassment, cringe-worthy moments that we look forward to sharing while avoiding candy-coated platitudes in place of hard lessons learned.