Twenty-Twenty-Four: The Plan
What is the plan?
Well, “Twenty-twenty-four” is a little bit mis-leading. It’s quite unlikely our first vintage will be 2024. Originally 2023, the target changed to 2024 when we started making more serious plans for the move. Then we decided I’d study the WSET Diploma, giving us a bit more time to save, and the ambition for 2024 got scaled down. Next year, however, is still a really important one in the grand scheme of things.
Next year we will be moving to France. Sometime in the Spring we’ll list our flat in London for sale. Once it’s sold, we’ll pack up and move to Laurentide’s flat in Montreuil (just outside Paris). We’ll be formally launching our wine estate search from there. Pending a big premium bonds win, we’ll keep working our software jobs to fund life.
I’d be amazed if we find something and buy it in the remaining 9-months of the year. We’ll see…
Once we’ve found our forever home, we’ll sell the the flat in Montreuil and move. Eek!
What’s your budget?
How much we’re willing to spend on any given estate depends massively on the place. How big is it? How much land is there? Are there already vines planted? Is any equipment included?
That said, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to look for estates <500,000€. While being mortgage free from the get-go would be lush, that may well not be possible! Even if it were, upon great advice from Hugo at Domaine Hugo (who’s been there and done that), we’d likely get a mortgage. Banks are much more likely to lend money for a property than equipment, and at a cheaper rate. So we’ll likely keep a decent bit of cash for investment/buffer.
What are we looking for?
The eventual goal is to find our forever home, where we can live off the land/property and leave the software jobs behind. As such, we think we’ll need:
a few hectares (mostly for the vines, but then also for a decent veg patch, fruit and nut trees, and a garden),
plenty of outbuildings (for a winery, storage, tasting room etc.), and
ideally separate, and private enough, accommodation we can rent out to holiday makers to diversify our income and keep us out of trouble.
The land is obviously a big requirement. It’s got to be suitable for viticulture (for at least a few decades). While we might have romantic notions about planting our own vines, we aren’t completely against the idea of buying an existing vineyard. Starting a vineyard ourselves means having everything how we want it, and the initial property purchase would be cheaper, but it comes with plenty of risks, too. Who knows?! We’re keeping an open mind.
Where are we looking?
The simplest answer to that is ‘Western Loire Valley’: Pays Nantais and Anjou. My parents live 30-minuntes south of Chinon, and Laurentide’s brother lives in Nantes. Somewhere between the two among a wine-producing community would be amazing.
That all being said, we’re always casually on the look out. Maybe I’ll share what we’ve already seen. Let me know if you know of anything for sale that we might be interested in!