Couple enjoy vine old time in France; Grape escape bears fruit.

Byline: Laurence McCoy

THE sun-bathed vineyards of south-west France seem a world away from Birmingham.

But for one ex-Brummie, making wine in the foothills of the Pyrenees has become a dream come true.

Jayne Fairchild and husband Corin were bringing in the last of their harvest this week, the culmination of three years of hard work establishing their new life in the rolling, herb-scented valleys of Roussillon.

They decided to throw caution to the winds and move - lock, stock and barrels - to a tiny village called Maury, where they have bought vines, set up a winery and now make their own wines. Their labours are already bearing fruit - they have just earned the accolade of having top Birmingham restaurant Purnell's list one of their wines.

It's all a very long journey from Jayne's early life in Tile Cross, where she was the sixth of eight children in the Mason family, which then moved to the newlybuilt Chelmsley Wood.

Her father Henry, aged 91, who now lives in Sheldon, worked in the Birmingham car industry throughout the Morris, British Leyland and Rover eras. She has sisters in Solihull, Sutton Coldfield and Boldmere, and brothers in Kitts Green and Chelmsley Wood.

After attending Whittington Oval Infants', Shirestone Primary and Sir Wilfrid Martineau Secondary, Jayne worked as an accounts clerk with Kidsons accountants, based at Bank House in the city centre. She moved to Brighton and became a senior manager in recruitment advertising, and was divorced, with two sons, when she met Corin, an IT systems architect.

Wine was a shared passion from the start.

"We'd both had a long-time love of wine," explains Jayne. "When the opportunity arose, Corin took voluntary redundancy and after much discussion and soul-searching he realised he needed a complete change."

He signed up for a course in viticulture and oenology at Plumpton Agricultural College, near Brighton, and the rest, as they say, is history.

"The thoughts began to creep in - maybe we could do this for our- selves," says Jayne. "We could possibly make our own wine." After Corin carried out a stint of work experience in Maury, the chance came up to buy their first patch of vines, around six acres of Syrah, Carignan and Muscat. "March 2006, and it was all systems go," says Jayne. "We had to sell our house, tell the family we were actually going to do this crazy thing, and we had to find suitable premises in France. "Time was running short. Corin had to fly over to tend the vines every couple of weeks. I was frantically trying to sell the house and get everything organised, visiting Birmingham to say sad goodbyes, back to Brighton to help my youngest find somewhere to live." Then they found a house in Maury with a barrel store in the basement that could be converted into a winery .

They moved in, in August, and immediately took delivery of the tanks, pumps, grape press and equipment. But it was not all plain sailing. The French electricity service announced it could not connect them up until mid-September. "The first grapes were brought in and we had to crush them manually - or rather by foot," says Jayne. "Every process that year was done using the most traditional of methods. Needless to say, our 2006 wine was rather 'rustic' to say the least. "But it gave us a baptism of fire and we learned much from early mistakes." That included the need for a new floor in the winery, after it gave way under the weight of a 1,000- litre tank, becoming a gossiping point among sceptical locals as 'the leaning tower of Maury'. More hiccups followed with the discovery that the notoriously labyrinthine French bureaucracy had not been completed properly and the wine had therefore been made illegally. "Luckily the douane (customs) took pity on us and said 'as you are English I will let youoff this time'," says Jayne. "To be honest, we'd produced so little wine that it wasn't worth them worrying about." Another constant challenge is the wild boars that roam the hills and have a penchant for sweet, ripe grapes. Repellants, including foul-smelling hormonal treatments dabbed at the edges of the vineyard and electrified fences, help to keep the invaders away.

The 'sanglier' permitting, this year's harvest - their fourth - looks like being a very good one, with low yields but high-quality grapes. With their holdings increased to more than 20 acres, the Domaine Vella Frontera now comprises about 24 different parcels of vines clinging to the windswept hills of the aptly-named Fenouilldes (wild fennel) region. The Grenache, Carignan, Syrah and Muscat vines range from 10 to 110 years in age, including the oldvine Carignan that goes into the top wine, the one that has reinforced Jayne's Birmingham links by being snapped up by Purnell's restaurant. "I do miss Birmingham," she says. "It will always be home for me. But we've been in France for three years now and love our new life. "All our initial capital is spent and sales are slow, but there's light at the end of the tunnel and we're so proud to be supplying such a prestigious restaurant as Purnell's. The fact that it's in Birmingham makes it doubly special." Domaine Vella Frontera wines n are available at Noble Rot Warehouse, Bromsgrove, telephone [phone], or visit www.noble-rot.co.uk, and for more details about the wines go to www.vellafrontera.com

CAPTION(S):

Former Brummie lives the dream making wine in foothills of the Pyrenees Grape expectations: Jayne Fairchild and husband Corin in their winery in the village of Maury in the south of France. On the grapevine: Corin and Jayne inspect the crop at their vineyard in the south of France. Left, two of their bottles.