A British winemaker in France

British winemakers in France are still a small minority, but they have been buying French vineyards and bringing new dynamism to some previously sleepy corners of France. One of them is Tessa Gardner: “Of course I was attracted by the sun and the lifestyle, but you soon realise that making wine can be a really tough business. Bad weather at the wrong time of year can destroy the grape harvest.”

Tessa had some experience of growing cereal crops on her father’s farm in England before buying her vineyard near Cahors. She explains: “I tried to get loans from local banks, telling them about my agricultural background, but they thought my venture was too much of a gamble. So I had to mortgage my house in England to raise the money to buy the new gamble. So I had to mortgage my house in England to raise the money to buy the new equipment I needed. I already owned a house near the vineyard, but I needed €500, 000 for new investment in a hurry.”

So far, Tessa’s gamble has paid off. She has taken her wine to some important wine shows, and her Clos Gardner wine won a silver medal at the Cahors Foire du Vin last year. The big breakthrough came when a French supermarket chain started buying her wine. “Until then I’d been selling a case here and a case there, but selling 5000 cases at once certainly helps! ”

Sales turnover for her vineyard last year was nearly €1 million. On this, Tessa calculates that she had a profit margin of 5 per cent. “This isn’t too bad. In previous years we were just breaking even. I hope to increase our margins over the coming years, ” she says. “We hope to get a reasonable return on our investment.”

So, is this a life of wine and roses? “It can be, ” says Tessa. There are some wonderful days, especially in spring and autumn. But at harvest-time it’s just back-breaking work, with 5 a.m. starts, and 16 hour days. I wouldn’t encourage people to get into winemaking as a leisure activity! ”

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The Beginnings of Mass Production (2)

Until the early twentieth century, the normal method of manufacturing was that one person produced a whole item. This system was transformed by Frederick W. Taylor (1856-1915), an American engineer who developed the theory of scientific management. His aim was to make factory work as fast and efficient as possible: increasing workers' productivity in this way would mean that large quantities of goods could be manufactured cheaply.

Taylor recommended that the manufacturing process should be broken down into tasks, and that workers should specialise in particular tasks, instead of making the whole item. Through this division of labour, each worker would become very good at certain activities. Henry Ford, the American car manufacturer, was the first industrialist to base production on Taylor's ideas. Although this approach keeps production costs to a minimum, it has been blamed for making factory work boring.