Chateau Monty Chateau Monty: What Happened Next

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7. Monty still harvests himself (Image 7 of 13)

Rich: Now your winemaking operation is bigger, do you still get your hands dirty?

Monty: I'm still very hands-on with the harvesting - this year has been complicated because Sylvana, who lives in Tuscany, has had a baby and so I’ve been spending a lot of time there. But I am in France regularly. I missed the white wine harvest because baby Arthur was born right in the middle.

Rich: Having lived in Italy, Chile and France you must have bags of advice for budding émigrés…

Monty: Learn the language! Or at the very least find someone locally who is bilingual and willing to act on your behalf. I know I’ve banged on about the pains of French bureaucracy, but there is a flip side. To be fair, if you do your research you often find that there are grants and subsidies in place to help with renovating farm buildings and old buildings. The French are very generous in this respect. There's sometimes a lot of jumping through hoops paperwork-wise, but particularly in agricultural communities or with old buildings you'll find that there's public money there to help your project, which is fantastic.

There are plenty of companies now that offer advice on buying in France and how to apply for these subsidies and many of them are very good indeed. I’d recommend France to anyone - the best things about living in Roussillon are that vineyards are still relatively cheap, the region is perfect for winemaking, and it's incredibly unspoilt. It ticks all the boxes.

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