I Spent a Month in France for Much less Than $650 — Here is How I Did It

The bottles glowed like lava lamps between the vines. Vin de France — French desk wine, comprised of the very grapes we’d spent the morning selecting. Two dozen of us sat round a folding desk on the base of a sloping winery in Alsace, the place dirt-crusted arms handed round hunks of contemporary bread and the dialog danced between French and English.

Tu veux extra, ma chérie? requested Jeanne, providing to refill my glass from one of many label-less bottles of Si Rose — a $17 pour by New York requirements. I’d purchased this identical wine, a skin-contact mix of gewürztraminer and pinot gris, exactly three days earlier at a wine bar in Brooklyn, the place it value $85. Right here, we polished off half a dozen bottles pulled straight from the cellar throughout our lunch break.

I’d wish to let you know it tasted higher as a result of it was free, however in reality, what wine wouldn’t style higher in a sun-drenched winery? Reasonably, I loved it extra as a result of I might afford to be much less valuable — I might sip it with out stressing over the associated fee.

Whereas most people round me have been being paid, a couple of of us have been bénévole, or volunteers — we’d signed WWOOF (World Vast Alternatives on Natural Farms) contracts, committing to a few weeks of serving to with wine harvest in trade for meals and housing with pioneering pure winemaker Christian Binner. Reasonably than shell out 1000’s of {dollars} for one more certification course, this was a hands-on probability to deepen my wine training — and spend practically a month overseas — with out bankrupting myself.

Wine harvest is at turns indulgent, exhausting, romantic, and humbling. You wake with the solar, seize a espresso and your secateur (shears), pile into automobiles, and pair off within the vines, clipping grapes and plunking them into buckets as you go. You sweat, inform secrets and techniques, sing Serge Gainsbourg to go the time. Within the afternoons, you decrease your self right into a vat of fermenting grapes, squishing them down together with your naked ft. You are taking turns cooking for one another within the evenings, making pasta and pissaladière as you apply your French. Work, drink, sleep, repeat. It’s removed from a trip — extra like a labor-intensive summer time camp, a grueling getaway of types that’s grow to be the annual spotlight of my 12 months.

For those who’re inquisitive about work exchanges, right here’s how I organized mine, and the way it allowed me to spend lower than $700 whereas staying on a picturesque winery in France for a month.

I reached out to the winemaker by way of their U.S. importer — however have beforehand used websites like Workaway and WWOOF.

Value: $32

Whereas expertise isn’t essentially required to assist with harvest, I wasn’t a stranger to winery work: I’d beforehand frolicked working with winemakers in Umbria and Burgundy, working underneath an analogous work-exchange mannequin. I’ve discovered these alternatives by way of websites like Workaway and WWOOF, which join vacationers with trade alternatives of all stripes (assume: agricultural work, hospitality, little one care, language studying, and extra). Most websites require a nominal membership price: With this previous harvest, we created WWOOF accounts so as to signal an settlement.

For wine-specific ventures, I’ve additionally discovered it useful to test Raisin, which compiles an annual listing of pure winemakers in search of harvest assist, or to achieve out to the wine importer straight by way of e-mail. Domaine Christian Binner is imported by Jenny & François Choices — whose social media accounts I run — so on this case, I used to be fortunate to have the ability to attain out straight.

I took on further work prematurely and sublet my house to mitigate my bills.

As a contract wine and journey author, my earnings varies from month to month. Whereas I usually work remotely throughout my travels, I’d discovered the laborious means the 12 months earlier than that harvest requires an excessive amount of time and vitality to steadiness different assignments, so I reached out to the purchasers I work with (magazines, digital publications, and a wine importer, amongst others) to debate my day off, and to tackle further assignments beforehand. I additionally picked up a couple of shifts at a good friend’s wine bar to make sure I’d be capable of comfortably cowl my bills.

Whereas my housing on the winery was coated as a part of the trade, it will have been an infinite monetary burden to proceed paying my Brooklyn hire whereas touring. Fortunately, I used to be capable of finding a good friend of a good friend to sublet.

I booked my flight with a low-cost provider.

Value: $435

Whereas I sometimes use bank card factors or airline miles to cowl my flights, I couldn’t discover any direct, round-trip tickets from New York Metropolis to Paris that will make good use of them for the dates I wanted to fly. I opted to avoid wasting my factors and booked a ticket with French Bee, a dependable, low-cost provider that I’ve flown on a number of events. I flew financial system with only a carry-on to keep away from further baggage charges. Whereas the airline doesn’t but supply alternatives to redeem factors or miles, it tends to supply affordable fares (and Nicolas Feuillatte Champagne for premium class).

I purchased primary journey insurance coverage.

Value: $109 

I all the time buy important journey insurance coverage, in case of emergencies whereas overseas, and given the potential bodily dangers related to harvest work, I opted for even broader protection than normal. For this journey, I bought OneTrip Prime protection with Allianz Journey, which coated my bases when it comes to journey cancellation, plus emergency medical and emergency transportation wants.

Meals and housing have been coated.

As a part of our contract, the vineyard coated my meals and housing in trade for the hours I spent working. Whereas some websites, like Workaway, set up a 25-hour-per-week guideline for work, wine harvest doesn’t fairly function that means: Nature dictates the hours to a level, and when the grapes are ripe, they have to be picked. Some days stretched from dawn into late night; others, I helped clear tanks within the cellar for hardly an hour.

I hadn’t requested a lot concerning the housing scenario forward of my arrival, past confirming I wouldn’t be tenting, which is pretty commonplace for harvest staff. (Whereas I’m desirous to work in nature, sleeping in it’s merely taking issues too far for this metropolis woman.) I’d did not even ask how many individuals I’d be sharing a room or toilet with (one and eight, because it turned out).

I couldn’t have been extra delighted once I arrived on the charming, half-timber home within the scenic village of Ammerschwihr, the place the image window in my room appeared out over 70-year-old vines and I had a wine barrel for a desk. It’s the home the place Christian and his sister, Béatrice (who handles the entire administrative work for the domaine), grew up. Béa would be certain that the pantry was all the time stocked with groceries, coordinating with whoever was on dinner responsibility (all of us rotated the cleansing and cooking obligations all through the week) so as to purchase the mandatory components.

Whereas I had a couple of miscellaneous bills alongside the way in which — a bunch of us went out for a typical Alsatian dinner (tarte flambée and a tower of sauerkraut) on the pleasant Bratschall Manala in neighboring Kaysersberg, and took the prepare to Strasbourg on our time without work — I managed to spend underneath $700 for the month, together with flights. (To place this in perspective, that’s primarily half the price of my month-to-month Brooklyn hire.)

For all of the bodily pressure of harvest, it’s essentially the most relaxed my thoughts has been in years. There’s a meditative high quality to the work, and a few type of magic occurs while you’re not equating hours labored or bottles drank with a financial worth. Work, drink, sleep, repeat: It’s a cycle I’m terribly privileged to take part in every year, and one which I romanticize so deeply that I are inclined to neglect simply how demanding it’s. Absolutely, I’ll be reminded quickly sufficient — I head out to do all of it once more in a couple of weeks.