Warwickshire businesswoman Wendy Gedney is defying the recession by following her dream to develop a new career based on wine tourism in the south of France.
Wendy, from Warwick, took a chance on combining her knowledge of wine with her love of the Languedoc region to trial her business over the past summer and has been successful enough – attracting clients from the UK, across Europe, the USA and Canada and Australia and New Zealand – to take it on full time from
February.
Already well-known for her role as a lecturer in wine appreciation through the Wine Wise Company, which runs diploma courses in Warwick, Birmingham and Leicester, Wendy branched out in April with her offshoot Vin en Vacances.
The venture has taken her out of the classroom and into the vineyards to give wine buffs first hand experience of what it takes to create wines in one of the most plentiful vine-growing areas of the world.
Now Wendy is forging a career as an evangelist for the region, the ‘terroir’ and the wines of the Languedoc, that area of Mediterranean France between Marseille and the Pyrenees, bisected by the Canal du Midi and blessed, they say, with more vineyards than in the whole of Australia.
Wendy, 55, left Barkers Butts Secondary Modern in Coventry at 15 with virtually no qualifications. It’s a long journey in time, geography and experience from her first job on the hanky counter of Owen Owen in Coventry, to places like the cellar of a small vineyard in the tiny village of St Jean de Minervois where wine-makers John and Nicole Bojanowski are happy to entrust her with guiding eager students in the subtleties of appreciating the produce of the Clos du Gravillas winery.
For Wendy, it’s something of a labour of love. She openly credits her former partner, John Quigley, as the inspiration behind not only her love of the Languedoc, but of her fascination with wine.
John and Wendy had been partners for 11 years when John was killed in a car accident in December 2000, two weeks before Christmas and only five minutes from their home in Kenilworth.
John introduced her to the Langudoc on a family holiday to the Corbières in early July 1992.
Says Wendy: “It was a long drive which we made over two days and we were all very weary when we turned into Lagrasse at around 7pm in search of refreshment. I will always remember my first sight of this little town nestled in the valley and bathed in sunshine.
“We drove along the main street taking in the sight of people sipping wine, laughing and relaxing and the sound of live jazz playing at one of the bars. As I looked around me at this pretty town full of smiling people I felt I’d come home.”
The couple had a romantic notion to eventually retire to the area and her partner predicted a bright future for the wine industry there, though at the time it was better known for bottling quantity than quality.
Wendy recalls: “He said this place had everything needed to make superb wine. The only missing element was people with a passion to make top class wine and that this was starting to come. Now that I know a thing or two about wine I think he was right.”
His death left Wendy at a crossroads in life and career – at the time she worked in sales for an IT company – and had no real idea in which direction her life would move. She describes the next few months, in which she took time off to take stock, as ‘hell’.
Her partner had left her something more than just memories and shattered dreams, however. He had left a cellar full of wine – that Wendy knew of, but knew nothing about. She had bottles aplenty, but of what?

“I had a cellar full of wine that John had collected, but I didn’t know what it was. When a friend pointed out a wine tasting course at the local college I decided to enroll.”
The die was cast and Wendy was propelled along a career path she could never have imagined. Initially she took and passed the Wine and Spirit Education Trust intermediate level course, followed by the advanced level qualification.
“I was by now hooked on the subject and looked around for things I could do that involved wine. I took a part time job at the local Odd Bins in Stratford upon Avon, just stacking shelves 10 hours a week. Bu but while I was doing that, I was also reading the labels and trying to learn as much as possible by osmosis!”
A brief change of career into recruitment, finding part time lecturers for Midlands-based colleges, was the trigger for one of those quirks of fate that can become life-changing.
Birmingham College of Food, now part of University College Birmingham, needed someone to teach wine appreciation. Wendy found she was qualified. What’s more, she soon found herself teaching – and has continued to do so for the past four years, gaining a WSET Diploma Level qualification, which puts her one step away from being a ‘wine master’.

She set up the Wine Wise Company with Sarah Long, and through the company met Tim Ford, the MD of Domaine Gayda, a superb winery and restaurant near to Carcassonne.
Says Wendy: “It must have been that fate had taken me to this region, as Tim invited me down to meet him and his lovely French wife Barbara and they have become good friends now.”
In April of this year, Wendy took the bold step of coming to the Languedoc to bring her love of the region and its wines to a wider public.
“I bought myself a Renault Grand Espace and had it sign written, found a cottage to rent for six months, had some leaflets printed and arrived here on April 1,” she says.
“I knew five people here. Barbara and Tim at Gayda, John and Nicole at Clos du Gravillas and a lovely lady called Frances who I had met just twice before.
“I had met John and Nicole three years previously, when I had tasted their wines and fallen deeply in love with them. I have been taking visitors to them over the years. Our friendship has grown gradually. I have managed to build up their confidence in me and they have been a great support.
“The day after I arrived I received a call from John. He said ‘Are you here yet, then come on up for lunch’. Barbara and Tim also invited me over as did Frances and within the first month I had also met some lovely people including Val and Mike Slowther at Le Vieux Relais, a chambres d’hote, in Pepieux, between Carcassonne and Narbonne.
She adds: “I spent the first month at French school trying to improve my dire language skills and then at the beginning of May I began to market the tours. I have worked every week since then.
“I began to market my tours on the ground by putting my leaflets in the tourist information in Carcassonne and Trebes and I also decided to pay a visit to a woman who owns a tiny B&B within the walls of the medieval fortress La Cite.
“I had heard about her from one of my UK clients and I went along to ask if she would give my leaflets out to her visitors. Three days later she gave me my first clients and throughout the summer provided a steady drip of people wishing to tour the vines.

“I not only needed the clients but also the routes to follow and the vineyards to visit and the restaurants where we would eat lunch. So the first couple of months I divided my time between touring and exploring.
“I already knew a few vineyards which I had visited on previous years but I had never done day tours so I had to gain their confidence and respect which did eventually come due to the amount of wine sales the tours generated. I also needed to find more domains to visit so each week I allocated a day for tasting and visiting new vineyards
“I spent many hours exploring routes, looking for good views, off the beaten track places, hidden chapels, picnic spots and alternative routes to take should I need them.
“I am now hugely familiar with the Minervois and quite knowledgeable about the Corbières and I know my way round the other regions quite well.
“Business gradually picked up momentum and in total this year I have taken nearly 200 people on tours. Every single one told me that had a thoroughly good time and I have also received repeat business already.
“Indeed I am returning to Carcassonne for the New Year to run a private four-day tour for a small group that I met in August.