About Us

The stories about how we arrived at producing our own label wine could come straight out of ‘A Year in Provence‘, perhaps even funnier in retrospect.

A 37 year career with IBM had little connection with wine or grapes. However, working in Italy and France in the 1970’s meant a enjoying a glass of the local wine and the country life. And so I decided to move out here in 1994, and benefit from the Provencal way of life.

Our visitors are always interested to hear how a retired Englishman came to Provence to own a small vineyard and sell his own wine. How I came to find this place is another story, perhaps shared over a glass of the local red.

I speak very fluent but very bad French. Luckily I am usually understood. No, I knew nothing about growing grapes or making wine until we bought this place.

I had been hoping for a while that IBM might make me an early retirement offer and had already started looking for houses in France within 40 minutes’ drive of a port where we could keep Kyanos. We started in the Vendée and slowly worked our way south. I wanted a farm. My wife wanted a château.

At last, in 1994, we found our dream house in the centre of the Var in Lorgues: an old bastide, quite broken down but with great charm, and a small vineyard that would keep me too busy to spend my entire time on Kyanos.