14 ♦ PRACTICAL
www.thebugle.eu ○ THE BUGLE ○ JUNE 2016
The women winemakers of Bergerac
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by Martin Walker
long with the Universities of Bordeaux, Padua and Melbourne, the Davis campus in California is one of the world’s great wine schools and last year for the first time, half of the graduates were women. And our own Bergerac region is remarkable for the number of women making terrific wines. Not all of them are French. The legendary Patricia Atkinson of Clos d’Yvigne may have retired but the wines she made are still being produced by her successors. Le Rouge et le Noir may be the best known, a classic blend of merlot and cabernet sauvignon but I also enjoy the wine she called Le Prince, a blend of merlot and cabernet franc. And her book, The Ripening Sun, is strongly recommended as one brave woman’s account of a triumphant and often lonely struggle to make prize-winning wines from scratch. Not far from her vineyard at Gageac-et-Rouillac near Saussignac is Château K, where the Norwegian Katharina Mowinckel may have given up her dream of becoming a world-class horsewoman, but now makes first-rate organic wines. The original name of the Château was Fougueyrat, but knowing that Scandinavia would be an important market, she decided that Château K would be easier to pronounce. And the Château K wines she
makes are very good indeed, as you might expect from this lovely corner of the Bergerac. Her cheaper wines, called simply K, are also good value. My friend Sylvie Chevallier produces lovely wines at Les Hauts de Caillevel, prizewinning Monbazillacs, charming wines and very serious red wines indeed. I was honoured to be on a jury where we were able to recognize the quality of her wines and then I had the pleasure of getting to know her when we were both promoting Bergerac food and wine in Switzerland, when the travelling Lascaux museum was on show in Geneva. And now Sylvie has been elected the apolitical chair of the tourism committee of our regional council, a fine choice. I just hope it leaves her sufficient time to continue producing her splendid wines. And like more and more Bergerac wines these days, they are bio-organic certified. She calls herself ‘a peasant winemaker’ but her wines are noble indeed. Brigitte Soulier at Château La Robertie makes wines so good they are served at the Vieux Logis restaurant in Trémolat, my own favourite place to eat. Her Monbazillacs are a treat but I have a great fondness for her red wines, which add a little Cot (the old Périgord name for Malbec) to the usual cabernet-merlot blend. If you have not yet visited Caro Feely at Saussignac, you
should. Caro runs wine courses and lunches and with her husband Sean makes very fine wines indeed. If you get hold of their red wine called Grace, treasure it for a few years. But also enjoy the view from their home over the Dordogne valley all the way to Bergerac. I had the pleasure one evening at Sean and Caro’s home of meeting their neighbour, Isabelle Daulhiac, who with her husband Thierry make some of the best value Bergerac Sec white wines that I know. I cannot possibly leave out Nathalie Barde of Château le Raz or Sylvie Deffarge Danger of Châ-
teau Moulin Caresse (a name that perfectly describes the smoothness of her red wines) but I am running out of space. And then there is our local TV superstar, Gaëlle Reynou-Gravier of the Domaine de Perreau at St-Michel-de-Montaigne, in the Montravel district of Bergerac. She is the model for Gaëlle Dumesnil in the latest version of Le Sang de la Vigne (Blood of the Vine) French TV series. In the latest episode, she is the inspiration for the role of the childhood sweetheart of one of the stars of the series. But the real stars are her two special wines, a wonderfully deep red called Désir
carmin and an enchanting Désir d’aurore, which I consider the best Chardonnay wine produced in the Bergerac. ■ Martin Walker, author of the best-selling ‘Bruno, chief of police’ novels, is a Grand Consul de la Vinée de Bergerac. Formerly a journalist, he spent 25 years as foreign correspondent for The Guardian and then became editor-in-chief of United Press International. He and his wife Julia have had a home in the Périgord since 1999 and one of his great hobbies is visiting the vineyards of Bergerac.
How does the new exchange of information affect you? - Blevins Franks
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ver recent decades it has become easier for people to move around the world to live and work, and easier to move money and investments across national borders too. It has now also become easier for governments to find money and financial assets held overseas and not being declared as they should be. Following the financial crisis, governments across the world stepped up their efforts to detect tax evasion and collect unpaid taxes to help reduce their country’s deficit. This culminated in the global automatic exchange of information initiative, which began in January 2016 and will be an invaluable tool for the tax authorities. Both the UK and France have been key drivers in the initiative. You need to be aware of what information will be shared about your income and assets and be sure you are declaring them correctly in France and/ or the UK, and consider what tax and estate planning arrangements are best suited for you and your family, for today and the long term. What is automatic exchange of information? Europe has had automatic of information for some time Savings Tax Directive, but related to interest income.
exchange under the this only The new
regime covers a much wider range of investment income, as well as account balances. On a worldwide level, information about an individual or business has only been sent from one tax authority to another on request, based on evidence that tax fraud has taken place. Under the automatic global exchange of information, your local tax authority will now receive information about your worldwide financial assets every year, without asking for it. The Organisation for the Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Common Reporting Standard issued in July 2014 is the technical standard for automatic exchange of information that all signatories will follow. It sets out the financial account information to be exchanged and the financial institutions that need to report (which includes banks, custodians, guardians, certain collective investment vehicles and certain insurance companies), as well as common due diligence procedures to be followed by financial institutions. About 100 countries have signed up to the initiative so far. The “early adopters” (including France, the UK and the UK offshore centres) have now begun collecting the financial details of investments and assets owned by nonresidents. A further 35 jurisdictions (including Switzerland, Monaco, Singapore and Hong Kong) start next year.
They will share this data with the owner’s country of residence (first exchange to be made by September 2017). Exactly what information about my finances will be shared? If you are a French resident and have financial assets outside France, every year financial institutions will collect data including your name, address, date of birth and tax identification number, plus the balance/value, interest and dividend payments and gross proceeds from the sale of financial assets. How do I know where to pay tax? Tax residency is key. It determines what taxes you have to pay and where. You need to understand what makes you resident in France or the UK so that you comply with the correct tax regime. If you do not pay the right taxes in the right place, you may face not only having to pay the unpaid tax but interest and penalties as well. You can actually be resident in both the UK and France at the same time. If this happens, the UK/France double tax treaty ‘tie breaker’ rules will determine where you are resident for tax purposes. What tax do I pay where? French residents have to declare their worldwide income, gains and wealth.
This includes income that is taxed elsewhere, such as UK rental income, ISAs and pensions. Even if you have declared this income and paid tax on it in the UK, you are still obliged to declare it in France. Although UK government service pensions remain taxable in the UK and are not effectively taxed in France, the income must still be declared and is taken into account for the purposes of determining the rate of tax payable on your other income taxable in France. This new automatic exchange of information regime does not prevent you from structuring your assets in a tax-efficient manner – it is important to protect your wealth, for yourself and your heirs, where possible. But you need to be sure you declare everything correctly and that you only use arrangements that are compliant in France and the UK. Cross-border tax is complex and you need to take specialist advice from an expert who understands the intricacies of both French and UK tax and how they interact. ■ Tax rates, scope and reliefs may change. Any statements concerning taxation are based upon our understanding of current taxation laws and practices, which are subject to change. Tax information has been summarised; an individual is advised to seek personalised advice.