It was in 1985 that the French Franc plunged in value against the US Dollar to about 10 francs per $. It was nice for those of us who sailed to the French Islands in the Caribbean. It meant our money went further, particularly on some of our favorite islands like St. Bart’s. Long a favorite of Caribbean sailors, it had a lot to offer. It was a duty free port, which made products imported from France less expensive than they would be otherwise. It had a great harbor, was friendly to visiting sailors and even had topless beaches. What more could a sailor ask for?

Parker, one of the St. John boat builders, more enterprising than most, as evidenced by his massive undertaking of building a 42’ ketch on the beach in East End St. John, came up with a great idea. “Why don’t we sail to St. Bart’s and buy a boat load of French wine and bring it back to the Virgin Islands?” None of the usual gang of sailors that hung out a Fred’s Bar in Coral Bay could think of a single reason why that wouldn’t be a great idea. None of us needed much of an excuse to go sailing, particularly on Parker’s freshly built, well equipped 42’ “Mars” style ketch rigged boat.  

Over the next few days, four of us, all good friends from working together over the years on boat building projects, decided to sign on to the “Wine Cruise”. Parker, the Captain and builder of the fine boat “Destiny” was joined by Don, Kevin and me, the humble author of this tale, Paul. The passage from the Virgin Islands is not a mere overnight sail, as the Anegada passage, the water that flowed between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, could be treacherous with hard to gauge currents and usually foul winds, requiring tacking into rough seas. Experienced sailors knew to plot a course that would offer some opportunities to “ease the sheets” a little and make the passage smoother, even if a bit slower. 

In a few days time, we had made our plans and pulled the anchor freeing Destiny to head Southeast. Having 4 experienced sailors aboard made the trip easy, everyone had a chance to sleep and not be overwhelmed by the need for a constant watch. We soon made landfall in St. Martin / St. Maarten, the schizophrenic island in the Northern Caribbean.  St. Martin was jointly owned by the Netherlands and the French, explaining the dual spelling and split personality. Like all the islands of the times, it was very sailor friendly, with almost no paperwork nor custom clearances to keep us from venturing ashore. Kevin took the opportunity to go ashore and buy a “boom box” for a fraction of what it would have cost in the Virgin islands. Powered along by the sounds emanating from the cassette tape churning boom box, after a night’s rest, we set sail the short distance South to St. Bart’s. 

The four of us were in high spirits when we entered the harbor just outside of Gustavia, the port of entry and only real town on St. Bart’s. We anchored in a protected area and went ashore to complete the minimal Customs and Immigration requirements, which amounted to pretty much saying “hello” or “Bon Jour” if you wanted to be cool. After we wandered about we made the de rigueur  stop at Le Select to grab a “Cheeseburger in Paradise” as made famous by Jimmy Buffet. We started asking questions about where we could find some wine wholesalers. Since wine and French go together like Cheese and Burgers, we soon had all the information we needed. 

We grabbed a taxi to go a short distance out of town to the, as we were assured, the BEST wine wholesalers in the entire island….which was to say, the only wine wholesalers on St. Bart’s. If the owners were curious why four, mid thirties, somewhat grungy sailors showed up at their place of business, they hid it well. We were, collectively, initially overwhelmed by the volume and selection of wines displayed on  the walls of this establishment. We had a quick conference about which type of wine we should buy, a subject that hadn’t come up at any time during the trip nor on the week prior to leaving when we were making plans. Suddenly we had to decide. “Well, I like red wine” Parker said. We all looked at each other, shrugged and were happy that we had solved the first of many questions that we were ill-equipped to handle. I had little knowledge of wine beyond, red, white, or bubbly. So Red, it was. We left it up to the purveyors to guide us in the selection of ten red wines that we should consider. 

Decidedly out of our element, we returned to Destiny with ten bottles of French wine that met our exacting requirements of being both wine and red. Now that the hard part was out of the way, we were free to get down to the business of making our selections. We decided that we should choose the best four or five bottles to bring back to the St. John. We didn’t want to give potential customers too many choices and confuse the issue. Since this was business, we knew that we needed to be organized and professional, so we arranged the bottles marking them alphabetically so that we could have a Blind taste testing and not be influenced by the name or price of each wine. We had a notebook where Parker would write down our impressions of each wine along with relevant comments. Fortunately, Don had the presence of mind to set up his camera on a small tripod and take a few photos of the proceedings. 

Finally, En fin, we were ready. We carefully poured a bit of wine from the first bottle into our four glasses. We swirled it about, sniffed it, held it up to the light and, eventually drank it, sort of gargling it and eventually swallowing it. We had no idea what we were doing but were parroting what we imagined a wine-tasting should be. “This wine is full-bodied, has good notes, a strong finish” and the all time favorite “Good Nose”. Of course I had no idea what any of those things meant and, I suspect, nor did any of my companions. Still, we went through the process bottle by bottle, having the sense to add, among our pseudo wine-babble whether or not we actually liked the wine. Each of us gave a thumbs up or down as we went. 

Ten bottles later, we were beginning to feel that we were getting the hang of rating these wines, aided in part by the fact that we didn’t realize that you are supposed to spit the excess wine out. Oh, mais non, mon ami! That would be a waste and an insult to this grapey ambrosia. We did our job like MEN and drank what we served ourselves. We consulted our notes and discussed our thoughts about the job we were doing. Being serious and determined, it was decided that we should do the test AGAIN to make sure that we got it right. Somehow, we managed to get through the second round of wine tasting. We kept on taking notes, although, looking back over them the next day, we had become much less sophisticated in our description of what we tasted.  For example, the first tasting may have had a description like I wrote in the previous paragraph, the second description was “this wine sucks”. 

Morning came early the next day and we discovered that there is no hangover like a red wine hangover. Somehow, though, we rallied after some coffee and a croissant or two and we got down to the business of the day. We straggled ashore and went back to the wine wholesaler, clutching our Top Five list. Parker had previously calculated how many cases of wine we could comfortably carry on his boat. It was a lot of wine. Our selections ranged in price from 99 cents a bottle to a little over $2 a bottle. We arranged a time to be at the loading dock and paid the wholesaler. 

Getting the boat on the loading dock and tied up was more difficult than it would have been prior to our doubled up wine tasting. Still, we persevered and, at the appointed time, a large truck came rumbling down the dock and with many hands, we made quick work of unloading the cases of wine and securing them in the boat. By the time we had the truck emptied, the boat was pretty well packed leaving little floor space for the crew. Fortunately, the trip back to the Virgin Islands is a lot faster than getting to St. Bart’s. we had both wind and current in our favor and, after having a meal and shaking off the remaining effects of the Vin Rouge, we set off. By early afternoon the next day, we were approaching St. John. Heading towards the anchorage, we discussed the unloading plan, which was a little tricky as we didn’t want the wine haul to be well known, so the normal locations were out. Luckily, we had friends out in the East End of the island who had a private dock that was large enough to handle the boat and they were agreeable to letting us land there.  

As we suspected, the French wine haul was very well received by some of the local bars and restaurants, and the wine quickly was consumed, except for a small stash kept by the Captain and crew for personal use. The success of this trip stayed with me, as I had been planning a down island run of my own in the near future, and I thought that another stop in St. Bart’s might be a good idea. 

Photo Credit to Don Brown, Sea of Dreams