I couldn’t recall the last time I’d seen Martine Greslon, but it had been nearly three decades since she turned heads at London wine tastings as the more glamorous half of T&W Wines in Thetford. After a request from her, out of the blue, for some information on Jerez, we got back in touch in 2015. She told me she was living in southern Italy, where she was about to open a cookery school. Soon after, our cars were rubbing noses in the car park of Basilicata’s picturesque, hilltop village of Tursi.

The early days: T & W Wines and wine world icons

To say that swapping Thetford for Tursi was life-changing for Martine would be one of the understatements of the century. After meeting Trevor Hughes when she was 19, she went to work for him at T & W Wines in 1979. At London tastings, she would come across Jancis Robinson MW, Jane MacQuitty and Joanna Simon, “The Three Disgraces, as they were called by Pamela Vandyke Price”, she recalls. Disgraces apart, Martine was often the only woman, everyone else pin-striped city types. ‘It was so masculine, but most wine producers were exceptionally charming and respectful’.

Dining with the wine world’s elite

It wasn’t long before she was hobnobbing with the greats of the wine world. It helped that she was half-French, and wine had been part of her upbringing. “I remember meeting the Comte de Lur-Saluces at Château d’Yquem and Henri and Remi Krug, who opened a bottle of 1928 for us sitting in their courtyard”. She and Trevor went on regular buying trips together, to Burgundy, Alsace, the Rhône and Champagne, eating at the best restaurants. Back home in Thetford, she impressed the likes of Johnny Hugel, Gérard Jaboulet and Jean Trimbach with her cookery skills.

In the mid-1980s, the pair decided to add Napa Valley to what was already an impressive fine wine list. Bringing on Dunn, Duckhorn, Silver Oak and Flora Springs among others, they expanded the range not just of top wines but celebrity customers too, among them Nick Mason from Pink Floyd, the writer David Croft, the actor Simon Cadell, Al Stewart and Sir John Horlick, of Horlicks fame. They set up a tasting of 10 vintages of Petrus for US$1000 a spot in Los Angeles and procured several vintages of Mouton-Rothschild for the same American client, Ronald Freedman. They weren’t just selling the dream but living and drinking it too.

The end of an era and new beginnings

By the mid-1990s, the marriage had hit the rocks, and Martine decided to start a restaurant. “Mistake, she says. It was bang opposite T & W Wines and Trevor was not amused. It had been a successful Italian restaurant, and Martine still thinks it might have worked if she had stuck to the Italian theme. Despite making the AA and Egon Ronay guides in 1996, it only lasted two years. It was ahead of its time, she feels. She wanted a menu, with local and seasonal ingredients, that changed every month, and Thetford wasn’t ready for it”. She went to the US, married a graphic designer who turned out to be a manic depressive, got divorced, again, and started her own high-end catering business in Northampton in 2002.

It was during this time that she first heard about the Basilicata region of southern Italy. Martine told a friend who lived in Naples that she was looking for a holiday bolt hole in Italy. She googled Basilicata, and the only place advertising any properties online was the village of Tursi. After making contact, she met the agent in the piazza. “As we walked up to the first house, with washing hanging out and the smell of roasted peppers, I felt like Sophia Loren”. She plumped for the first apartment she saw.

Leaving the UK behind for good

Lying on the beach one day, it occurred to her that she had no desire to go home to the UK. “My dog had died, I was divorced for a second time, so I thought, why not? It sounds like a cliché, but I fell in love with the food, the landscape, the bright blue sky and amazing sunshine”. Just before the 2008 crash, she sold her UK business and house, packed what she didn’t want to give away or sell and moved to Italy. To begin with, she earned enough to spend the summer on the beach by looking after ski chalets owned by friends in Nendaz in Switzerland. At the same time, she teamed up with a local bigwig, who promised to help finance the cookery school she wanted to set up.

When I visited her in 2015, Martine was still hoping that the cookery school would go ahead, but the local capo dropped out of the picture. Instead, she bought an apartment and did it up as a luxury holiday let. She enjoyed doing it, and with her keen eye for design, she was good at it. Subsequently, she bought another new property with two apartments, one to live in, one to let. More recently, she has acquired a new apartment and is in the process of doing that up, too. Named after citrus fruits, the Stacc, the Bergamot, the Mandarin, the Kumquat and the Cedro, they are all precariously perched on the village hilltop with breathtaking views over the Valle del Sinni towards the Ionian Sea glinting in the distance.

Challenges of restoration in rural Italy

As a single woman and the only English person living in Tursi, getting the right people for the building work has not been without its challenges. Martine is well-respected in the town. “Everyone knows me, people say hello. You have to be careful, dress in a certain way. You have to pay your bills on time, at the right time. To do a deal here, you shake on it, it means more than having it written down, but as a woman, it’s not so easy. The boy thing is going out and having dinner. For me, it’s coming to my house, having a glass of prosecco and talking about and agreeing on what’s needed”.

With four Albanian builders and a plumber working on the latest project, “it’s been testosterone city”, says Martine. Latterly, a film crew has spent several weeks filming for the Channel 4 TV show, Help! We Bought A Village. Due to air in the autumn, the first episode will feature Martine at home in Tursi. Yet she’s wary of Basilicata becoming a tourist trap. “This is not Provence”, she says. “So far only a handful outsiders have bought here, but in neighbouring Puglia, prices are going up and the beaches are overrun. I foresee a huge boom in Basilicata in the next 10 years. This place is so unspoilt and I love the otherworldly peace and tranquillity. I’m hoping for slow tourism here, but if it ever becomes a Disneyland, I’m selling.”

Behind the tranquil façade, Tursi is not short of character, or characters. “We do love the nitty gritty, the saucy, the sad, the outrageous and the downright scary”, says Martine. If anything, she admits that she underestimated the extent of the local goings-on. “I acquired two rooms from a lady who was under house arrest for drug dealing and prostitution. The waste disposal guy has been arrested for extortion. Most of the more well-to-do gentlemen have a friend they visit in the afternoon between 5 – 8pm.” She is keen to emphasise that all these toing and fro-ings don’t affect anyone from outside the families involved.

Resilience and reflections

As if being a woman on her own in Tursi isn’t tough enough, making relationships is far from easy, too. Having met the man of her dreams and “the best winemaker in Basilicata”, that relationship has also soured. Yet despite the many challenges, she wouldn’t have it any other way. “The lifestyle here is so different to the UK, it’s so very laid back, but that is part of the charm I now hold dear. It seems as if we are 70 years behind the UK, but in a very good way”. Martine remains resilient, and the boutique apartments are doing well. Inspired by the book, Beached in Calabria, she has started writing her story of living in Tursi, and Martine is not short of stories.

Where are they now? Andrew Barr’s life after wine writing

Where are they now? Life after wine

Do RTD consumers in the US know what they are drinking?