Cutting The Mustard

If transforming a neglected farmhouse into a successful hotel wasn’t enough to keep Paul Thomas and Jolanta Bakalarz busy in their retirement, the expat couple have also launched their own wine, as Andy Duncan finds out

- Andy Duncan

Paul Thomas and Jolanta Bakalarz are entitled to feel more than a touch of satisfaction at what they have achieved over the past seven years. The couple first appeared in Living France back in 2014, when they shared their experiences of renovating their property in Burgundy, and we left them waiting for confirmation that they had been granted hotel classification.

This they duly received and their hotel, Les Deux Chèvres, in the famous winemaking village of GevreyChambertin, opened for business. Just a short while later, it came out top of 500 other Burgundy hotels on both TripAdvisor and Trivago in 2015 and 2016. And, as if that remarkable accolade wasn’t enough, they have also now teamed up with a local organic winemaker to produce their own wine.

An outsider, viewing a successful couple running not one but two thriving businesses in France, could be forgiven for thinking that Paul and Jolanta have lived a charmed life. However, their success has come as a result of extraordinary tenacity in the face of adversity that has sometimes felt insurmountable.

The hotel was never really meant to be part of the plan originally. Paul and Jolanta met in 2008. Paul was a lawyer working in Manchester and Jolanta worked at the bank in the adjoining building. “We both had previous lives,” explains Paul, “and decided to start something new together in France, where I owned a tumbledown building that many years ago used to be a winery.”