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Aer a long absence from the spotlight, the actress is back… with a premium gin. She invites us to France to talk terroir, family and taking time out to find herself again
To call Emma Watson’s father an oenophile would be undercooking it. “He’s a mega-nerd, ” says Emma over a long lunch last September, with a bias towards regional classics, at Bistrot des Grands Crus in Chablis.
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Amega-nerd.” Chris Watson loves France, and the French. More specifically, he lovesrural Burgundy, in the eastern-central part of the country, and especially Chablis, the small Burgundian town famous for its white wine.
, to toast a new venture: the launch of a gin, the brainchild of Alex Watson, Emma’s younger brother, who until recently wasan executive in the drinks industry. It’s called Renais, or “rebirth”, pronounced like “Renée”. And, uniquely foragin, it is as much French as it is English, just as theWatsons feel themselves to be.
“What I really love is the culture here of the harvest, ” says Emma. “I like the rituals around it and the history and the connection with the people here” © Rich Stapleton
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At least partly a tribute to Chris, and to the land – the terroir – that the Watsons love, Renais will go on sale for the first time today, initially in the UK. Flavoured by the skins of grapes handpicked in the steepest, most prestigious grand cru vineyards of Chablis, it is, in Alex’sdescription, “quite an esoteric product”. And, in its way, a very modern one: the grape skins are organic and the gin is certified carbon-neutral.
Chris Watson, 65, is a high-flying City lawyer, a partner in a large international law firm, with a focus on communications law. He is also an accomplished linguist. As well as French, Watson speaks German, Spanish, Italian, and his Russian is good enough to decode complicated legal documents. His English is also decent. But Chris’s real passions are for game fishing, music and wine-making – and wine-drinking.
He first came to Chablis in 1987, “to pick grapes and carry a hod up and down a hill”, as he puts it, sounding very much like a man who would like nothing more than to be doing exactly that right now. Back then, he was a young English barrister recently relocated to Paris with his then wife, Jacqueline, also a lawyer. During their seven years in France, they had two children, Emma, born in 1990, and Alex, two years later. And even though the family moved back to England when Alex was a toddler, Chris and the kids kept coming back to Chablis year aer year. (Chris and Jacqueline divorced in 1995, and Emma and Alex have long since acquired new siblings on both sides.)
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Chris bought his first vineyard in 1991. This was easier said than done. It took him eight years to satisfy the criteria of the local authorities so that he could plant his vines. Bureaucracy, I am not the first person to note, is a French word. Then again, so is entrepreneur.
“It was a huge battle, ” Chris says. “I had to tick every box to be treated as a local. You had to pay your social security as an agricultural labourer. You had to own half a tractor. You had to own a barn. Initially there was all this resistance, but once they realised I was not some outside speculator hoping to make a killing, but rather more Chablisien than the Chablisiens, it was fine.”
Today he owns seven vineyards with friends, and his life is stitched into the fabric of the region. He is one of 25Piliers, a group of local wine-making worthies and representatives of Chablis (suggested collective noun: a “crate” of Piliers?) who officiate at festivals and events.
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“I represent Chablis in the UK, ” Chris says. “I am the designated person. You have to give an oath to defend them. You have to appear at ceremonies every year…”
Emma offers an indulgent eye-roll in confirmation. But there is also photographic evidence, which we examine on Chris’s phone. Here he is in his finery: green and gold robes and a not unfunny hat. And oh, look! Here’s one of him with Miss France.
They must both do quite a bit of this. When Chrissegues into some juicy local gossip Emma intervenes. “Don’t say anything you don’t want in the article, justspeaking as someone who has been interviewed a number of times.”
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As our hors d’oeuvres are replaced by main courses, the stories of Chris’s adventures in viticulture give way to the genesis of his son’s gin. As a teenager, Alex would come to Chablis in school holidays. “I’d help out in the vineyards, ” he remembers. “I’ve always thought it wasvery special.”
I can’t say where the journey will go. I’m sure we’ll make mistakes. But I can vouch forAlex, I know who he is. I’ve seen what this is. I’ve literally picked the grapes myself Emma Watson
As the younger brother of a movie star, plenty of opportunities came his way. “I was being pushed towards modelling or acting, ” he says. He signed with a modelling agency, but he didn’t enjoy it. Rather than walking the catwalks of Paris and Milan, Alex took a first in philosophy at Bristol, but academia didn’t appeal as a career either. Since he was 16, he’d worked in pubs and restaurants: “I fell in love with hospitality.”
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“He had lots of offers and he turned them down, ” saysEmma. “For an 18-year-old boy who, at that point, was on a strict allowance from Dad, to say no to all that: Ithought that was really brave.”
At the multinational drinks giant Diageo, Alex was responsible for “third-space marketing: things like supper clubs, cocktail masterclasses, building bars, curating the menus.” He worked with Tanqueray gin, Ketel One vodka, Johnnie Walker whisky. “It was my dream job. But I think that once you have an idea likeRenais, you can’t un-have it.”
The idea is an ingenious one: to take the grand cru grape skins that would have been discarded, or used for animal feed or fertiliser, and repurpose them as flavouring for a gin. “For 2, 000 years, ” he says, “since the Romans came and first planted the vineyards, every ounce of effort here has gone into making those grapes as good as they can be. So I was just baffled by what was happening to the skins aer the grapes had been pressed. I guess it seemed obvious to me, although it may sound strange.”
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There are seven grand cru vineyards in Chablis – the one Renais uses for its key botanicals is one of the only ones using organic farming methods. The grape skins are only available for a two-week window each year, during the harvest season. “It’s almost as difficult a way to do it as possible, ” Alex says, “but it’s absolutely worth it.”
Meanwhile, the raw alcohol used in Renais is made ata distillery in Beaujolais, using grapes from the vineyards of Burgundy, including the Watsons’ own. The alcohol and the botanicals that flavour the drink – the grape skins and other ingredients – are combined and distilled in the north of England.
“I think it takes the best of both worlds, English and French, ” says Alex. “It takes the inspiration and the quality of the ingredients and the philosophy of France, and applies that to an English drink. And we’ve made every effort to ensure that the juice is good, as they say.”
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So numerous are celebrity-endorsed spirits that supermarket alcohol aisles have begun to resemble the displays in old-fashioned video shops, where the latest products from sharp-elbowed Hollywood stars once jostled for shelf-space. Some of these are no more than traditional endorsements, in which a star for hire is recruited as the temporary face of a gin or vodka or whisky. Others are more closely involved. Ryan Reynolds cashed out of Aviation American Gin aer two years, to the tune of a reported $610mn. (Nice work, Deadpool.) George Clooney and his buddy Rande Gerber, husband ofCindy Crawford, reportedly did even better from Casamigos tequila. Bob Dylan is the co-creator of a whiskey called Heaven’s Door. (Well, he is knocking on…) David Beckham, Matthew McConaughey and the rapper Drake have all shilled for whiskey brands.
Emma Watson grew up in a family obsessed with wine, and food, and the culture around it. Alcohol was not illicit. “I was quite surprised when other children were very excited about the idea of getting their hands on alcohol, ” she says. “Dad had been giving me water with wine at lunch since I was a child. I didn’t think alcohol was for getting wasted. So I was quite confused when I was a teenager and everyone thought alcohol was this forbidden fruit.
“What I really love, ” she says, “is the culture here of the harvest. I like coming
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