a re-print from “The Record”
Understanding “being who we are”, Radio Communautaire Missisquoi’s mission statement, is not always that easy. This past week at CIDI’s studios I had an experience that helped me put things into perspective.
Michaela Sefler, host of Poetry and Transcendence, a program on CIDI that airs every Thursday night at 11pm, is producing a series on love, and thought it would be appropriate to have an interview with the owner of a local vineyard in the Brome Missisquoi area, supporting the concept that wine and love are synonymous.
I thought this was a good idea and set her up with a remote recorder for an interview she had arranged with John Antony at the family-run vineyard Chapelle Ste Agnès located in the Sutton Mountains of southern Quebec.
According to John, his mother Henrietta Antony, a Montreal antique dealer, established the vineyard in 1997. The vineyard is named after a stone chapel built several years earlier on the same site and consecrated to Saint Agnes, a thirteenth century Bohemian saint. The vineyard, having won several international awards, has over 7000 vines and is focused on the production of ice wine and other dessert wines.
The mixture of poetry, transcendence and wine reflects the Antony pioneering spirit that Chapelle Ste Agnès was built on, and in a way the character of RCM. When the human spirit is involved in the process of creation anything is possible, especially when it is born out of love.
“It was a freezing early winter morning when I went to see Henrietta back some 35 years ago”, recalls Klaus Bremer, writer and host of CIDI’s Children’s Corner which is broadcast on CIDI every Saturday and Sunday morning at eight o’clock.
“I found her on top of a tall old rickety scaffold stuccoing her house on the Scenic Drive just outside of Glen Sutton. It was freezing cold and when she came down to greet me and my wife I noticed her hands were bleeding. She had been shaping ornate European-styled designs on the upper part of her house.”
Bremer says that Antony was a refugee from Czechoslovakia when she arrived in Canada some years ago alone and penniless. “I refer to her as my Bohemian Princess”, explains Bremer, “because she has created a piece of Europe right here in Quebec, resembling her homeland.”
The vineyard’s website, www.vindeglace.com, recounts the story of Saint Agnes as having been a princess, who at age 8, was engaged to the future Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. As such, she received the best education that the Middle Ages could provide. When she came of age, she decided to give up the life of fame and fortune, and devote her life to orphans, the sick, and the elderly. She founded an Abbey of Poor Claires in Prague, and became its first Abess. Saint Agnes also founded a male order of knights, the Crusaders of the Red Star, a hospitalier order.
Using local and European trades-people along with the spirit of St. Agnes and a special attention to detail, Antony has built a vineyard/winery with a unique flavour, featuring a chapel, reception hall and medieval wine cellar. The ideal location for a truly romantic wedding! She has created a union of sorts between her homeland and where she lives today. This is truly being who you are.
The walls of the Chapelle Ste Agnès were erected by Michel Dodier, a Compagnion and Master Mason from France,” points out her website. “Mr. Dodier is an 11th generation mason…The paving stones which lead to the Chapel were unearthed by an excavator in Old Montreal, and date to the founding of the City in the 17th century.”
The cellars of the Chapelle Ste Agnès vineyard are a large medieval style underground complex, where temperature and humidity are almost constant year round. The cellars consist of four underground levels, and feature a number of stone barrel and cross vaults that were built by a master stone cutter from France and by vault masters from southern Moravia. In order to build these vaults, dozens of varying and specialized forms needed to be constructed. The end result is a medieval style cellar complex dedicated to the production and storage of wines.
In the case of RCM we’re establishing an institution on the same principles: responsibility, dedication and respect. By paying attention to detail and taking pleasure in what we do, the success of CIDI and the rest of RCM’s community projects will be ensured. Together, we aim to be successful in building community in the Eastern Townships through arts development programs. RCM members are doers as well as dreamers.
So don’t be shy, speak up, send us an email or give us a call, or come visit us at the radio station in Knowlton. We want to hear your opinions and suggestions and play the stuff you want to hear. You can also become a member of the team if you want to do a show or help out on the technical side.
We welcome one and all, because first and foremost it is your radio station, serving the community, promoting local businesses and events and bringing you what you want to hear, because at CIDI 99.1 fm we are just being who we are.
For more information on how you can participate in RCM’s local Townships community radio station CIDI and its other multimedia projects, please contact us at 450-242-9873 / 1-888-539-2098. Remember, if you can’t tune us in on the radio go to rcmmedia.org and hit the live-streaming button.
Maurice Singfield is an RCM volunteer.
