I'm here to tell you that you can change your life after 50

Sally Evans, author of Make The Midlife Move. Sally ended a corporate career and started to study wine at age 52, now she runs a vineyard

At 52, I started studying wine and moved across France to create a new wine château in the world’s most iconic fine wine region. As a Brit, on my own and with no experience of the wine industry, some might say I was out of my mind. But armed with a desire to have a new adventure in midlife and fuelled by passion, accompanied by a measure of naivety, I knew that I wanted and deserved a major life change that would be exciting and rewarding.

I went back to work when my youngest son was just two months old into a fast-paced job where I travelled frequently. Suffering from ‘mum guilt’ I wanted to spend some quality time with him before he left home, so I closed my laptop on my corporate life when he was 14 and did just that as a single mum. When he was about to leave for university, I found myself post menopause, single and with a newly empty nest yet still with so much energy and only in my early 50s. Inevitably, I started wondering ‘what’s next?’. I needed a new chapter that would enthuse and excite me and I knew I certainly didn’t want to go back to dance to anyone else’s tune.

I wanted this new adventure to be something new and fun, intellectually challenging but certainly not to wake me at 4am worrying about how much I had taken on. I wanted autonomy and to be mistress of my time. I considered another house renovation project but that felt like just doing the same again.

Developing her Bordeaux winery was a labour of love for Sally​

I began by doing something I had always meant to do – study wine. I loved it from the first class and followed a recognised certification programme. Having lived in Spain and France where dinner table talk often turned to discuss the wine of the meal, I had always felt ignorant and couldn’t contribute to the chat despite years of enjoying wines from the world as I travelled for work and pleasure. This new love of the intricacies of wine was akin to the opening of a door into a whole new universe combining science, art, history and culture with my senses of smell and taste. I asked myself where they make good wine and Bordeaux immediately came to mind even though I had never visited. Surely, I could combine this new love of wine with my skills at renovation somehow? I packed the dog into the car and drove eight hours from where I had been living for 15 years to make a midlife change.

Within a year of starting wine studies, I had bought three hectares of mature, 35-year-old Merlot vines on amazing soil (terroir) on the right bank in an appellation called Fronsac along with some dilapidated buildings – a worker’s cottage, a tractor barn and a winery building that had never seen any wine production. As the property programmes always say, buy at the right price and I was not going to put myself at any financial risk by getting carried away with a romantic old building that would need infinite funds to maintain. Taking ownership of this little corner of Bordeaux coincided with starting the advanced two-year wine studies diploma.

I threw myself into renovating the house and as it took shape, I started building a community starting from just one contact, the estate agent, and volunteered to help my wine producer neighbours to gain hands-on experience as I continued my wine education in class. I let the previous owner continue to work the vines rent-free so that I did not have to make the immediate decision whether to take that leap for myself.

Two years later, whether to make my own wine was nagging at me and despite several folks advising me NOT to – the old joke is that if you want to make a small fortune from wine you should start with a large fortune - I felt that at 55 with my own parcel of vines surrounding the house, I would likely not have the opportunity again. I listened to my gut, not the naysayers and went for it. I found two local experts who would advise me and bring the depth of local knowledge of soil, climate and connections to local suppliers that would take me decades to gain. I then set to, applying my skills and experience gained from various jobs and it turned out that my marketing experience was the secret sauce to bring into the mix.

Three years after buying the vines, I moved permanently to my new estate, Château George 7 and made my first vintage, the delicious 2018 which gained 94 points in the industry-renowned Decanter World Wine Awards. While it was still in barrel, an importer in the UK, Davy’s wine had confidence in the wine and me and asked if they could distribute my wines in the UK. Then in 2020, I added a white wine, Château George 7 Blanc to the range and I renovated the old barn into a stylish tasting room and wine tourism venue, winning a Gold Best of Wine Tourism Award in 2022.

I have also had my share of disaster – I wanted to start making wine in 2017 but a frost wiped out most of the right bank including my plot; Covid restrictions stopped the tasting room renovation in March 2020 just two weeks before the planned launch and without UK and US visitors in 2020 and 2021, the investment weighed heavy at the outset. And this year, I have lost most of my crop to a freak 20-minute hailstorm in June.

It sounds like I have gone from scratch to success very quickly, but I did it step by step at my own pace and keeping the risks involved to my comfort level. I have had fears along the way and a dreaded visit by the impish imposter syndrome when my first vintage and my tasting venue were so critically acclaimed. I insist that I am very much just a normal woman who, after a busy life juggling a career, two sons, and supporting an ageing mother, wanted to leap into a new adventure.

I passionately want other midlife women (and men) to believe that despite not having experience of a specific industry or geography, we have so many skills, life experiences, resilience and creativity that we can apply to a midlife change. In fact, age is a wonderful gift that has given us all these resources which we didn’t have 30 years ago.

So, I have written my book Make the Midlife Move, as a practical guide to help others define their dream, overcome the inevitable fears and then cultivate the confidence to take the leap, whatever their midlife transformation might be. It is filled with advice and practical prompts to get you thinking and peppered with my experience.

Lessons I have learned about a major midlife change include:

Don’t underestimate what you know and can do. A benefit of age is that you have seen and done so much which has built skills, resilience and creativity.

Go at your own pace – not what others tell you or you think others think you should do. This is a time for you to live the authentic path for the life you want, not what others think you should.

Only listen to those who can give you expert insight or those close to you who truly have your best interests at heart.

Be honest as to why you are doing this – are you running away from something or towards a goal?

You decide what you want to get from this new chapter, and it might not be how you measured success in the past such as money or promotion which were drivers as the family and mortgage grew. What does success and fulfilment look like in your 50s and 60s for you?

Midlife is the opportunity to follow your own path and relax into being your true self so don’t waste it or live with the regret that you didn’t create the life you truly want.

For more information about Chateau George 7 wines visit: www.chateaugeorge7.com Get Sally’s book, Make the Midlife Move: A Practical Guide to Flourish after 50 from Amazon in paperback or kindle and learn more at www.sallyevans.co.uk