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Living abroad: Paris uncorked
swede francaise
It might sound like madness to try and make it as a wine teacher in France – when you’re Swedish. But that’s exactly what Britt Karlsson set out to do when she moved from Stockholm to Paris
words by Camilla H Tjellesen
photography by Per Karlsson/BKWine.com
Swede Britt Karlsson has had a thing about wine since the 1980s. “When the whole wine trend got big in Sweden back then, I organised a wine tasting club with some friends,” she says. “It was just meant to be an excuse for us to meet up regularly, but I quickly got more hooked on it than anyone else in the group.”
What began as an amateur interest has become BKWine, a business which Britt runs with her husband in Paris. Against the odds, she’s made it as a wine teacher in France. BKWine now offers over 100 wine tours throughout France and Europe.
After she got into wine tasting, Karlsson joined more clubs and took a lot of wine courses and was soon quite the expert. She started running corporate wine tastings in the evenings for company events after her day job as a product planner at Compaq Computer.
“While teaching other people about wine, I just kept learning and learning,” she remembers. So, when her husband Per – who she met at a wine tasting, of course – got a job in Paris in 1990, she decided to quit her day job in Stockholm, and move with him to try to start up a wine business of some kind.
“I thought we were only going to be here for a few years, so I wanted to try and do something with my wine knowledge while I was here. It was quite an opportunity, as Paris simply is the place to be when it comes to wine,” she says.
She started out working freelance for a well-known Swedish wine merchant and added on to her ever growing wine knowledge. She learned about the rarest and most expensive wines and she got to travel to all the important wine regions. She continued to organise tastings in the evenings, and soon she had enough work to focus completely on her own business and set up BKWine.
“When I started doing wine tours, it really took off. I realised that there’s a huge market for that in Scandinavia, so that’s the one I’m targeting the most. There are so many different wine companies and teachers here in France, so it would be a bit difficult to try to target the French market as a foreigner, and that was never my intention, either. But being here in Paris has given me a huge advantage and more knowledge, and the Scandinavian and English-speaking countries are a great niche market,” she says.
Starting up a business in a foreign country can be a daunting task, though.
“You need a lot of money, because there are so many social charges to pay right from the start, even if you are not making any money for the first few years. There are for example a lot of insurance and pension charges that are compulsory, which can be very difficult to think about when you’re a new business.”
“I always thought that Sweden was quite a bureaucratic country, but compared to France, it’s absolutely nothing,” she laughs, adding that she made sure she had an accountant from the outset, without which it would have proved impossible.
But what’s it like being a Swedish woman in the wine business in France, with its heritage and the superiority that must go with the territory?
“There’s a fair bit of snobbery in the wine world. It’s also very masculine. So being a Swedish woman in this business can be a bit tough. But I have found that among the top professionals, it’s not that much of a problem, whereas with people who think they know a lot about wine or are quite new in the business, it can be a bit hard to get people to believe in you,” she explains.
France is not known as the most welcoming country towards foreigners, but Karlsson says she hasn’t experienced any major problems: “It’s true that the French don’t always accept foreigners, but it very much depends on where you come from.
Being a Scandinavian is very easy in Paris, and we have always felt very welcome here.”
She must have done something right, because BKWine went from strength to strength, and the few years that Britt and Per were supposed to spend in Paris went by quickly. They both felt right at home in the French capital, and with Britt’s business taking off so well, they didn’t want to return.
“The work that I do just couldn’t be done in Sweden. There are so many wine tastings and shows in Paris, and you just have to be here to stay ahead in this business. I like Sweden, and I like going back on business or on holiday, but I really didn’t – and don’t – want to move back there. I’m very happy here in Paris.”
So, three years ago, Per decided to quit his job and start working with Britt in BKWine. It was a bit of a risk, but it was what they both wanted. “The business had grown, and Per can bring something to the company that I can’t do. We each have our own areas in the company, and it’s really nice to have someone to discuss everything with. I missed that quite a bit when it was just me. I felt a bit lonely.” But now that they both run the business from home – a flat in the 15th arrondissement in the south-west of the city, where each has their own office. And because it’s a home office, they get to write off some of the rent on company tax.
“We are renting because it is so incredibly expensive to buy property in Paris. A flat like ours would cost about €400,000 to buy, and that’s just something we can’t afford. It was quite a shock to realise when we moved here from Sweden just how expensive it is. So, we’re still renting, but we love our flat. It’s in a modern building and we even have a view of the Eiffel Tower, which I never grow tired of looking at,” she says with a broad smile.
Where they live is a mixture of houses built around the 1900s and modern blocks. It’s a lively area. “There are all these little shops and cafés that seem to always be open, and there’s always life in the streets – very different from Sweden. I just love that atmosphere.”
Britt is well and truly hooked on not only wine, but also on Paris.
BKWine
51, rue du Chevalier de la Barre, France
+33 (0)6 8045 3570, www.bkwine.com
Saturday, September 1st, 2007 at 12:00 amand is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.