Max Skinner is a London investor who feels his life is moving backwards when he is dismissed from the company for which he works. However, his luck would seem to change when he comes into an inheritance from his Uncle Henry - a huge vineyard in Provence, on the French Riviera. He arrives at his new property only to find a young American there insisting she is the true owner of the property. Skinner will also have to cope with hard work out in the open, an envious cousin, and suspicious peasants. Max is played by Russell Crowe
and child actor Freddie Highmore, of Finding Neverland (2003), plays him as a child. This adaptation of the novel by the same name by Peter Mayle, that originated an English miniseries, A Year in Provence (1993), by David Tucker, is a rare comedy in the career of Ridley Scott.