I’m very excited to announce that I’ll be speaking at Paris Web 2010 in mid-October.  We’ll be talking about my experiences with coming to the south of France as an outsider and how I simultaneously used the Internet to highlight that difference (separate myself intentionally from other winemakers) and also to integrate myself (truly becoming part of the winemaking community in the Languedoc).

On a related note, this presentation will also discuss the huge differences between how Parisians use the Internet and how country bumpkins like me use the Internet.  This is related to a Palate Press article that will be published soon on how wineries have had trouble incorporating a lot of web 2.0 technology because of our rural settings.

The presentation will also allude to various bits of pop culture like Louise Hurren’s Outsider Tasting, the Survive France Network, Dave Sedaris, David Lebovitz, and Love That Languedoc (naturally).

I’m so excited. My biggest, most serious audience since my long lost courtroom days (I wasn’t on the stand, for those who think the worst of me. )

– also, adding the blog to AvenueEmpire EAVB_XCFFXPCMZV –

Welcome to another episode of wine making 101. Due to the continuing frigid May weather the progress of the vines is not nearly as impressive as I had expected. So, I have elected to try to show you the difference between spur pruning and cane pruning. The object is to get delicious types of red wine no matter what method you choose.  The spur pruning  method (cordon royat) is when you leave a branch attached to the supporting wire year after year and you trim the shoots down to one or two eyes which will give you new growth each year. We use what is called a double cordon royat where two branches, one in each direction, remain attached each year. We generally try to limit the shoots to not more than four on each side which helps us limit our yields. You can see by the photos that double cordon royat (spur pruning) has shoots that are generally equal in size  from one end to the other which will give us a relatively consistent grape quality come harvest time. In comparison, with cane pruning method, (guyot) we select a new branch each year and generally go to just one side with it. We try to limit the length to 8 eyes (potential shoots). When you look at the picture illustrating this method you will notice that the growth at the end of the cane is superior to the shoots closer to the trunk of the vine. This unbalanced growth will continue throughout the entire growing period and the grapes at the furthest point from the trunk will be larger and generally less well balanced. This is why we have chosen the spur pruning method for the vast majority of our vines. One down side to the spur pruning method is that it is not recomended if you choose to harvest by machine because it could significantly shorten the life of the vines. We prefer to hand harvest when we can,  so it does not bother us. By the way , anyone interested in harvesting for food and delicious red wines can sign up any time this summer. Harvest runs from late September to mid October and we go from 7AM to about 1PM to make sure we get the grapes in at a cool enough temperature. Then we eat and drink and I have not seen anyone leave disappointed in the past 5 years. OK that’s it for this week. I don’t have my son here to correct my babblings because he is at the London international wine fair, so I hope this is legible.

The article signed irishherault says it all.

“ViniSud 2010
Or take a young winemaker based just north of Carcassonne in the Aude, called Ryan O’Connell. On Thursday Ryan posted another new video to one of his sites (yes, he has several), Love That Languedoc.
It was about a presentation he gave at ViniSud 2010, about the first steps winemakers can take to get into Vin 2.0.

Ryan’s talk came at the end of the annual show in Montpellier, and while he didn’t get much of a crowd on the day, his presentation lives on through this video (isn’t the Internet great!), and it is now doing the rounds of wine blogs and finding a much wider audience.
He also sent a message out on his Twitter feed yesterday.

It’s a great little call to arms. As he puts it, we can OWN the Internet (or “this interweb thing” as us old-timers still call it).

As Vinternet.net puts it, “Ryan est un pragmatique, il sait communiquer son enthousiasme et ça lui réussit.”

Ryan is very young – less than half our age. The two of us are old enough to be his parents. He’s American, and moved over to the Languedoc in 2005 with his mum and dad when he was only 19.

Yet he has a fantastic command of French that has us green with envy. He is enthusiastic and prolific and has the adventurousness, courage and sheer neck of youth to question the old ways and get out there and do things rather differently in the Vin 2.0 era.

It will be an uphill struggle, step by step, and there’s no point in getting seduced by apparently instant results, but this is where it’s all going.

Vin 2.0 is the new rock ‘n’ roll, with wonderful new tales being told by people like Ryan”…………

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Dans le cadre de votre participation à VINISUD, le Salon International des Vins et Spiritueux Méditerranéens, qui se déroulera les 22, 23 et 24 février 2010 au Parc des Expositions de MONTPELLIER

HALL n°1
ALLÉE B
STAND 29

Download a map of our hall.

Download a map of the whole salon.

Power went out for a bit the other day because everybody in France is cranking the heat. Thankfully, we’re working off a woodstove and we could stay warm.

Most of my appointments for Love That Languedoc have been rescheduled until the roads clear up. We’re not used to this kind of snow down here. We only get a handful of snow days and it’s usually nothing serious. That’s wonderful, but it leaves us a little unprepared to clear roads and whatnot.

I hear a good freeze is good for the vines. Helps the sap run down or something. Well, the vines are chilling.

You are welcome to invite family, friends and business associates to visit Domaine O’Vineyards where they can discover each step of the winemaking process, from cultivating to harvesting, from aging to blending and bottling…. The best part is tasting your delicious wine at the vineyard!

You will discover the wineworld and enjoy delicious dinners at the winemakers table.
At Domaine O’Vineyards wine tastings are happy and long ceremonies and the workshops such as the blending of your wine or the custom design of your private label are inedit.
You will enjoy the wonderful views on the Pyrénnées, the Black Mountain and on the Medieval Cité of Carcassonne.

O’ Rewards program priviledges include an invitation for two to a luxurious suite at the Domaine O’Vineyards during which you are invited to eat dinner at the winemaker’s table every night. Domaine O’Vineyards is conveniently located minutes from Carcassonne International Airport and an hour from Toulouse International Airport.

Yes, these and far nerdier questions will be answered.

Tasting Merlot before Harvest

Pre-emptive Q & A:

Q: Ryan, isn’t it a little late in the year to be checking your grapes’ maturity? I thought that the Cabardes would have harvested most of its Merlot by now.
A: You are such a precocious reader! Yes, it’s true that this is late. I filmed this in September and then got too busy actually harvesting to edit the video (also, I had to debug it because iMovie HD was giving me some trouble).

Q: How about a harvest update?
A: Harvest is going well. The Merlot and Syrah are in and they’re fermenting. We just started punching down caps today on two of the vats and it’s as hard as I remember. There’s a new harvester that is amazing so our quality will go up even though we are harvesting a little less by hand this year. That’s awesome, because it means less stress for me and better wine for all of us.

I am now going to take today’s identical flight. We’ll see how it works this time.

The collage travelogue I’m working on is very satisfactory. I’m using any kind of free literature I find laying around while I move about the planet. It’s very fun to put things in a light that is so tainted by the sort of corporate and commercial images we’re bombarded with on a regular basis. It’s also neat to see how my attention will fall on a word or image. Ah, introspection. The best airport pastime.