Cabardes: THE BOOK

book cover of wines of carcassonne

How cool is that?  In October, Evan Schnittman told me about Amazon’s self-publishing platform.  And here I am just a couple months later with a book about the wines of carcassonne.  Amazon is mailing me a proof right now.  In January, I’ll approve the proof and Wines of Carcassonne: The Cabardes AOC will be for sale online.  Awesome.

I want a free copy!

I bet you do.

Enter your email address and click submit to win a digital copy of my book:

Wines of Carcassonne: The Cabardes AOC

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When you click submit, the page will refresh and it will look like nothing happened. Check your email to find out if you won.

🙂

So why write a book?

The Cabardes is a really cool appellation.

  • It’s right next to Carcassonne
  • It’s tiny
  • It’s dominated by independent producers
  • It has a unique climate
  • It has a unique blend

One starts to wonder how there aren’t already books written about the Cabardes.  Well, those advantages that make the Cabardes good and interesting also make it hard to mass market.

Our small production size means we can’t justify spending a lot of money to promote the appellation.  Even if we did market our appellation very well, we lack the large industrial producers to supply wine after that sort of promotional campaign.    The unique climate and blend that make the wine so interesting also make it sort of bizarre.  People don’t expect these varietals to appear together, especially not in the Languedoc.  Furthermore, people don’t expect these varietals to EVER go together in a French AOC.  In reality, all the things that make the Cabardes radically special make it hard to promote.  It’s complicated.

Well I love complicated.  And what’s more, being a winemaker gives me the perfect perspective to write a book about the appellation.  This isn’t an objective reference book that has to cover all the wines of France or all the wines on earth.  I am only talking about the wines I can see from my hilltop.  So I can take all my time.  I can slow down and give you strange little details that I think are fun even though they aren’t important by most standards.  I can share a little gossip about who has projects on the table, what people did before they got this property, trends in certain estates.  That’s fun stuff right?  I just get to tell you why I’m charmed by this place.

So what next?

I’m going to be devoting a lot of energy to the promotion of this book.  I haven’t even written a post about it until now, but your tweets and facebook updates have helped hundreds of people hear about the book.  In the first 48 hours of the contest, we gave away 50 digital copies in ten different countries.  Thank you for all your support.

And more importantly, the next step for winemakers everywhere is to follow my lead.  Write the book for your appellation or your neighborhood.  If you need any help, email me.  Some of this stuff is pretty technical.  Formatting the novel was actually pretty tough without any good software.  So please please please ask me for help.  I’d love to see more books like this one.  One for every appellation!! 🙂

How to find us

Domaine O’Vineyards, located in the North Arrondissement of Carcassonne, is just minutes from the Carcassonne train station, the Medieval City, and the Carcassonne Airport.
GPS coordinates: 43.259622, 2.340387

O’Vineyards
Wine, Dine, Relax at our Boutique Vineyard
Unique thing to do in Carcassonne
Wine Cellar. Winery Visits. Wine Tasting.
Wine & Food Pairing

North Arrondissement of Carcassonne
885 Avenue de la Montagne Noire
11620 Villemoustaussou, France
Tel: +33(0) 630 189 910

  1. Best by GPS.
    Follow the signs to Mazamet/ Villemoustaussou using the D118. At the end of the last straight part of D118, you will come to a roundabout with the Dyneff gas station.
  2. Take the exit towards Pennautier. Continue 500m to a small roundabout and go straight over.
  3. Look out for the second road on your right, Avenue des Cévennes which curves up hill (about 1km) to Avenue de la Montagne Noire on the left.
  4. At the last juction, bear left. the road sign “Ave de la Montagne Noire” (confusing as it seems to show a right turn)
  5. After another 500m you will see our red brick color building in the middle of the vines.
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