I just saw off the last of my Cabernet Day friends.  It’s been a real blast. Seeing Local Winemakers 2010 was a really heartwarming Cabernet Day because it was one of the first events I organized to really get a great deal of support from local grape growers and winemakers.  I was worried about 2011 [...]

I took some exterior photos of O’Vineyards Bed & Breakfast now that it’s nearing completion.  Things are looking good! You can really see how close the rooms are to the vines.  How clear the sky is.  This is life on a vineyard after all! This is the window of the Cabardes room.  You can look [...]

This is a list of Cabardes vineyards that provide bed & breakfast services or other lodging options north of Carcassonne. Of course, if you want to stay at a vineyard, I strongly recommend staying at O’Vineyards Bed & Breakfast. But this post includes all the options for staying with winemakers in the Cabardes. Why stay [...]

Another chapter unfolds in the Grands Crus du Languedoc story. A recent article in the Revue du Vin de France about the terroirs they believe to be Grands Crus du Languedoc shows disagreement with the CIVL classification.  Notably, they include the Cabardes (my appellation and the subject of my book “Wines of Carcassonne“) as a [...]

“lavishly illustrated” “takes advantage of the medium” “an enterprising first stab at self-publishing” –Jancis Robinson, Vintner turns e-author 21 Dec 2010 What a trip.  Seven years ago, I was reading the Oxford Companion to Wine and daydreaming about being a winemaker.  And today, the editor of that book and one of the world’s foremost wine [...]

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 [...]

This morning, the Cabardes did one of its regular organoleptic test flights.  That’s a pretty fancy way to say we get together and taste newly bottled Cabardes wine. The primary purpose of these tastings is quality control.  We want to make sure that everybody is putting their best foot forward with their Cabardes wines.  But [...]

Oh wow, I forgot how much I love maps. I’ve been playing around in Google Maps and it’s really fun.  Some of you might know that I’m working on a book about the AOC Cabardes and the wines north of Carcassonne.  And so I’ve built a big directory and I’m defining certain climactic zones.  Blah [...]

Harvest is right around the corner at O’Vineyards.  I mean that literally.  If you walk past the corners of our property, you’ll be surrounded by harvesters. We aren’t harvesting yet.  The grapes just aren’t ready here.  In several days, they will be.  But not today. Why are the nearby neighbors harvesting?  Different philosophies.  Waiting for [...]

A Russian wine lover is running a series of updates from me on his website, WhyWhyWine.  It’s always fun to see yourself translated into a language you can’t read. It’s even more fun using Google Translator’s limited engine to decipher what’s being said.  There’s an odd sort of poetry in the computer generated translation: “These [...]