Well I can finally announce that Naked Wines is coming to the USA, and we’re beta tasting.  You might have heard of beta testing, when software companies do a partial early release to gauge public reactions before the real launch.  Well if Silicon Valley has beta testers, Napa Valley deserves beta tasters!  We’ve spent months and months and months recruiting winemakers and crowd-funding new wines.  I can’t say everything yet because we’re just in the beta tasting phase.  But soon we’ll reveal everything (again totally naked!)

Anyway, if you’re an American reader and fortunate enough to live in one of our participating states, you can apply to be a Beta Taster at nakedwines.com.  On your application, you’ll probably want to mention that you know me and look forward to having my wines available in the US.

The Freeze of February 2012

Despite the gorgeous weather in the final days of April and the warm welcome of the winemakers, the evidence of the coldest February since 1956 were well-displayed in the Chateauneuf vineyards.

In 1956, the freeze was enough to devastate the olive trees in Provence and the Rhone.  But even that dreadful winter spared most of the vines.  This year, two weeks of 14 below freezing temperatures coupled with an unrelenting Mistral (often measured up to 100 kilometers per hour) actually caused many old vines to split open.

Here is a detail photo that shows the damage on a porteur gobelet of 50+ year old grenache in the Domaine de Marcou.  See where the wood is split open?  That’s not supposed to happen.

What’s more, the damage isn’t always visible.  If this happened at the extremities on occasion, it was also happening in the souche (trunk).   And so this spring, when all the plants were supposed to leap into action, many revealed that they had been done in by the cold winter.  There is debate amongst the locals, some of whom think they should replant immediately and others who think that the old vines may yet come back from the brink.  Often, it’s just one or two porteurs that are affected and some think that even vines with no buds in 2012 might be able to heal themselves for 2013 or 2014.

Anyway, this was one of the first things I saw on my arrival.  And it was hard to see so many of these old plants suffering.  But the winemakers around here are level-headed and patient.  They wait to see what should be done and focus their energy on making the most out of 2012.

The first days of sunshine bring out the St Chamonds!

There had been some light rains to soften up the soil and a couple days of sunshine after light rain inspire all the winemakers to head out with their tractors to work the soil.   A lot of the time, the older vines in Chateauneuf are planted so close together that modern equipment can’t pass through the rows, and the galets roulés that cover the ground make it very hard for enjambeurs to pass so almost everybody with old parcels uses the st chamond, a treaded tractor from the 1950′s.

There are lots of great photos and memories from the trip, so we’ll post more about that later.  Especially have to remember to post about the rabbit hidden in that last photo! ;D

A big thanks to the Chambre d’Agriculture who helped us find the best grape varieties, choosing the right clones to demonstrate varietal typicity on our terroir at O’Vineyards.

What is an Ampelographic Garden?

Ampelography is a big word used to describe the visual study and identification of grape vines.   And that’s basically what you can do here.  Wander down a row of vines and see if you can tell the difference between Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc.  Or can you tell Clairette from Picquepoul?  Which plants have leaves split into three parts and which have leaves with five parts?  Which varieties have the most ample fruit clusters?  The most leaf growth?  And so on.

Why is this fun and not just for wine nerds?

It’s just a few dozen plants, and it seems pretty nerdy, but we think it’ll be very fun.

A lot of the folks who visit O’Vineyards ask what the difference is between Merlot and Shiraz.  So it’s great to have a simple visual demonstration of how each of these varieties are unique and specially adapted to different conditions.  It’s much more exciting to show people some examples of differences than just saying “Well they’re all genetically different which results in having varying amount, shape, size and placement of leaves and fruit.”

Varietial wine are very popular in many countries.  Often times, people will just ask me “what type of wine is this?” meaning what varieties is it made up of?  Wine drinkers in the US and UK are always keen to learn the difference between grape varieties.

Planting the Grape Vines:

Some photos of Joe O’Connell planting his young vines and Jean Heritier, director at the Chambre d’Agriculture de l’Aude, helping out.

Here’s a full list of the grape varieties (and their clones and rootstocks) in our ampelographic garden… before anybody yells at me, I know some of these aren’t mediterranean.  But they should be fun to look at and they might exemplify the special climate we have in the Cabardes north of Carcassonne that allows us to grow some grape varieties like Merlot, Cot, and Cabernet

Reds:

• Cabernet Franc – 332 CALMET / 110 R
• Cabernet Sauvignon - 15 / 161 49 C
• Syrah - 524 / 161 49 C
• Terret - CONS / 1103 P
• Carignan - 274 / 333 EM
• Cinsault - BED PLAI / 110 R
• Cot (Malbec) – 594/ 140 RU
• Grenache Noir - 433 / FERCAL
• Marselan - 980 / SO4
• Merlot - 184 CAL / FERCAL
• Mourvedre - 360 / 110 R
• Pinot Noir - 375 / 140 RU

• Chardonnay - 96/ SO4
• Chenin - 220/ SO4
• Grenache Blanc - 143 / 110 R
• Macabeu - CONS MAC PR / 110 R
• Marsanne - 574 / FERCAL
• Mauzac - 740 / 140 RU
• Roussanne - 468 / 333 EM
• Sauvignon - 108 / SO4
• Vermentino - 795 / 140 RU
• Clairette (gris) - CONS / 1103 P
• Picquepoul (gris) - CONS / 1103 P

It’s tough being away from the vineyard for so long, but I see it’s still in good hands with mom and dad.

The tourists are starting to flow through too and they’re still having a lot of fun greeting visitors.

Some of our regulars, Michael and Fay, came by to kick off the season and they took lots of nice pictures.  It’s nice to see some of the same faces every season because that’s a sign that O’Vineyards is fun enough to keep coming back.  And it’s cool that they like us enough to share the destination with their friends and relatives, bringing somebody new along each time.

It’s really magical to meet strangers and quickly become friends.  Folks like Michael and Fay feel like part of the family and we’re proud and lucky that they stumbled across O’Vineyards two years ago when we were just starting to offer tours!

If you’re looking to visit a vineyard near Carcassonne or eat some delicious home cooking with a winemaking family, drop us an email!

The Alternative Tasting

Basically, we just did a fun wine tasting where we encouraged people to describe our wines with images that Louise Hurren had picked out for our tasting booklet.  Forcing people to think about a wine with images instead of words gets them to think outside the box instead of falling back on the oft repeated tasting note vocab like rich, balanced, and a laundry list of fruit.

Furthermore, it empowers novice drinkers to review wines without worrying that they’re using the wrong word.  The experts can make us feel inadequate about language sometimes, but they pretty much have no dominion in the land of photo reviews.

Why was this tasting on the Pavillion 2.0 space?

This tasting was held at the Internet space of Vinisud and there’s a good reason for that!  The reason for the prominence of the tasting note is largely grounded in the limitations of print media.  Limited space means we talk in pure descriptors without any conjugation.  But the Internet doesn’t pose the same challenge.  We can have infinite words and infinite photos in full color.  And heck we can even use moving pictures, music, and other media that were previously impossible to include in printed wine journalism.  The Internet provides us with a path to escape the tyranny of the tasting note!

So I did a little presentation on this topic to get everybody thinking outside the box before we got to drinking outside the box:

All the slides are available on slideshare with relevant links to related articles in the penultimate slide.

Results

I’d say everybody had a blast.  Including a lot of wine journalists (showing once again that even they can be fed up with tasting note format).  I originally wanted to do a tasting with music and video and all sorts of crazy stuff.  Thankfully, our group’s organizer Louise had the good sense to rein it in and focus on photos.

We had less than an hour to run the event so it was good to keep it simple and focused.  We got insanely good feedback about the event and it has already spawned several requests for similarly styled “alternative tastings”.  We also got several good ideas from our tasters who offered up ways to evolve the program and make it even more interesting.  Doing physical touchy feely tastings, doing musical tastings, tasting in darkness, drawings instead of photos, and so on.

In terms of tasting notes, I think we all received a wide range of notes.  I got everything from Lego man to Dutch masters.  I got several of the He/She picture that makes me wonder if I shouldn’t change my look.  Some of the outsiders noted that certain age groups tended to pick certain pictures (the more daring ones) more frequently than other demographics.  I’m sure we’ll compile more on this at our next meeting.

Everybody had fun tasting and I think this sort of event gets people to think and talk about wine in a new and stimulating way without feeling overly stuffy or pretentious.  A success!

Ryan O’Connell is moving to California for part of 2012.  The company I’m working with in California is looking for new wines and new business opportunities and they think I can help.  I think I can help too.

I’m leaving tomorrow.  I’ll be travelling back and forth from the US to Languedoc all year, so I’m not totally detached from the vineyard and the region I call home.  And my very competent parents will continue their stewardsship of O’Vineyards in my absence.

I’ve started a new blog called kidnapa (because I’m being kidnapped to Napa) which will probably have a lot of articles comparing France and California or just talking about the west coast of the US.

Love That Languedoc will continue (largely as an aggregator site).  I am also accepting guest posts so let me know if you’d like to contribute to that blog.

This blog will continue to have posts about O’Vineyards and all the random wine junk I think about that doesn’t fit on my other blogs.

Wish me luck.

Here’s the video:

You can find either of us floating around ViniSud if you’re in Montpellier this week.  Although if you’re looking for Nina (let’s face it: nobody is looking for me) then keep in mind she’s no longer blonde.

On the off chance that you do look for me instead, I’ll be glad to share more information about Carcassonne, the Cabardes or the O’Connells.

Twitter at Vinisud

Two years ago, there were a handful of people tweeting at Vinisud.  I actually got multiple journalists to visit the O’Vineyards stand just because we answered their tweets and invited them to come by.  That’s a pretty big score for less than 140 characters.

This year, in the days leading up to the event, there is a massive flow of tweets about Vinisud, including the tweets of winemakers, interprofessions, syndicates, and the official @vinisud twitter account.  Six people have tweeted about the wine fair in the time it has taken me to write the first three paragraphs of the post you’re reading.  That’s a big change in just two years!

More Twitter Users at Vinisud

In fact, this shouldn’t be surprising at all.  In January 2010, there were an estimated 127.4K twitter users in France based on a study conducted by Sysomos.  By October of 2010, that number had almost doubled.  And in January 2012, we’re seeing about 5.2 million twitter accounts in France.

• January 2010 – 127,400
• October 2010 – 225,000
• January 2012 – 5,200,000

That’s incredible growth.  It also explains why there’s so much more chatter this year.  There are  40 times as many people to do the chattering.  Plus when you think about it, the first 127,000 to adopt are generally in the tech & communications field.  There are 700,000 informaticiens in France.  So the odds are the winemakers don’t really join the conversation until those guys all do it. ;D

How useful is twitter at Vinisud?

And we come to the question, what use is tweeting for winemakers or anybody else at Vinisud?  It’s not Fukushima.  It’s not Arabian Spring.  It’s a wine fair.  Who cares what you’re drinking right now?

Well, two years ago, it was exceptionally useful.  As I mentioned above, we got tasted by the Wine Enthusiast and several blogs solely because of a tweet.  We were on the Cité de Carcassonne’s communal stand and all the other producers were shocked at how busy we were.  We were also rather shocked!  In 2008, before social media (and before we had developed much of a reputation at all), we had virtually nobody come by the stand.

So Twitter was useful for drawing attention back then.  It was pretty easy.  Look who is talking about vinisud.  Tweet them an invitation to taste your wines.  The end.

But now that there are more of us, it’s harder to stand out from the crowd.  Is this the point of diminishing returns?

The point of increasing returns?

Interestingly, more users also means more listeners!   Sure it takes more time to stand out of the crowd.  But the crowd is bigger so you get more return for your work too.

So all we have to do is figure out how to stand out from the crowd.  So let’s take a look at the crowd.

Promotion of a group – A lot of the tweets are coming from organized groups like AOC syndicates, winemaker collectives, and PR agencies.

This strategy commonly involves tweeting out the stand of the collective group or the stands of individuals who belong to the group.

For example, the AOC Saint Chinian account seems to have been created very recently and specifically for the purpose of tweeting about their presence at Vinisud and similar events.  There are only a few tweets and they’re generally self-promotional invitations.  They only have a handful of followers, so logically they are not tweeting to those few who already follow them.

They are probably hoping to get the attention of folks who don’t already follow them on Twitter.  And to the extent that they’re mentioned here, I guess that works.

This strategy is relatively common.  You can find it again in the AOC Limoux, Groupe UVAL, and others.  Limoux is notable for being more about social interaction most of the time (but they do this “list every winemaker routine” at conferences like Vinisud and Millesime Bio).

While I think a minority of people use this strategy, it tends to be highly visible because it fills the entire vinisud stream with short bursts of messages from the same people.  As seen in the screenshot to the left.

Some groups like the Outsiders (which I belong to) separate these messages by several hours so that they don’t look quite as spammy.

Conversational Use – I think a lot of people are having simple conversations on Twitter.  Like a form of broadcast text messages.  It can be pretty hard to follow the stream of conversation, especially when multiple people get involved.  But it does allow lots of people to get involved in the same discussion, and that is nice.  Much of the conversation at this point is just “@soandso Are you coming to vinisud?”  But there are more intricate dialogues too.

During the event, I anticipate this form of use will increase as Twitter just becomes an effective way to communicate with large groups (largely thanks to Twitter’s tiny data burden).  This is often the kind of use you hear about in the news whether it’s in the context of vapid “I’m eating a muffin” posts or natural disaster and political upheaval articles.  People use the tool for first hand communication/conversation.

Curatorial Use – Curators use Twitter to present things that they find elsewhere on the Internet.  Obviously I am a big fan of this school (as should be apparent since we’re getting to the end of a lengthy listing of different uses of Twitter at wine conferences).  For an idea of what this looks like, you can look at Andy Abramson, a blogger who is visiting the region in the time leading up to the conference.

I should note that there is a fine line (or no line?) between curatorial use and the group use mentioned above.  In fact, groups are trying to curate their group members.  But it just feels different.  I can’t really put my finger on it.  Maybe some other day.

—

If you want to stand out from this crowd, you’re going to need to do something eye-catching and different.  Be the best curator, the most entertaining conversationalist, the coolest group, or invent a new use!

For lists of winemakers at Vinisud that I know very well, try 7 wines that tell a story or 8 Outsiders at Vinisud.

There has been a big response to the Vinisud guide so far but I can imagine that people would like a list that isn’t curated by me.  After all, I tend to pick my buddies and so you’ll see the same names crop up over time.

Well this list is actually just an email I got from a PR person who specializes in wine.  One day, they’re going to figure out that they can publish this stuff on their own blogs, and I’ll be out of an audience.  But since there’s been good feedback for all the vinisud guides, here’s a list curated by somebody other than me (although I couldn’t resist adding my own annotation in blue text):

VINISUD list from VINCONNEXION

Mes clients et moi serions heureux de vous recevoir sur leur stand à votre convenance :

Hall 7
Domaine de L’Hortus – stand 7 A 28 - Coteaux du Languedoc Pic Saint-Loup
great property in Pic Saint Loup. One of the big references

Domaine de Haut-Gléon – stand 7 A 69  - Corbières
Sortie du 1er millésime bio et présentation d’une nouvelle gamme aux noms évocateurs, notamment L’Elementerre en rouge et l’Essenciel en rosé.

Hall 10 
Terres de Mer – stand 10 A 33 - Les Maîtres Vignerons de la presqu’île de Saint Tropez et Le Moulin de la Roque à Bandol “Les Maitres Vignerons de la presqu’ile de Saint Tropez” is an awesome name for an indie band

Chez Les Maîtres Vignerons de la presqu’île de Saint-Tropez :  Grain de Glace 2011 & rosé de l’hiver.

Domaine Saint André de Figuière – VIGNOBLES & SIGNATURES – stand 10 B 20 – Côtes de Provence

Hall 11 
Château Les Amoureuses – ASSOCIATION 2 000 VINS D’ARDÈCHE – stand 11 A 24

Vignerons Ardéchois – UVICA – ASSOCIATION 2 000 VINS D’ARDÈCHE – stand 11 A 76

Ortas Cave de Rasteau – stand 11 B 16

Nouvelle gamme Ortas de Crus du Sud pour le circuit traditionnel : Châteauneuf du Pape, Gigondas, Tavel, Vacqueyras, et un IGP “Petit As”. I’ve never heard of IGP “Petit As”, but it instantly became my favorite denomination name after “La Clape” (for mostly the same reasons).

Domaine Alain Jaume & Fils – VIGNOBLES & SIGNATURES – stand 11 B 17
Châteauneuf du Pape, Lirac, Vacqueyras (nouveau membre du Club en 2012)

Domaine Brusset – stand 11 C 16
Cairanne, Gigondas…

Cave de Tain l’Hermitage – stand 11 C 76
Un engagement fort pour un développement durable (rapport disponible auprès de Murielle Chardin-Frouin)
Développement de l’oenotourisme, avec notamment le parcours “Sur les pas de Gambert” this walking trail has signposts with qr codes and stuff. cool idea.

Les Vignerons de Rasteau et de Tain l’Hermitage VRT – stand 11 C 76
Lancement en GMS d’une gamme Ortas dans les 3 couleurs : un Côtes du Rhône Villages, un Rasteau sec, un VDN. Des vins issus du sourcing de la Cave de Rasteau.

Mas Amiel – stand 11 D 16 Legendary vin doux producers in Maury.

Domaine Pierre Gaillard – VIGNOBLES & SIGNATURES – stand 11 D 87
Côte Rôtie, Faugères, Banuyls (nouveau membre du Club en 2012) My mom is doing an off event with them on Tuesday

Hall 12 
InterVins sud-est – stand 12 A 68
Dégustation en avant-première du TOP 50. Ces 50 vins sélectionnés parmi 14 IGP (jury du 30 janvier à Orange) sont la vitrine des vins IGP du sud-est ; ils sont issus d’une véritable mosaïque de terroirs viticoles. Des vins dans les 3 couleurs, vins de cépages et d’assemblage.

Château de la Selve – Association 2 000 vins d’Ardèche – stand 12 A 36

Château de Gaudou – stand 12 E 29 -Cahors

DEUX RENDEZ-VOUS PARTICULIERS :

“Un dimanche à la campagne” : dimanche 19 février de 13 à 19 h avec le Club Vignobles & Signatures
Le Domaine de l’Hortus (Coteaux du Languedoc Pic Saint-Loup, à Valflaunès), membre du Club Vignobles & Signatures, organise “un dimanche à la campagne”. La famille Orliac, propriétaire de ce domaine, fera visiter le vignoble ; les 17 propriétés formant le Club Vignobles & Signatures feront déguster leurs meilleurs millésimes et les nouveaux vins 2011 (invitation et plan d’accès joints).

Dégustation permanente à Vinisud du TOP 50 des IGP du sud-est : hall 12 stand A 68 InterVins sud-est
Dégustation en avant-première du TOP 50. Ces 50 vins sélectionnés parmi 14 IGP (jury du 30 janvier à Orange) sont la vitrine des vins IGP du sud-est ; ils sont issus d’une véritable mosaïque de terroirs viticoles. Des vins dans les 3 couleurs, vins de cépages et d’assemblage.

Like all the great music and art festivals, Vinisud draws a lot of talent to the area where it’s held (Montpellier).  So every day, after the fair ends, the party is just beginning for other people.

The French refer to afterhours parties and tastings as “OFF’ events.  This is a run down of all the OFF events I’ve heard about so far.  Feel free to add your own in the comments section or email me if I’m missing some.

If you find this list helpful, consider tweeting about it or sending a link to your friends by email.

Events that require a reservation or paid entry are marked as such.  Note that virtually all of these events are meant for wine buffs.  Especially the ones that are invitation only.  You should probably only attend if you’re in the trade or press, or if you can demonstrate a pretty professional enthusiasm for wine.  The dinner events are probably more open to amateur visitors.  Don’t get mad at me! You know I don’t make the rules.

Sunday OFF Events

Le Vin de Mes Amis – 14h-19h – Domaine de Verchant 34170 Castelnau le Lez
RSVP to charlotte.senat@gmail.com
Cost 10€
Vin de Mes Amis blog
PDF of invitation vdm 2012 pdf
A huge list of very good wines.  A lot of the usual suspects from Changer l’Aude en Vin, but tons more to boot.  See page 2 of the Vin de Mes Amis PDF for details.  I heard that this might be at Trinque Fougasse O’Nord but the invitation says Domaine de Verchant. Look into it if you’re interested!

Haut les Vins! – 10h-20h – Chateau de Flaugergues (in Montpellier)
official website
list of participants
A large group of winemakers from all around France, and a couple from Portugal, Spain and even Serbia.  This gang will be doing their tasting at a Domaine that is actually located within Montpellier’s city limits.  My buddy Benoit will be pouring his zero dosage Champagne and lots of other good winemakers are in attendance.  It’s open all Sunday so if you get to Montpellier early, this is a great way to ease into ViniSud.  But don’t party too hard as you have three days of salon ahead of you!

ViniFilles – 18h30 – Jam 100 rue Ferdinand de Lesseps 34000Montpellier
invitation required
contact presse@vinifilles.fr
This group of Languedoc Roussillon winemaking women are having a rock show and tasting at the Jam.  There’s a buffet and ample wine.  The bands playing are Les Gazelles de Bruxelles and La Mal Coiffée.  But there is a guestlist so you have to contact them if you want to get in.

Chateauneuf du Pape, Tavel & Rasteau – 19h - Chateau de la Banquiere Vauguieres le Haut 34130 Maugio
dinner & music
invitation only
contact: soiree.crus@hotmail.fr
The AOCs Chateauneuf du Pape, Tavel & Rasteau are organizing a nice dinner with music and winemakers from the three appellations presenting their wines around a buffet dinner.

Monday OFF Events

G-Night, Occupy Grenache – 19h-2h – location not yet announced (underground ;D)
PDF of invitation G-Night Invite Vinisud 2012
Facebook event page
A night devoted to Grenache.  Run by the same people who organized the Grenache Symposium at La Verriere.  Should be fun.  The location is still a surprise so I expect they’ve got something fun in store to reveal it closer to the date.

Le Vin de Mes Amis – 10h-19h – Domaine de Verchant 34170 Castelnau le Lez
RSVP to charlotte.senat@gmail.com
Cost 10€
Vin de Mes Amis blog
PDF of invitation vdm 2012 pdf
Les amis this time around are Jean Yves Bordier with butter and cheeses from Saint-Malo, Irene et Julienne Daniaux with glass art, and Antony Cointre a roving chef.  And a huge list of very good wines.  A lot of the usual suspects from Changer l’Aude en Vin, but tons more to boot.  See page 2 of the Vin de Mes Amis PDF for details.

Haut les Vins! - 10h-18h – Chateau de Flaugergues, Montpellier
official website
list of participants
If you’re not in town on Sunday, they’re doing it all over on Monday.

Contains Sulfites…Mais Pas Trop! – 18h – Le Ban des Gourmands, Place Carnot, Montpellier
Official blog
RSVP required on the official blog
This hilariously named group of reasoned winemakers are doing an event on Monday night at a restaurant. It might be a sit down dinner… the invitation just bills it as an Intergalactic journey.  Reservations should be made before the 10th so hurry up!

Mas de l’Ecriture – 18h-20h30 – Chez Boris (brasserie)
invitation only, for wine trade and press
contact: louisehurren@wanadoo.fr
A 12 year vertical of Mas de l’Ecriture. Pretty stunning opportunity, but very limited space in the venue.

Tuesday OFF Events

Mardi Gras des Gaillardises - 11h-20h – Aeroport Hotel Maugio/Montpellier
blog post about the event
facebook page
25 winemakers will present their wines at the Aeroport Hotel which is easy to get to by using the regular airport shuttles from the Parc des Expositions.  There are some really top notch producers from all over France.  And of particular interest to my blog readers, there are a couple of Internet superstars including my mom from O’Vineyards, Iris Rutz-Rudel from Domaine Lisson, Isabelle Perraud from Cotes de la Moliere, Amy Lillard from La Gramiere, and Lilian Bauchet from Les Bachelards.   So if you’ve been reading our blogs and wondering if the wine is as good as the words, here is your chance.  Full list of vignerons available in the link above; you’ll see there are some heavy hitters.

Mas de l’Ecriture - 18h-20h30 – Chez Boris (bistrot)
invitation only, for wine trade and press
contact: louisehurren@wanadoo.fr
A 12 year vertical of Mas de l’Ecriture.  Note the venue changes from the similarly named Chez Boris Brasserie to Chez Boris Bistrot.  But still limited space.

So OFF that they’re ON

There are a few events that are structured like OFFs or have the spirit of an OFF, but they’re actually going to take place within the walls of ViniSud.

The Outsiders will be teaching you new ways to communicate about wines.

on Monday afternoon at 16h @ the Pavilion 2.0
and
on Tuesday morning at 10h @ the Pavilion 2.0