O’Vineyards Wine & Food was awarded last year with the same Certificate of Excellence!

Thanks to all our International Visitors! Cheers!

Two nights
Spacious room with views on vines, mountains or Carcassonne City lights
O’Vineyards Winery visit
Taste young wines from tanks and barrels
Taste older vintages in bottles
Both nights, enjoy Liz’s five course dinners at the winemaker’s table
Wine included
Value 580€

Book now

Book now and get our special offer 450€ for the complete two night get away. Reservation must be made before March 6th 2013.
Offer valid thru March 15th 2014

For reservations

Please call 33 (0)6 30 18 99 10
Or email ryan@ovineyards.com

Special Offers: 

To redeem our offers, please email us
Get Free 50€ in Wine when you spend 300€ or more at Domaine O’Vineyards: code o’fw12
Get Free meal for two worth 100€ when you book three nights or more at O’Vineyards B&B: code o’b&b12

THINGS to DO at O’VINEYARDS:

O’Vineyards Bed & Breakfast - Sleep at O’Vineyards B&B facilities.
The price of 150€ per night includes:
- a large double room with Queen size or King size bed and views on the vines,
- a welcome glass of wine for two at your arrival,
- a full breakfast for two,
- a complimentary visit of the winery and vines with barrel and tank tasting
- all taxes

O’Vineyards Table d’Hôtes - Eat at O’Vineyards. You don’t need to go to Carcassonne to find good food.  You’ll find it right at O’Vineyards B&B!
“The wines were exceptional…Liz O’Connell is also a wonderful cook and at the vineyard they run cooking classes and also tours where the guests are treated to lovely food as well.”–JamieOliver.com, Danny McCubbin – Editor

For 50€, you can enjoy a 5 course meal prepared by mom and served at the winemaker’s table. You’ll eat with her and you’ll get to learn all of her kitchen secrets. We only use fresh ingredients, we try to find local produce for every course, and much of what you’ll eat is grown on the vineyard itself or seasoned with wild herbs from the nearby plateau!

At O’Vineyards Table d’Hôtes, you can enjoy O’Vineyards wines the way they were meant to be tasted: with my mom’s amazing home-cooking. She’s awesome!  She mixes her French-Vietnamese-New Caledonian heritage with a variety of experiences and world travels in her life to create a unique fusion style of cooking.  And she does it all with local French ingredients!

Domaine O’Vineyards Winery Visits - full visit of winery and vines with barrel and tank tasting. Hors d’oeuvres or Lunch option.
2 hours long with hors d’oeuvres: 25€ per person
4 hours long with Lunch, wine included: 50€ per person

We visit the cellar and winery and talk about the winemaking process, how Wine is Made” The basics of vineyard science (viticulture) and winemaking (oenology).
We taste young wines from tank and barrel and you can learn how tasting young wine is different than commercially-available wine. We can walk through the vines and talk about the soil composition, trellis system, varietals, pruning methods, or anything else that interests you… Learn about the flora surrounding the vineyard and how it relates to the taste and smell of the wine.

The Cathedral at Albi

This is a strange and unique Cathedral. It’s one of the largest brick buildings in the world. So as soon as you see it, you know there’s something special. It’s red brick facade makes it seem like some sort of steampunk response to the Gothic cathedrals of the medieval period. There’s a stark, beautiful contrast between the large gothic gates and brick construction that I’ve never seen anywhere else.

In a way, its strange architecture stands as an interest response to Catharism. The Cathares/Albigeois had protested the ostentation of the Church. After the Pope ruthlessly crushed them, plans commenced to build a massive cathedral in Albi, the symbolic home for the Cathare/Albigeois movement. This Cathedral would have an entirely different construction  with a primarily brick facade that would seem more down to earth than the marble and limestone exteriors on most cathedrals of the age.

Other cool things in Albi Cathedral

There are many more points of interest in the cathédrale Sainte-Cécile d’Albi which was the former seat of the archdiocese of Albi.

For example, it has one of the few remaining fully intact Rood Screens in France. This was a massive limestone wall that separated the congregation from the choir in the Medieval period. It features really intricate carvings that make it seem almost lacelike. A lot of these screens were destroyed during the period of secularization following the French revolution. And many more were lost when the Church stopped separating the choir from the congregation. This cathedral was big enough to build a new choir area in the congregation’s side of the church so they didn’t have to destroy the wall.

Another neat aspect is the original ceiling painting which is incredibly vivid despite never being touched up.

In any case, you’ll definitely want to take the audio guided tour of the cathedral (the treasures are less interesting to me. more standard fare like random saintly body parts, bits of Christ’s cross, and so on.)

Some Photos of Albi’s Cathedral

• 25% off of your room (saving 38€/night)
• Complimentary case of wine (valued at: €100) *

Bloggers and online communicators are amazing

Basically, we think that the Languedoc region needs more love, and we want to encourage online communicators because they are perfect for the job. Bloggers, Tweeters, and so on have really helped O’Vineyards out so this is our way of saying thanks.

We value all of our word of mouth recommendations, and we recognize the exceptional importance of Internet word-of-mouth since it’s more permanent and searchable and it really builds our B&B’s reputation.

If you write about your holiday, the whole region benefits

The truth is the whole region benefits from good publicity online, and we want to reward people who take the time to share their holiday experience. Even if you spend a week in other parts of the region and only swing by to see us for one night, we will be happy to extend this discount because we appreciate what you’re doing for our region.

We’re really happy that some of our visitors share their trips with the whole world (whether people run their own blogs or share vacation photos and posts frequently on sites like facebook and twitter), or write about their trip on various wine and travel sites.

And we think you deserve a special treat for all this sharing (even if it’s fun to share, we know it consumes a lot of your time!)

So, as of now, we’ll be offering this spectacular discount and some free wine to boot to anybody who shares their trip online.

Email us now to get your discounted stay and free case of wine at O’Vineyards

Be sure to mention that you’re applying for the online communicator discount in the comment section, and please give us links to the sites where you share your travel experiences.

We look forward to meeting you. You’re real ambassadors for the region and we’ll roll out the red carpet!

This idea was inspired by Les Jardins du Village, our neighbors in the Pic Saint Loup, who offer a similar discount to anybody who shares their love for the Cevennes online. We think it’s a great idea and hope that more accommodations will recognize the value of social media communicators visiting the region.

visitors sharing the love on facebook

Here are some pictures of les Ampelofolies from January 22, 2012.

This event takes place in Moussoulens, just twenty minutes from O’Vineyards B&B.

And even if you miss the Ampelofolies, there are truffle markets all around Aude for almost every weekend of January (and some in December).  This is the season when we get fresh truffles in this part of the south of France.  And we’re happy to incorporate them into the meals at O’Vineyards Bed & Breakfast too.

If you have a camera, the goal is to take a tight shot with as many people wearing berets as you can fit in the frame.  There are bonus points if you take a picture where the beret-wearers outnumber the non-bereted heads.

Today, I was at les Ampelofolies 2012 in Moussoulens and I played the beret game while waiting for the truffle market to open.  Here are the results:

If you’re with friends, play to see who can get the most berets in one shot.  Or take a picture of every beret and compare photos later to see who got the most interesting looking hats.

There is also the inverted beret game where you try to take a photo of the largest possible area WITHOUT somebody wearing a beret.  At some events, this is harder than it sounds!

You can also include optional rules like “No moustaches” so you have to take a picture with a beret but without a mustache.  Again, much harder than it sounds!

And finally, there is Beret bingo although this requires a little more preparation.  And it deserves its own blog post.

“O’Vineyards wine tasting combined with chocolate tasting = successful Christamas Eve!”
–MS

It’s absolutely heart warming to see pictures, tweets, and status updates about so many of you enjoying our wines during the holidays.  If you had a glass of O’Vineyards, I hope it was the perfect wine for a festive occasion.  A gathering of family and friends.  And hopefully you had something good to eat!

Here are a few of the photos that people posted over the holidays with their O’Vineyards.  Please feel free to share yours too!  Just post them on facebook, twitter, naked wines, or email them to me.  :)

“Happy new year! Looking forward to visiting o’v in 2012 ”
–FR

You might only get to visit us every once in a while, but you can always open a bottle of Trah lah lah or Proprietor’s Reserve to relive the memories.

For more customer reviews, see the O’Vineyards wine reviews category on my winery blog.

Even though Villemoustaussou is just a tiny village (and Carcassonne only has about 50,000 residents), the region is so beautiful and its produce is so bountiful that we have a huge selection of chefs, markets and restaurants to enjoy. It’s really one of the most beautiful places on earth for a foodie because of the incredible diversity of our produce. Even in the winter months, we have rich meals showcasing ingredients like duck, goose, sea food, mountain cheeses, chestnuts, squash, and so on.

Some of these ingredients took center stage at our Christmas lunch. Photographs below:

If you stay at O’Vineyards B&B, you can easily venture out to restaurants like la Barbacane. Or you can stay in and order a meal at the winemaker’s table where you’ll enjoy the same sort of ingredients in a more home-cooked style.

Rich history, rich food, rich wine. What else could you ask for during the holidays?

La Barbacane
Place Auguste-Pierre Pont
11000 Carcassonne
+33 4 68 71 98 71
reservations@hoteldelacite.com

Thursdays to Mondays
from 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm
Reservations required; Book a table
Download the autumn menu