And you can still come too!  I hope a lot of you swing by Domaine O’Vineyards tomorrow starting around 19h00.  We’ll have some stellar wines open.  You can show up earlier, but we’ll put you to work. ;D

For those of you who cannot come in person, you can still follow along on the live streaming broadcasts.  I’ll have a laptop set up to broadcast a live stream through Live That Languedoc, my ustream channel.

And I’m not the only one. California Wine TV will also be streaming!  I think that their stream will be found on a ustream channel too.

I finally got the flastcreen set up to show cascading tweets all hashtagged with #Cabernet Day.  So you had best be tweeting your little hearts out.  Tweet til the Cab ripens!

Or if you don’t tweet, feel free to leave a comment in this post or in other posts about Cabernet Day.

See you all tomorrow!

Here is the facebook event page for Cabernet Day at O’Vineyards

What the heck is Cab Day?

On September 2nd, a bunch of people around the world will drink Cabernet Sauvignon and talk about it online.  A lot of the talking will happen in real life too at special events organized in wineries around the world.  But a lot MORE of the talking will be happening online.

Some will blog, and even more will casually tweet with the hashtag #Cabernet.  It’s called a tweetup (twitter meetup … I really hate web-related portmanteaus).  And while I personally wanted to have a real-life party, the success of Cab Day will largely be measured by the participation on Twitter and the rest of the online chatter channels.

So that’s basically what Cabernet Day is.  In all transparency it is organized by Rick Bakas, “social media director” for St. Supery in Napa Valley.

Does there need to be a Cab Day?

Cab Day is about celebrating the grape varietal Cabernet Sauvignon, a varietal that is so popular it seems like it doesn’t really need to have a party.  So I guess that’s why some people are asking me “Do we need a Cab Day?” and “Why are we doing Cabernet?”

I’m gonna answer these questions in two parts.  Part 1, since when do we have to attach moral imperatives to wine parties?  Part 2, I need to communicate how awesome Languedoc Cabernet is.

Why people want crazy moral imperatives to party? – A lot of the people who are really into tweetups are also into promoting obscure varietals and communicating on more esoteric themes than Cabernet Sauvignon.   I like talking about rare grape varietals too, which lets you communicate on themes like authenticity, local culture, history, etc.  But I also realize that a mainstream subject can be just as interesting as an obscure one.  And more mainstream topics can bring more people into the fold while very obsucre topics can sometimes alienate people who don’t feel “initiated”.

The interesting mainstream topic – The Languedoc is not known for it’s Cabernet Sauvignon.  We’re a Mediterranean region and you can’t grow Cabernet just anywhere around here.  So the few parts of the Languedoc that do make great Cabernet Sauvignon absolutely must communicate on that.  So I’ll try to round up some Cabs from the Malpere, Cabardes, Aniane and so on.  Cab Day is going to get a lot of people online who are interested in the grape varietal and we’ll be able to talk about how certain parts of the Languedoc make really great Cab.  Sounds like a great opportunity!

And I hope other winemakers and Languedoc fans will take up the banner with me.  Come visit on September 2nd or send your friends.  We’re gonna drink great wine, have a blast, and it should be a lot of fun!

Residents of the United Kingdom can find mixed cases of Domaine O’Vineyards wine online at Naked Wines.  The mixed case will be a perfect introduction the wide range of big, bold red wines we make.  We try to balance that new world compulsion to make extracted, flavorful wines with an old world tendency toward seriousness and restraint.  The result is O’Vineyards and I hope you’ll love it.

Only one way to find out. You have to order our wines online.

We work in the vines all year to make the very best wine possible.  And it’s such a pleasure to find an importer like Naked who is willing to cut back their margins and offer a real deal for the first release across the UK.

But there are only a few hundred cases left!   They just put it up this evening and people are already buying dozens of bottles at a time.  So hopefully you read my blog frequetly enough to catch this deal.  Otherwise, you might miss out.

The mixed case has 2 O’Syrah, 2 Trah Lah Lah, 1 Les Americains, and 1 Proprietor’s Reserve.  But find out all the details by clicking the link at the top of this post!

And how about the slogan, “more leaves, more flavor”?  That’s not strictly true when you look at the science, but it’s pretty catchy and is true in this context.  Do you like it? Hate it?

My emails tend to be very personalized based on what languages you speak, where you’re flying into, whether you have a car or not, etc.   It’s fun setting people up with really good trips, but it takes a lot of time.   And sometimes, people don’t really need super-personalized advice.  If you want a few wine travel ideas around Carcassonne, you might just want to check out Wink Lorch’s Wine Travel Guide – Ideal One-Day Itinerary.

Wink tends to pick places that are equipped to greet you in English.  And for these short one or two day trips, the estates often have restaurants or rooms to stay in so you don’t need to spend half of your wine holiday in a car looking for a poorly marked country road.

The One-Day and Two-Day trips around Carcassonne have really good ideas. Like a short run down to Limoux where you can visit small indie estates and then go to Gayda for a nice meal and a place to stay.  That trip’s especially nice if you have a spouse or travel partner that only drinks white wine.  Or you could do a quick jump north and visit Pennautier who also have a restaurant, rooms, etc.  I would naturally add that while you’re already in Pennautier, you should hop over to O’Vineyards . . . OF COURSE.    I’m just a few kilometers away and I’d really love to see you.

Also, if you’re planning your trip on a Sunday, good luck. You’re best off emailing me.  ryan@ovineyards.com

Anyway, I like Wink’s guide and appreciate the work of her head Languedoc researcher Richard James.

And I’m going to steal this idea of an ideal one-day itinerary if you’re looking to spend a day around Carcassonne or if you are flying in with RyanAir and have a day to spare before driving to your next destination.

Ideal One-Day Itinerary

MORNING

Leave Carcassonne, going northwest on the N113 that sort of follows the Canal du Midi.  Check out O’Vineyards in Villemoustaussou.  33 (0)6 30 18 99 10

Winery visits include young wine tasting from tanks as well as barrel tastings.  Call ahead and we can do a table d’hote where you eat with the winemaker and family.  It’s a lot of fun.

AFTERNOON

Then you have two options.  You either lounge around the vineyard all day drinking delicious wine and soaking in the countryside vistas, or you can get back in the car and head to another destination.

Possible destinations include:

• Chateau Pennautier – Big, fancy winemakers in Pennautier
• Chateau Brau – Organic winemakers in Villemoustaussou (call ahead)
• La Cité de Carcassonne – visit ramparts, have a coffee, just chill out. Whatever you choose to do, you’re doing it in a medieval castle!! How cool is that?

“It’s like a kid in a candy shop when it comes to Languedoc-Roussillon – so much to choose from!”

Cork’d, an offbeat social network devoted to sharing stories about wine, has just published a nice interview with yours truly.

So they shared the O’Vineyards story with their 35,000+ mailing list.  That’s cool.

But more importantly, they’ve been sharing EVERYBODY in the Languedoc-Roussillon’s stories!

• State of the Union: Grenache in the Languedoc-Roussillon’s Maury AOC
• Languedoc-Roussillon: Big Production & Big Value
• Push It To The “Limit” with the Fitou AOC
• Recessionary Times Call For Recessionary Wines: Languedoc-Roussillon Tasting Proves High Value Available in France

I just want to say that I am super excited to see another website putting so much time into the Languedoc and Roussillon.  Remember, we’re one of the biggest wine producing region in the world, and we get relatively little ink in the USA publications.  So thanks, Cork”d.

“Ils sont fiers d’être considérés parmi les meilleurs artisans du vin du Languedoc.  Leur programme bilingue languedocjetaime.com met en valeur notre belle région.”
–Sud de France Export

So needless to say, I’m flattered and honored.  It’s nice to know that one of the biggest powerhouses in promoting the Languedoc-Roussillon thinks that little old Ryan is doing a good job with Languedoc, je t’aime.  It’s like the crazy parallel universe where David and Goliath are buddies and work together for the good of the kingdom. ;-D

And they acknowledge that we’re amidst the best artisanal winemakers in the Languedoc!  Thanks!

I strongly encourage you to visit our winemaker profile at Naked and follow us (button in the top right coner).  THANKS.

And no worries, we’re still wearing all our clothes. If you found this blog post with a google search, you’re probably looking for something more along the lines of this lady:

Or maybe this music video for “Naked as We Came” by Iron and Wine?

Is it weird that the Naked Lady and the little girl in the music video have the same hair and are framed the same way in the youtube still?  Let’s not dwell on that.

Anyway, what you found is the O’Connell family making wine at O’Vineyards. And you’ll thank your lucky stars we’re fully clothed. It’s the wines that are Naked.

And if you read all the way to the bottom of this post, you might still be looking for pictures of girls’ bottoms so here is a gratuitous link to I Love 2 Cook Naked which is totally NOT safe for work or for people with any sort of  hygenic cooking standards.

And on top of this great news, they commissioned a painted wine barrel for the special waiting area they’re installing where patrons can enjoy an apperitif and some olives before being seated in the garden.

For those of you who don’t know, I like to paint. I’m more into engravings and prints, but I enjoy picking up a brush from time to time.  So it was a pleasure to do some simple castle landscapes on one of my old barrels.

Now, I think the Jardin asked a few other winemakers for barrels.  I’ll let you know once they’ve all been installed so we can see who made the prettiest barrel.

One highlight was the launch announcement for the European Wine Blogger’s Conference in Austria this year.  The guy presenting the wines, Willi Klinger, is a champion. He’s amazing. And the wines were neat too.

Also a couple big Languedoc moments which I’ll probably talk more about at Love That Languedoc. But Gerard Bertrand, Puech Haut and O’Vineyards (3 Languedoc properties) all made appearances in the Access Zone on DAY ONE of the LIWF. What that says to me is that the Languedoc is cutting edge on this thing called the Internet.

And of course, if you’d like to see me goofing around with Oscar Quevedo, drinking in the morning, here is the video from Catavino. It has an awkward, wholesome Sesame Street vibe. You know.. if Sesame Street did an episode on winos.

Winery Collaboration from ryan and gabriella opaz on Vimeo.