Saint Vincent Celebration in Carcassonne

“We do good with very good,” was the motto of Prosper Montagne, master French chef and culinary writer, recognized as one of the most celebrated talents of French cuisine.

Club Prosper Montagne is unique. It brings together all areas of Food and Drink: butchers, bakers, chefs, chocolatiers,  farmers, restaurateurs, caterers, winemakers,… all are committed to develop quality products.

The club radiates throughout France with presidents by region . Its scope of action never stops expanding. Internationally, delegations are also present in Germany, Belgium, Hungary, Japan, Luxembourg and Switzerland.

Alphonse Caravaca, President of Prosper Montagné Carcassonne put together a great event, celebrating the Patron Saint of Grape growers & Winemakers with a delicious private 350 sold out Lunch.

On Saturday January 19th, festivities will start at 11:00 with Deputy Mayor of Carcassonne leading the parade. Participants will be guided through the streets of the Bastide St Louis to the Church of St. Vincent where will be held the blessing of the wine!
Truffles supplied by Philippe Barriere will be the hi-light of the Celebration. Lunch will be served by a young and talented caterer.

The five winemakers representing the Region are:
Joe O’Connell, O’Vineyards,
Raymond Julien, Chateau Mirausse,
Jean Louis Poudou,  Domaine de La Tour Boisée,
Domaine de l’Horte,
Antech Limoux.

Alphonse called a meeting to verify the final preparation…we drank and ate as much as we talked!

Katie Preparing Chef Liz's Hors d'Oeuvres

One Brave Soul in O’Vineyards Kitchen…

One brave soul dared to spend a few hours in the shoes, or rather apron of Chef Liz to participate in one of O’Vineyards’ fascinating Food & Wine Workshop. Katie’s parents hungrily observed the process as she learned how to prepare a multiple-course meal under the guidance of none other than Chef Liz herself. Katie began by testing her skills at preparing Chef Liz’s unique sweet-and-savory hors d’oeuvres:

• Pear-Roquefort Crumpets with almond slices and coconut shavings
• Homemade Spring Rolls and Chef Liz’s garlic and lime soy sauce
• Melted Goat Cheese and Herb Crumpets, starring rosemary and thyme from O’Vineyards very own herb garden (yes, they do grow plants other than grapevines!)
• Black Pudding Stuffed Apples

Not dainted by this initial challenge, Katie dared to attmempt the second step: preparing Liz’s internationally inspired main dishes, including:

• Bami (an Indonesian national dish composed of vermicelli noodles, spring onions and other vegetables)
• Roasted turkey à la crème fraîche with leeks
• Perfectly grilled Merguez, the celebrated lamb- and beef-based sausages typically enjoyed in North African dishes
• Mashed Potatoes with Melted Brie
• Twice-Baked Potatoes à l’Américaine, with fresh chopped bacon, melted brie and chives from the O’Vineyards herb garden

The second-to-last challenge in Katie’s Workshop involved learning which herbs go best with which cheeses. She found that some of the best pairings were sheep’s milk cheese with rosemary, and the brie with a sage leaf.

To finish “avec une petite douceur” (with a little touch of sweetness) — as Mom and Dad’s tastebuds could hardly hold out another minute — Chef Liz walked her through the process of making the perfect Tarte Tatin, a sort of carmelized apple upside down pie, if I may dare. This final challenge proved to be a difficult one: properly carmelizing sugar is no easy task, and neither is the scary-impressive-pie-flip-over step, but Katie pulled off these final stunts with flying colors.

Katie was very proud (and after surmounting the challenge, quite hungry too). The other guests around the table were delighted to taste the end result of Katie’s culinary escapade, accompanied with none other than Joe’s pairing of O’Vineyards delicious wine! Having personally experienced all of these dishes and many more delicious meals paired with O’Vineyards wines at the Winemaker’s Table, I can only say…

“Way to go, Chef!”

Way to Go, Chef!

“C’était une très agréable visite pour nous, surtout parce que nous n’étions pas les seuls à nous amuser–eux aussi!”

(It was a very enjoyable visit for us, especially since we were not the only ones having fun, [the O’Connells] too!)

This morning, I had the idea to reread my TripAdvisor review from when I first visited O’Vineyards back in September 2010. I was not surprised to rediscover my first impression of this place–it hadn’t changed one bit. Since day one of my current stay, I have been telling myself the same thing every day: the O’Connells have way too much fun making wine. Their joy and passion is contagious, too.

So we would like to take this opportunity to send out a special thanks to all the guests who have kindly left a review on the “Domaine O’Vineyards” TripAdvisor site. We greatly appreciate your praise, compliments, feedback and striking photos of our vineyard (see below for a few of our guests’ own snapshots). Above all, it helps us keep all the memories alive too!

Whether you stayed at our Bed and Breakfast, dined with us at our Winemaker’s table, or simply popped in for a tasting, we’d love to keep in touch through the TripAdvisor site. Donnez-nous de vos nouvelles…Don’t be a stranger!

Cette photo de Domaine O’Vineyards est fournie gracieusement par TripAdvisor

Cette photo de Domaine O’Vineyards est fournie gracieusement par TripAdvisor

Cette photo de Domaine O’Vineyards est fournie gracieusement par TripAdvisor

At the end of October, a mysterious persona calling themselves Vinconnu appeared on facebook and twitter.  They teased prominent members of the French wine blogging community with riddles and hints about their secret identity for over a month until unveiling themselves at a big party in Paris.

The big reveal came as quite a shock to me.  It was France’s biggest online retailer cdiscount.com  — in brief, a company that once struggled with the onus of being a big corporation with a very mercantile brand personality is trying to make themselves more human and show their dedication to putting good wine on their site.

Why is CDiscount a surprise?

I was surprised for lots of reasons.  First of all, winemakers normally have to pay big bucks to get meetings with vendors of this size.  Either directly through pay to play schemes that put buyers in contact with sellers or indirectly by investing in marketing and promotional materials that make you seem important enough to talk to them.  Here we have the biggest online retailer in France contacting me and because a retailer invited me to Paris. Pretty interesting role reversal.

I’m surprised because CDiscount sort of has a reputation for being a big company that might care more about SKUs and logistics than they care about wine selection.  But this event is sort of the opposite of that.  This event really reached out to people, and it was playful.  Playful is the word I’ve been looking for.  At first glance, CDiscount doesn’t seem like the kind of company that would value being playful (or even know how to be playful).  But that first glance is clearly wrong.  I stereotyped this retailer as being just another big business that doesn’t get my generation, but they’re showing a genuine interest in communication.

Bruce Lee prepares to open champagne with swift chopping motion

CDiscount’s Vinconnu Party

The party was great. I feel like I might sound silly stressing this point over and over, but they were all really friendly.  I think the ambiance of an event like this is important.  Bigger companies can often give off a sort of creepy vibe when they try to buy friends in the online wine community.  So it’s rare for events of this nature to actually have a friendly feel to them.  Also, big companies can often stumble when it comes to communicating with people online… they can get very clunky and hamfisted.  Actually, I recall some shenanigans on the Passion du Vin forums involving this very same company back in 09.  It’s good to see that their communication efforts are so much more advanced now.  Things felt much more authentic and we got to meet a team that really does feel proud of the wine and spirits they offer on the site.  They’re not just peddling Mouton Cadet and Vieux Moulin.  They have the big references, but they’re hoping to also sell bottles of wines like Embres & Castelmaure.  Warms the cockles.

Quality of wine

I think they expect most of the bloggers who attended to talk about the quality of the wines.  Do some tasting notes.  Well…that’s not really my style, but I’ll say the wine selection was great.  There were a few real knockouts, a lot of solid wines at fair prices, and a couple wines I don’t care for (but I’m sure those have a big market and are some of the best wines on the site, so what do I know?)  There were some classics like Embres & Castelmaure being poured and I got to meet Bernard Magrez who had some of his Roussillon on the table too (although I think he’s a little bit prouder of his St Emilion–nobody’s perfect 😉 ).

 Successful communication effort?

I think this was a very successful communication effort.  Even though I’m totally on board with online sales and great prices (hello, naked wines), I’m not a fan of the corporate “bin end” image that cdiscount cultivated in its early days.  An image reinforced by the company’s past indiscretions.  And yet they lured me in with a playful mystery and I ended up enjoying myself a lot.  They convinced me that there really is a fundamental change in the way they want to be perceived online.  I know some of the bloggers who were invited were still smugly disapproving of the company by night’s end (you can’t win everybody every time), but I’m personally very curious about the future of cdiscount.  I have high hopes!

I can’t wait to see how it develops.  First and foremost on the new blog: La Cave se Rebiffe

Big shout out to Heaven, the communication agency that tantalyzed us so.   And Le Comptoir General, venue for the event.

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 because the slightly early harvest means a lot of winemakers are too busy to celebrate with us.

Some winemakers managed to send samples to be tasted in their absence.  Notably, Gerard Bertrand sent a few bottles of his Cabernet Franc from Cigalus.  That’s a big name in the region and I’m so excited that he decided to participate.  And everybody enjoyed tasting the wine while watching high def video footage of the Corbieres vineyard from a helicopter!  Bling bling.  We’ve come a long way from  #Cabernetday’s humble beginnings. ;D

I was also really pleased to see some winemakers tore themselves away from harvest to come in person.  And they brought wines!  Which is also very exciting because a lot of the growers around here are very shy and don’t like promoting their own wine. I’m very proud of them for coming out and braving a mostly anglophone audience to help share some of the Cabernet love.

Sharing with Anglophones

And it should be noted that this year was VERY English-speaking.  Many English families retire to this region around Carcassonne, and I feel like they make up a really strong community that will enjoy a lot of local wines.  Probably 90% of the attendees were speaking in English.

And I’ll add that almost everybody tonight was a wine novice, which is great.  I was happy to have a very professional/wine trade crowd in 2010.  But I’m even happier to share the joys of Cabernet with an amateur/novice crowd.  People who just love life in the south of France and want to drink some good local wine.

We got to spend a lot of time sharing simple winemaker pleasures like “how to taste grapes for ripeness“.  We all went out to the rows of Cabernet Sauvignon and tasted how the fruit was coming along.  Chewed the skins and seeds separately.  Talked about the importance of sugar and phenolics.

It was a lot of fun because we had a huge deal of neighborhood support.  I’m getting too mushy, but it felt wonderful to have such a big block party here at O’Vineyards all around some Cabernet.

Lots of good friends!

2011″s Cab Day turned out very different from 2010 here in the Languedoc, so I’m anxious to hear everybody’s reports.  I hope everybody has a piece of the magic we had here in the Languedoc Roussillon!  Thanks again to Rick Bakas for organizing a wonderful Cab Day.

Cabernet Day is coming up on September 1, 2011 and O’Vineyards is going to be a French HQ for this International celebration of Cabernet grapes.

Domaine O’Vineyards

885 Ave de la Montagne Noire
11620 Villemoustaussou

Cabernet Day

Entrée libre
1 Septembre
De 18h-24h (pour synchroniser avec les États Unis)
Ambiance amicale
Grignotage, Beaucoup de Vin. 😉

What is Cabernet Day?

It’s an International event that gets people around the world to talk about and taste Cabernet wines.  People will be buzzing on all sorts of Internet forums and in the real world too.  The whole thing is organized by Rick Bakas, an American wine promoter and social media guy.

At O’Vineyards, we’ll be having a big tasting at night.  Hopefully lots of winemakers will show up with their own wines. And it’ll be just as much fun as last year’s event.  We’ll be trying to put as much of the event as possible online.  And we’ll be staying up late to synchronize with the Californians who can’t start drinking until our usual bedtimes here in France.

Why is Cabernet great?

I talked about this last year too.  A lot of people criticize Cabernet, especially in the Languedoc.  After all, it’s not a varietal that’s really from here.  But I stick to my guns!  Particularly in areas like the Cabardes and Malepere where we have a distinctly Atlantic influence on our climates.  We get winter water reserves deep down in our clay soils and we get more surface area of leaves and we have fresher nights during the late summer.  And all that means we can play with Cabernet to make some very interesting wines.  They’re not mere imitations of Bordeaux or California.  They’re unique and delicious expressions of a great grape varietal.

Furthermore, Cabernet has an important part in the contemporary Languedoc scene.  In the 1970s, when nobody believed in the region’s wines, Aimé Guibert came and planted Cabernet in the Terrasses du Larzac.  And since then, many have followed his example in the higher altitude terroirs of the Languedoc.

But do we need a Cabernet Day?

It’s not about needing a Cabernet Day.  Cabernet Day is coming whether you like it or not.   So my choice is to be a part of this fun excuse to party or to stand aside and “save my energy” for another cause.

Well, I’ve got lots of energy!  And I love an excuse to party. 🙂

A lot of people are going to be thinking about Cabernet on September 1st.  It’s my job to make them also think about the Languedoc. 🙂  Let’s not leave this beautiful opportunity to other more ambitious wine regions.  Let’s show the world how much we love Cabernet.

On the 4th of July, I returned from the UK (a daring reenactment of American Independence Day ;D). I had just completed a massive UK wine tour with my UK importer Naked Wines. Looking back, I can’t believe how much fun it was.

Fun, laid back tastings

One important element of the fun is that Naked Wines doesn’t take itself too seriously. Customers could pour their own glasses of wine. This might seem like a small thing, but it’s really important. All too often, tastings get this artificial feeling where winemakers or professionals stand on one side of the table and tasters stand on the other side. This artificial divide really dampens the mood. Plus I always feel like I’m in a zoo, being stared at. And tasters often feel that they are asking permission for the wine.
I much prefer the free and open tasting where everybody’s equal. Anybody can pour a bottle. And winemakers can switch to the other side of the table if we so desire!

Innovative Formats & Weird locations

We also had fun doing weird tastings. I’ve talked about our guerilla pop up wine tastings before.  The general idea is to play with the wine tasting format and spice it up.  We try to make wine less scary and more fun while bringing the delicious fruits of our labor to as many new markets as possible.

And we also had some wacky locations like the Royal Arms Museum. I still think it’s a miracle nobody tried to get on a horse or swing a halberd at a winemaker.

Meeting Angels & Vineshare Owners

Another crucial part of the tour was meeting Angels.  O’Vineyards couldn’t exist if it weren’t for all the support of the Naked Wines Angels.  And we only know a few of them (the more talkative ones).  This tour was an opportunity to meet several hundred angels whose contributions allow me to continue making wine!

Some of the angel encounters were especially exciting since we just launched our new vineyard share program.  100 Angels have rented vines near mine and are paying me to take care of the parcel and make their wines.  I got to meet about a dozen of these angels in person for the first time. 🙂

There was always this terrifying moment when the investor first tasted my wine.  Thankfully, they all loved it!  And here’s a video commentary from one of the angels/investors who had just met me for the first time.

Meeting other winemakers

I got to meet a lot of other winemakers during the tour too.  I honestly expected more violence and argument between the winemakers.  But they’re all really great people to hang out with.  It’s clear that Naked Wines hires based on personality as well as quality of wine.  And that makes sense because ultimately, we all have to be able to interface with their clients on the website’s social network as well as in tastings like these!

It’s also cool to taste so many of the most popular wines on the site.  It gives me real perspective into what angels love.  And that helps inform my winemaking decisions at the vineyard.

Being Part of a Movement

Whenever I see something like this photo of some of the dadaists and constructivists in the early twentieth century all meeting together to take goofy photos… I think it must have been crazy to live at that time. To be surrounded by all that talent and energy.

Toward the end of tour, as all the winemakers and naked staff sat around the dinner table, I felt like I was living in one of those special moments. Like I’m part of a really important movement. All I’m doing is making wine, but I belong to this big group of people who might be changing the way the wine and food world work. I don’t know how important it really is, but it sure feels important.

It feels great.

This post is about a “popup” wine tasting that took place during my UK Tour with Naked Wines in 2011.

What is a pop up tasting?

Whereas most wine tastings are organized weeks or months ahead of time, popups are spontaneous and ephemeral.

Organizers of conventional tastings will spend a lot of energy picking the perfect venue, getting the word out, finding a way to get the wine to the venue, organizing for tables and glasses and spitoons, and a lot of other work.  Pop up tastings however are more guerilla-styled.  They just pop up out of nowhere in the middle of workplaces, parks, and other public places.

How spontaneous is a pop up tasting?

They are usually organized quickly and they are always announced at the last minute.  Like a flash mob with wine.

Our first pop up wine tasting was organized on the bus ride from London to Bristol.  Derek from Naked Wines put out a tweet asking who would be up for a little wine tasting in the afternoon. Less than 140 characters later, we had a cool venue on the line.

It was really kitschy.  We had the tasting outside a couple of retro Airstream campers that had been outfitted to serve food and drinks on the astroturf outside this office park in the creative district of Bristol.

Lots of design firms, communication agencies, and “new media” types.  It’s the perfect setting for this kind of guerilla tasting.

Why pop ups are a good idea?

On one level, they just make good sense because they’re low cost, low investment, and high payout.  You have to realize we were already in Bristol.  We already had the wine.  We had the glasses.  We had the winemakers.  And we have freetime in the afternoon.  So with a couple of tweets and a few phone calls, we get a very fun event with a high level of engagement from the participants.

On another level, popup tastings are just super fun and bring back a feeling of flight and fancy to the wine world which sometimes takes itself too seriously.  Wine tastings can appear to be too formal and a bit pretentious.  Nothing removes the pretense like a couple young guys running around an aluminum caravan shouting “Afternoon wine tasting!”  “Surprise wine tasting!”

This post is about an event held by the Independent Winemakers of Aude (Vignerons Independents de l’Aude) that organizes dozens of picnics around the departement of Aude.   The picnics all take place on June 12 and 13, 2011.  For information about visiting O’Vineyards and eating with us, please see our vineyard visitors page

Picnic with a winemaker

Map of villages with picnic locations

[iframe http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=h&msa=0&msid=216971104430043673888.0004a281f8b046be960b4&ll=43.091958,2.621613&spn=0.701988,1.167297&z=9&output=embed 425 350]

View PIQUE-NIQUE CHEZ LE VIGNERON INDEPENDANT® in a larger map

List of winemakers and villages

On the 28th of March, Parisians can taste the products of some of France’s most notorious winemaking bloggers.  Antonin from Vindicateur and Eva from Oenos are organizing this epic wine tasting at l’Hedonist which will include seven properties.

All the details about the seven winemakers (only six on the invitation, but they promise seven in all!) can be found at Oenos by clicking the invitation above.

Here’s the short list:

• Chateau des Bachelards (Lilian Bauchet)
• Clos Romain (Celine & Romain Beauquel)
• O’Vineyards (duh, Ryan O’Connell)
• Chateau Lestignac (Mathias Marquet)
• Cotes de la Moliere (Isabelle et Bruno Perraud)
• Domaine Lisson (Iris Rutz-Rudel)
• Olivier B

Most of these are in French (because we’re in France).  Also THREE of these are names you might recognize from my growing list of Languedoc Roussillon winemaker blogs.  Iris, Clos Romain and I are all proud Languedociens.  Two Beaujolais.  A Perigord.  And I have no idea where Olivier B makes his wine.

Anyway, a lot of people read our blogs and think “I’d like to taste that wine one day”… well if you’re in Paris, that day is March 28th.  Go out to l’Hedoniste.  Meet Antonin and Eva.  Drink our wine.  Be merry.