1. Fresh scallops, fennel, oinion & other veggies
2. Opened scallops
3. Sauté in one table spoon of olive oil, Fennel & other veggies of your choice, add oinion
4. After 10 minutes, fast cook scallops on both sides
5. Bon appétit!

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!

Fresh Fruits and Vegetables:
Take some time to research and find the fresh fruits and vegetables cultivated near you… you can’t always get what you want… so do the best you can..and taste the result! So good! your entourage will love it!

Here is my today recipe : apple, pork, potato and red cabbage, for two persons. If you don’t find the red cabbage, use an other fresh vegetable in a same fashion!

1. Potato & roasted pork … Both pre-cooked…or could be left over from another meal!
2. cut cabbage, oinon and apple
3. in the wok, put a table spoon of olive oil, add the oinion, cabbage and apple, slices of roasted pork, a pinch “salt of Guérande” or “salt of Camargue”
4. sauté for about 10 minutes

 

O’Vineyards Wall of Fame, part 1

Pictures received from our 2012 visitors:

We are also proud to be featured amongst the famous monuments and attractions of France in Stephan and Amanda Holiday video :
“I hope you are well.  We had a wonderful time at the vineyard and the food you made for lunch was amazing!  I’ve attached a pic of us for you. We also have the vineyard featured in a little vacation video I made for Amanda. Have a great holiday and if we are in Carcassone again, we will definitely stop by for another tour.”

The Merlot came in last week nice and clean and everything feels great. Another 3AM harvest so some of the photos are a bit dark. But that means the grapes could come in really cool and do a pre-fermentation cold soak.

The juice is tasting yummy and we’re inducing fermentations in two of the tanks. A third tank will ferment spontaneously (hopefully) with the wild yeasts that live on the grapes. Yay!

Yesterday, we harvested the Chasan for our first ever white wine!

We harvested by machine starting around 4 AM so that we could bring the grapes in extra cold. We also used dry ice in the harvester and intake trailer to keep the grapes cool on the short journey to the winery.

Intake was very simple compared to the red. We used a destemmer at first (although we eventually decided the destemmer on board the harvester was sufficient). The grapes then go into a pump where they’re lightly crushed on their way to the press. We drain the free run juice into one tank and then press the grapes for the rest of the juice in another tank.

We sort of had a mini disaster which I’ll get into some other day when I’m less exhausted. We now have a white wine! Or juice at least. Wine is on the way. 🙂  100% Chasan!

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!”

This summer, O’Vineyards is celebrating the arrival of its newest wine, O’MG 2011, by extending the opportunity to all visitors to enjoy it before bottles go on sale outside of O’Vineyards later this fall.

The O’MG Summertime Special begins at 12pm with a winery tour and wine tasting, followed by a picnic basket lunch and half a bottle of our new wine O’MG per person. You are free to enjoy the picnic basket lunch on our sunny patio overlooking the vines. The price per guest is 35€ all inclusive. Please call or email ahead for reservations as limited space is available.

We want to take this opportunity to inform our readers that the five course meal at the Winemakers’ Table will be exclusively available at dinnertime until our harvest time. Thank you and see you soon!

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

When I asked Ryan to explain his choice of name for the new O’Vineyards wine OMG, he replied: “I’m an O’Connell. So it’s O’Vineyards, O’Syrah, O’MG, hahaha”

O’Vineyards recently began having visitors taste their new wine called OMG 2011, and your reactions have been promising. For those of you who missed that memo, OMG stands for Oh My God in online communication culture – though if you’re reading this blog, then you surely already knew that.

We have been fortunate to hear professional opinions too, including the Maitre Sommelier of Carcassonne’s Hôtel de la Cité, Georges Gracia. In Georges’s words, OMG has the following characteristics:

—

Eye.

color: purple, black cherry

Nose.
1st nose: red berries; slightly spicy; la garrigue (thyme, laurel, Mediterranean spices)

2nd nose: combination of fruits, prunes and kirsh; beautiful intensity; fairly complex

Mouth.

Freshness, spices, thyme, bay leaves, pepper; beautiful balance

This is a nice aromatic wine that can adapt to a variety of different dishes. It can be drunk at room temperature or slightly chilled, in any season.

Fruit, spices, with a silky tannic wine with Bordeaux-like charisma

—

OMG is available for purchase exclusively at O’Vineyards for now, but will be available elsewhere this coming fall. More details to come.

 

“Some Naked people came to pick up their wine last week, and we all had a blast!”

I admit it was somewhat alarming to hear these words coming from Liz during my first few days at O’Vineyards. I was going to have to live with these people for several weeks, so I needed an explanation. Luckily Ryan had previously posted about the Naked Wines Angels, who are the main actors in O’Vineyards’ new vineyard share program.  One hundred “Angels” rented some of O’Vineyards vines and are paying Naked Winemakers Ryan and Joe O’Connell to see these vines through wine fruition. Now, the Naked Wines Angels are streaming in one by one to pick up their wine. If you are still confused, they are perfectly normal people–properly clothed and everything–they just went that extra mile because they really like our wine.

So, meet Michelle and David. They are Naked Angels. Liz and Joe had the pleasure of meeting Michelle and David (I unfortunately was not here yet) when they stayed at the B&B around two weeks ago. They enjoyed a tour of O’Vineyards and shared good times and good food around the Winemakers’ Table. As Michelle very poetically puts it in her TripAdvisor review: “We arrived strangers and left as friends.” They also reportedly arrived as fully clothed and sober angels, and left as…