While this blog can sometimes go on tangents based on my strange, exploratory moods, it is still a winemaker blog.  And it is late September which means HARVEST in the south of France.  So here it is, my first obligatory vineyard harvest of 2010.

We’re starting with the Merlot, as usual.  It’s all by hand this year because we’re worried about the disparity between maturity levels of the grapes this year.

I’ll be posting about the particularities of this year’s vintage.  But for now, just pictures of Merlot being harvested … with a vengeance!!

A Russian wine lover is running a series of updates from me on his website, WhyWhyWine.  It’s always fun to see yourself translated into a language you can’t read.

It’s even more fun using Google Translator’s limited engine to decipher what’s being said.  There’s an odd sort of poetry in the computer generated translation: “These weeds are not any terrible pest, but if they become too high or grow too thickly, they begin to overshadow the fruit.”

But when you get bored of the Google translation, here is the English version, an update describing the end of August at O’Vineyards.

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It’s a beautiful time of year in the rolling, sun-drenched hills of the Languedoc.  The vines are hard at work, soaking in the Mediterranean sunshine all day.  And at night, the cool breezes of the Atlantic Ocean sweep in from the west and bring freshness to our grapes.  But this poetic and beautiful weather is HARD to work in.  It is perfect for vines, but it is HOT for humans.

That’s why we try to work as much as possible in the morning when the sun is still gentle.  Because the earth is tilted slightly in relationship to the sun, the rising sun in the northern hemisphere is much gentler than the afternoon sun.  The morning is far from cold, but it is cool enough to work in.  The afternoon however is sweltering so we stay in to enjoy big French lunches with fresh local ingredients.  Then we have la sieste, a well-deserved nap.  And around 3 or 4, we can get back to work.  On cooler evenings, we can head back into the vines, or we can decide it’s still too hot and stay in to welcome tourists visiting the winery.

We have just passed veraison, the season when grapes change color from green to dark purple.  The first part of the year, before veraison, the plant devotes almost all of its energy to growing new vegetation. Long stems and vines that reach up toward the sun and form a great canopy to receive the sun’s light. Once the grapes change color, the plant shifts gears and begins to put most of its energy toward maturing the fruit. Putting lots of sugar in those delicious grapes and allowing phenolics and acids to present interesting flavors and aromas in the skins and seeds.

This is a time of year when many winemakers take a vacation, but we use this time to do a few extra tasks.  It’s those little jobs that aren’t entirely necessary but make the difference between a good wine and a magnificent wine.

Some weeds have come up in the Syrah, so my dad goes out to remove them manually.  We avoid passing with the tractor because we don’t want to compact the soil and use up lots of gasoline for a job that is feasible by hand.  The weeds aren’t terribly harmful to the vines, but if they grow too tall or too dense, they can begin to cover the grapes.  We would rather have our grapes exposed to a bit of the warm Mediterranean sun which will allow them to ripen over the course of the entire summer.  Sunlight is good!  So we slowly make our way through the vines to pull out the weeds.

Normally, the weeds are not so active this time of year, but 2010 has been a very strange year.  We had an unusually high amount of snow in the south of France last winter and snow fixes nitrogen in the soil.  That nitrogen allows for a lot of growth the next year.  But don’t worry.  It doesn’t just mean weeds; nitrogen also helps the vines grow!  In fact, we have unusually large foliage this year.  Some of the vines stretch more than three meters into the air before curving back down under their own weight.  This means we have lots of leaves to soak in the sunlight and feed the plant to get good, mature grapes.  Perfect for the big wines we make in this region!

Also, the fig trees and blackberries that grow in the brush around the vines are now fruiting.  We can pick the seasonal fruit and enjoy lavish dinners made from local, organic ingredients.

This time of year, we get to sit back at the end of the day and enjoy the new life we’ve chosen.  Being a winemaker can be a lot of hard work, but it’s also a beautiful life full of delicious food and wine.  The vineyard provides for us in many ways as long as we are there to nurture it and take care of it.

When people come to visit the sprawling 45 acres of vines and 15 acres of local wildlife, they are in awe at the work we have done.  The magic of the south of France rubs off on everybody who visits Domaine O’Vineyards.

There’s really no winning with these fruit-picking neighbors. Dudes are just totally indignant.

I walked up on this guy taking my figs and there was a wicker basket on the ground by one of the trees. So I took the basket and started walking off. And he got incensed! He can take my fruit but I can’t take his basket?

Here is an English summary for those who don’t know French or stream video. Although dumb-looking facial expressions are sort of an International language.

He tries to explain that he didn’t know who the trees belonged to despite the huge orange building that stands by these trees. Obviously, the basket analogy went over his head.

He also tries to justify his action by saying that he’s been stealing the fruit here for years.

He asked what I expected of him and I explained that I wish people would at least ask for permission before romping through our fruit trees. So he eventually slows down and asks for permission. And I kindly give him back the kilo+ of figs he had collected. He then asks if he can pick more and I say that he can take what’s already picked but if he wants to pick more he should do us a favor by bringing some to us. This too seems to upset him greatly.

He complains that he has no fruit trees at his home and that is why he takes ours. I ask him if he has any furniture I can borrow when he’s not using it. Also, this is apparently not comparable in the man’s mind.

He then marches off. I ask him his name and he says it’s Rodriguez Garcia. Either that’s a pseudonym or he’s actually named after the inventor of the laryngoscope.  Either way, it’s the perfect place to end this story.

Epilogue – I followed him off the property and he went to my neighbor’s vines. Upset that I was following him, he asked me if these fig trees in the distance belonged to me too. I said they don’t belong to me, but they belong to somebody. And that upset him too. I really wish I hadn’t given him any of the fruit back. Such a jerk.

Here is an obligatory picture of my grapes turning purple.  This is a vineyard blog after all.

The photo was taken two days ago in the Cabernet Sauvignon at O’Vineyards. The plants are very far behind this year.  Chalk that up to the snow we had in May.  It’s been a wacky year.  But a lot of people say the vines could catch up very quickly.  Whatever.  We don’t mind harvesting a little later so it’s not a huge deal as long as it doesn’t get too wet in late September.

Okay, there, I talked about veraison, when the grapes change color from green to purple, and the weather. Can we go back to irreverence, drinking and nudity?

Celebrate the Holiays with any of our pre selection cases, get 12 bottles of our Trah Lah Lah 2023 FREE. Catch this deal.  Otherwise, you might miss out.

The mixed case will be perfect to taste the wide range of big, bold red wines we make.
O’Syrah, Trah Lah Lah,  Les Americains, Proprietor’s Reserve.
We try to balance that new world compulsion to make extracted, flavorful wines with an old world tendency toward seriousness and restraint.

We work in the vines all year to make the very best wine possible.

Cheers !

Our friends at Naked Wines wanted us to film a video to say hello and present O’Vineyards to their online community. My dad and I figured it would be fun to show them what we’re doing at this time of year. You have heard me talk about it like ten times now. We are lifting wires in the Merlot. But in this video, we are lifting them a SECOND time. So pretty new and different.

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?

I know the blog has been super self promotional lately, but it’s because I can only tell you about lifting wires so many times before you start to hate me.

Here’s a picture of dad lifting wires in the Cabernet (which we finally finished!) But now we have to go back to the first wires we lifted in the Syrah and lift them some more. Like painting the Golden Gate Bridge, by the time you finish the far end, you have to go back to the beginning.

But amidst all this lifting, I took some time to organize our media and press coverage (no easy task because of the variety of languages and the fact that so many traditional media outlets refuse to get online).

And I found a comment that I really liked. Bol d’Air, a magazine insert that comes with l’Independant once per week, finished an article about my family and our wines with a nostalgia-filled reference to Suzy Delair’s singing. What better way to bring you a breath of fresh air than Suzy Delair showing off her Trah lah lah?!

This is from Quai des Orfèvres (1947) where Suzy portrays the seductive Jenny Lamour.  People always ask me why I named a wine Trah Lah Lah. Here is one more reason.

This was probably published around ViniSud, but it only just popped onto my radar!  Sud de France Export keeps a database of all the products that use the Sud de France brand and participate in its events, and they added some very flattering editorial to our entry.

“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!

il y a 1 mois
this only adds to the stereotype? that african women know a lot about nature
–flipthenuts

I don’t check my youtube account as much as everything else these days. But it’s nice to go back occasionally and see that people are still watching and commenting.  Of course, the average youtube comment is very low yield in terms of relevancy and maturity.  But sometimes, you get genuinely interesting comments. And sometimes you get genuinely weird ones.  Like the one at the top of this page.

So my video about cane pruning (guyot) and spur pruning (cordon royat), may be reifying stereotypes about African women.  Oh, youtube, what would we do without you.

Hilarious.
🙂

We had a fun little vineyard party.  Sud de France sent us a kit of Languedoc-Roussillon wines so that we could host a Carcassonne wine tasing.   We drank and were merry.  We did a live stream which is really lo-fi, but fun and spontaneous.  The live stream of our synchronized worldwide tasting is available at Love That Langedoc.

This is just a brief update to say we had a good time and we’ll put together a better-edited version of the tasting soon.  Thanks for all the cool people who showed up like Emma and Matthew from Vinecole, Aude Campos (our marvelous wine selling dynamo), and Mallorie from the gorgeous Chateau Bouis.