So, I’ve been pretty cagey about this but here’s the official announcement:
Ryan O’Connell is moving to California for part of 2012. The company I’m working with in California is looking for new wines and new business opportunities and they think I can help. I think I can help too. 🙂
I’m leaving tomorrow. I’ll be travelling back and forth from the US to Languedoc all year, so I’m not totally detached from the vineyard and the region I call home. And my very competent parents will continue their stewardsship of O’Vineyards in my absence.
I’ve started a new blog called kidnapa (because I’m being kidnapped to Napa) which will probably have a lot of articles comparing France and California or just talking about the west coast of the US.
Love That Languedoc will continue (largely as an aggregator site). I am also accepting guest posts so let me know if you’d like to contribute to that blog.
This blog will continue to have posts about O’Vineyards and all the random wine junk I think about that doesn’t fit on my other blogs.
Wish me luck.
This summer, we were very excited to be featured in a special wine issue of L’Express magazine in France. This is a national magazine and the equivalent of TIME in the United States. So it’s got a wide reach, and the people reading it aren’t necessarily wine geeks.
Billing me as an American in Carcassonne, Nicolas de Rouyn shares our journey in a fun, relatable way. “Mazette. Grosse affaire,” as the article says. 😀
We’re happy with the coverage. Especially because this publication is designed to be read by normal people.
So often the wine world tends to limit itself to other wine professionals or initiated wine lovers. But most wine is consumed by normal people who only think about wine a few minutes a week!
Hopefully this sort of article can get us out of the omphalocentric wine beltway and get the word about O’Vineyards out into the big open public.
This whole issue of l’Express was pretty interesting. They had something like 12 pages devoted to wine bloggers (where O’Vineyards was mentioned a couple times as well). The Languedoc Roussillon was well-represented throughout the issue. Hopefully, the French wine blogosphere can benefit from this exposure and get more people interested in wine.
But then, seeing the way some people reacted to the article, I don’t have TOO much hope for getting the French wine blog world popular exposure. We still seem pretty preoccupied by petty rivalries, alliances, and vendettas. If you don’t have the patience to read through the 200+ comments in this thread, suffice it to say that people disagreed with the selection criteria for the Express articles. Thankfully, most people will never be privvy to this squabbling (despite my willingness to link to it ;D) and most people will just think “Oh there are French wine bloggers. That’s cool!”
As you probably know, the O’Podium gift box features one wine aged three different ways. It’s a unique way to learn the difference between different aging processes because the wine is exactly the same except for the three aging processes:
- Unoaked
- 8 months in new American oak
- 12 months in new French oak
The difference between unoaked wines and oaked wines are pretty well-known. Oak affects the flavor and complexity of the wine, adding aromatic qualities like toast, vanilla, etc. while also imparting certain structural changes that can add to the aging potential of the wine.
The difference between American oak and French oak is less well-known. Wine nerds will talk about it frequently, but it’s a rare opportunity to smell and taste the difference for yourself.
American oak is much denser than French oak. The difference in grain means that American oak can be sawed while French oak is traditionally axed. Axes follow the grain of the wood, but saws cut against the grain and open up the wood to create a larger surface area that is a lot more porous. The American oak has an immediate and somewhat superficial effect on the wine. French oak is a little tighter, adding a subtler flavor and giving more of the nuanced structural qualities for aging.
Anyway, Juliet Bruce Jones, Master of Wine, just did a great write up of how the O’Podium 2005 wines are tasting and compares the three wines in her conclusion:
The wine aged in oak did have more complexity and richness than the unoaked version which was nice but quite simple. The American oak wine was more approachable now, despite the grippy tannins, as the fruit was more forward and appealing. Needs robust food. The French oak gave fine structure but the fruit is still shy. Worth trying in a year or two to see if the fruit has emerged from its hidey-hole.
The difference between American oak and French oak is less well-known. Wine nerds will talk about it frequently, but it’s a rare opportunity to smell and taste the difference for yourself.