We are lucky that our International visitors seemed to share different months of the year!
Our customers word of mouth is our best advertising. Google search is also very important, keeping us busy… since  Tripadvisor somehow moved us from the Carcassonne area to the whole Department of Aude.

People who have visited us know that O’Vineyards is in the Carcassonne Metropolitan area, only minutes from Carcassonne airport, Carcassonne train station and the Medieval City of Carcassonne!

Here is the lastest Tripadvisor review we got from Cindy and David Phillips who were sharing our Winemaker’s Table with Stan & Polly Jurczak from UK and Katsuhiko & Yuriko Toyoshima, Tsuyoshi & Mariko Kuwahara from Japan.

“All I can say is that I can’t wait to go back again!

Domaine O’Vineyards is a delightful vineyard about 8 km from Carcassonne. Hubby and I had a delightful two night stay with Liz and Joe earlier this week. We were spoiled from the moment we arrived until the moment we left. We enjoyed a fabulous wine tasting with Joe, from tanks, barrels and bottles. By the time we left I think we sampled nearly every wine they produced, and every one was just fantastic. We enjoyed two delicious meals cooked by Liz – I don’t even know how many courses there were, served with a generous amount of wine. Liz even took me into the kitchen to teach me a recipe or two!

Their dog, Muse, took us for a walk through the vineyard, through Merlot, Shiraz and Cabernet vines. The vines were just starting to bud and I can’t wait to return in the summer to see the vines in full leaf and grape.

Would I return? I’m definitely returning! “

Reviewed 10 April 2013
London, England, United Kingdom
Tripadvisor Senior Reviewer

This is an official map of the Carcassone Region

Villemoustaussou included:

The purple colored area designated the Carcassonne Metropolitan area, including Villemoustaussou which is desserved by the Carcassonne public transportation.

O’Vineyards is located in Villemoustaussou, at just 10 minutes from the Carcassone airport, Carcassonne train station and the Carcassonne Medieval Castle.

We had a great group for a Cooking Workshop! An & Philip, Jenny & Barry, Josua & Alexandra.

Easter Food and Wine at O’Vineyards Carcassonne

Two hours in the kitchen with Liz preparing many courses to accomodate many O’wines! See the full menu after the picture gallery!

Home Cured Salmon on Canapés
Spring rolls (added to the menu at An’s request)
Goat Cheese Sablé
Pear and Roquefort in puff pastry
Merguez (lamb sausage) on a bed of zuchini and carrots
Grilled duck breast & Grilled beef rolled in bacon served with mashed potato baked with brie
Brussel sprout sauté in sausage and bacon
Cheese tray
Easter cake

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!

Two nights for two persons

Value 580€. Buy now and get our special offer 480€ 

• Two nights at O’Vineyards B&B.
• Spacious room with views on vines, mountains or Carcassonne City lights
• A welcome bottle of wine
• O’Vineyards winery visit
• Taste young wines from tanks and barrels. Taste older vintages in bottles
• Enjoy Liz’s five course meal at the winemaker’s table both evenings, wine included
• Three bottles  of O’ wines to go

Offer good any day of the week,  until February 2014

VineShare:

Value: 790€ each.
Limited number of VineShares offered at the price of 590€ each

• 30 bottles of O’ Wines
• One night at our Bed and Breakfast
• A full tour vineyard & winery visit for two
• Taste young wines from tanks and barrels. Taste older vintages in bottles
• A Winemaker workshop with Joe or  a Cooking workshop with Liz
• A six course dinner for two with many wines

Book before March 30th 2013 and get this special discount

Offer good any day of the week, until February 2014

To Redeem:  

Please call us at  33 (0)6 30 18 99 10
Or email us at ryan@ovineyards.com

With this gorgeous weather, many visitors from Down Under , the US and the UK have been taking advantage of this.

Our new guests brought back the mementos of our friends. We are continuing to post more pictures! Thank you again for the great memories shared during 2012 !  HAPPY NEW YEAR ! Hope to see you again soon in 2013 !

Wall of Fame part 2

Wedding with O’Wines! Thank you Michael and Fay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by Joe The Winemaker:

“Finnnnnnnnnnished! The 2102 harvest has finished fermentation and the pressing of the skins was completed Saturday 3rd of November!

When you grow grapes and make wine, you sometimes wonder whether the months of September and October exist. You start to clean and prepare for harvest in late August and the next thing you know; you are getting ready for Christmas!
During the harvest season, visitors are always amazed at how much happens on a daily basis.

Anyway we are extremely happy with the quality of our 2012 harvest and look forward to tasting with all our visitors!”

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!

The interviewer becomes the interviewee.  How the tables have turned!  Nina Izzo from Lost in Wine dropped by O’Vineyards and we sat in an enormous wine fermentation tank to talk about my appellation, the Cabardes.  This is part of a new series she’s doing called My Wine Rocks in L-R.

Here’s the video:

You can find either of us floating around ViniSud if you’re in Montpellier this week.  Although if you’re looking for Nina (let’s face it: nobody is looking for me) then keep in mind she’s no longer blonde.

On the off chance that you do look for me instead, I’ll be glad to share more information about Carcassonne, the Cabardes or the O’Connells.

France’s high speed train, the TGV, will one day carry passengers between Toulouse and Narbonne.  The line will also have a Carcassonne stop.  I’m following developments in the planning of this future train line pretty closely.  I’ve uploaded the slideshow presented to the public recently concerning potential installation sites for the new tracks around Carcassonne and the new train station as well.  Download the TGV project slideshow 21 10 2011 complete with confounding maps and bullet points. 😀

Changes required by a TGV line

Interestingly, as I’m writing this, TGV trains already pass through Carcassonne quite often.  But since the tracks aren’t set up for Grande Vitesse traffic, the trains have to run at normal speeds until they reach Montpellier.  I don’t know much about the technology here, but I’ll just say it has to do with magnets and move on. 😀

Anyway, the engineers have to lay new track suitable to the TGVs and this means they’ll have to run the new track north of Carcassonne or south of Carcassonne (going straight through the city makes no sense).  This is when winemakers start to get worried because there are lots of vines north and south of Carcassonne and we don’t want a bunch of train tracks to replace the vines we love so dearly.

From a business standpoint though, it’s pretty interesting since there are plans to build a new station.  If the TGV connects Carcassonne to the grid, it can bring a lot of tourists and business to the area.  After all the work from Bordeaux to Toulouse is done and this project connects Toulouse to Narbonne, the Carcassonne-Narbonne axis will be much closer to Aquitaine.  And I’ll have to do some math, but I think it might bring us closer to Paris too (the current fastest path to Paris is a slow train from Carcassonne to Montpellier and then TGV up to Paris)

Enough babbling!

There’s a lot of information here as the slideshow also presents all the projects from Toulouse to Narbonne.

Since my vineyard is very close to Carcassonne, slides 16-21 are of most interest to me personally.

The slide that made me panic a little

The first reason to panic is just because it looks like somebody’s planning a war strategy.  Or like a geometry textbook just threw up on a map of Carcassonne.  But we’ll try to make sense of this map.

I’ve added a little o’TGV so you can see where O’Vineyards is located.  As you can see, we’re actually inside one of those circular bubbles meant to represent places where it might make sense to put in the new train station.  And that big golden arrow running straight through us is supposed to represent the possibility of a track running to the north of Carcassonne (but not its actual placement).  The bright red arrows cutting through Villemoustaussou represent tracks that tie the new train station to the small, older train station in the center of Carcassonne (but not their actual placement).

It is important to stress a few things:

1. this is still hypothetical planning,
2. many of the arrows are symbolic representations rather than showing physical placement,
3. those enormous circles are very generously sized.

Let’s break this map down in a less panicked way.  The track has to go either north of Carcassonne or south of it.  The big green bands show the zone that is most suitable for a track.  Rather than look at the large golden arrow representing the northern line, realize that the northern line is actually a very thin track that would go anywhere within that massive green band.

There will also be a new gare.  The big green circles are supposed to represent potential sites where it might make sense to build that gare.  The actual station will be a small dot compared to the circles used to represent their potential placement sites on the map.

Also, knowledge of the terrain where my vineyard is located allows me to say that the tracks could not pass through O’Vineyards.  One one side, we’re too hilly.  On the other side, we’re very close to a village.  If the tracks run north of Carcassonne, it’s much more likely that they’ll pick one of the flatter, lower zones like the one running through Conques sur Orbiel.  With a good set of binoculars, we’d probably be able to glimpse the train behind some hills/trees as it passes in the distance.

I also think they’ll favorize one of the construction sites that is already near rails connecting to the old gare in Carcassonne.  Nobody likes to build in the jurisdiction of Batiments de France and the old gare is right next to the Canal du Midi.  The more they can use existing track, the better.  So those dastardly red arrows seem unlikely.  My money is on one of the oblong ovals that already skirts existing track.

Although, that said, I wouldn’t necessarily mind the station being built in that circle really close to O’Vineyards.  If it’s at the far end of the circle, we could get all the benefit of a nearby train station without any of the noise or visual pollution.   It’s too early in the development of this project to know how harmful/beneficial the placement will be. I’ll just have to watch carefully. In February, they’re supposed to make a decision about whether the line goes north of Carcassonne or south.  And at that time, they’ll provide more details about where exactly the tracks would go.

Hopefully, this won’t mar the local landscapes or prevent winemakers from doing what we do best. And as a secondary wishful thinking kind of hope, maybe this will increase land value for a few of the locals.  And make it easier for me to get to Paris one day.  ;D