Some of our very first guests took lots of photos of their room at O’Vineyards Bed & Breakfast.

O’Vineyards Bed & Breakfast Room

It’s hard to show just how spacious the rooms are in a single photograph.  You want to show details on how the floor and ceiling are finished, a hint of the spectacular view on the Syrah vines, the size of the bed, how much space there is to move around and breathe, and so much more.

I’m very appreciative of these excellent candid photographs by our guests.  This first picture shows ceiling, floor, and the big glass doors.  And there’s even a bottle of wine to serve as a scale so you know just how big the bed really is!

“Why is there a bottle of wine,” you ask?

Because every O’Vineyards room comes with a bottle of wine!!  Trust me: a bottle of Trah Lah Lah is much more fun than a chocolate on your pillow.

O’Vineyards Bed & Breakfast Bathroom

And here’s a photo of the bathroom.  Again, it’s hard to take a photograph that shows how spacious it is.  You want to give a glimpse of the walk in Italian shower.  You want to show that things are clean and new.  But that there’s still character and warmth in the finish and decorations.

Again, a brilliant photo!  Thanks to our guests who took these wonderful photos and shared them with the world.

This post is about finding a gite, B&B, or other lodging options in the Minervois near Carcassonne.

Of course, if you want to stay at a vineyard near Carcassonne, I strongly recommend staying with me at O’Vineyards Bed & Breakfast.  But I’m technically in the Cabardes (which is a small area to the west of the Minervois).

Winemaker B&Bs, gites, and other lodging

I should start by saying that this is not an exhaustive list.  Whereas I posted a full list of lodging options with Cabardes winemakers, the Minervois is almost 4 times larger than the Cabardes.  So I’m just going to list a few winemakers who I know have lodging on their estates.

Clos Centeilles, Siran – An excellent winemaker with chambres d’hotes and gites on the property.

Domaine des Homs, Fanjeaux – A house rental in the middle of an organic vineyard in the Minervois

Le Pech d’André – Small gite on a vineyard in Azillanet; they run a vineyard blog too.

Chateau Canet, Rustiques – A Terra Vitis vineyard that looks toward sustainable agriculture with cottage rental

Domaine Vordy Mayranne , Minerve – Gite on a mom and pop vineyard

Le Relais Occitan, Beauvoir – This used to be an operational winery, but now it focuses on rather unique lodging.  You can sleep inside one of the old wooden fermentation tanks (150 hectoliter foudres) that have been outfitted as single and double rooms. They also have more conventional rooms and gites if you’re into that sort of thing. ;D

Domaine Vignalet, Laure Minervois – There is a photo of a pretty delicious-looking Cassoulet on their website and this vineyard seems very homey.

Domaine du Siestou, Laure Minervois – This vineyard lodging comes with bikes to go riding alongside the Canal du Midi

Domaine du Viala, Paraza – I’m not sure if this is a winery or not.  It used to be though!

 The Minervois has created a pretty elaborate index of lodging options which you can sort by village or how many stars its received.  Although I’m pretty sure there are some folks missing from this database too.  It’s a big area and getting everybody to work together on this sort of listing is like herding cats.

I hope all this is helpful and that you find a lovely place to stay in while visiting the Languedoc Roussillon!

I took some exterior photos of O’Vineyards Bed & Breakfast now that it’s nearing completion.  Things are looking good!

You can really see how close the rooms are to the vines.  How clear the sky is.  This is life on a vineyard after all!

This is the window of the Cabardes room.  You can look out over the Merlot vines from here.  Sit watching the high road of Villemoustaussou with Carcassonne off to the south.  Soak in the sunny south of France in the privacy of our vines.

What a view!!  That’s Cabernet Sauvignon stretching off toward the valley in Villegailhenc and La Montagne Noire beyond that.  This photos taken from inside the room so it’s actually the view.  Hard to believe, right?

O’Vineyards – Villemoustaussou

4 elegantly furnished B&B rooms with direct view on the vines.  You’ll be sharing the building with us, a Franco-American family with a small vineyard and winery just north of Carcassonne.  We’re very happy to host, and we have a full range of high end red wines.

The Cabardes is a gorgeous region of France that is very close to the historic medieval castle of Carcassonne.  Proximity to the Cité makes the Cabardes a perfect vacation area because it means you can visit the Cité de Carcassonne, the Canal du Midi, and benefit from all the amenities of Carcassonne.  There’s a train station and an International airport (almost exclusively RyanAir flights though).  You’re less than hour’s drive from the Mediterranean coast, about an hour from Toulouse, about an hour and a half from Montpellier, and a couple of hours from the Pyrenees.

I should also mention you’ll be surrounded by delicious wine!!  🙂

The Cabardes AOC is small, dominated by independent wine producers, and features a unique blend of Mediterranean and Atlantic grape varietals.

Danny McCubbin and his photography assistant Anthony just came through the south of France.  We were very happy that they could stop for three days in Carcassonne and taste the wonderful food and wine of the region.  They participated in all our vineyard tours and workshops (i.e. they toured the winery, ate a 5 course lunch at the winemaker’s table, and shot some video of the recipes my mom teaches in her cooking workshop).

via Danny’s twitpic account

Danny’s Holiday

Danny is the editor for jamieoliver.com and has been working with Jamie for almost a decade now. He was as nice as you’d expect for a member of the Jamie Oliver team.  It’s always a pleasure to share the region’s food and wine with folks visiting Carcassonne and it’s especially fun when the visitors are totally unpretentious food lovers like Danny and Anthony.

They also visited the medieval cité de Carcassonne and stayed in the historic Hotel de la Cité.  Jerome Ryon, a local chef at La Barbacane, sat down with them to talk about cooking and food and how it’s about working with good ingredients and keeping things simple and accessible.  Jerome insists this is true even at his professional level of cuisine (La Barbacane is a Michelin starred kitchen).

It was Easter weekend so we got to see a few of the neat things going on around Carcassonne.  Easter egg hunts and chocolate making workshops.  And it’s asparagus season.  🙂

And we organized a tasting on Easter where we enjoyed wines from all over the department of Aude.  Some of Ben Darnault’s wines from Minervois, St. Chinian and Picpoul.  Some Minervois from Hegarty Chamans as well.  A whole lot of fun!

You Can Visit Too

And you don’t have to be a journalist to get these tours.  If you want to visit us and have fun with wine and food, you only have to email me.  Costs vary depending on what you want to do, so check out the tours and workshops we offer visitors and let me know what you want to do.

 

I notice a lot of people search the Internet for vineyards really close to Carcassonne.

Vines driving distance from Carcassonne

If you want to do a full tour of a vineyard and winery near Carcassonne, I naturally recommend visiting me at O’Vineyards. We’re less than fifteen minutes away from the castle (by car).  And perhaps you’ll have time to visit a few other vineyards near Carcassonne.

Vines walking distance in Carcassonne

If you just want to see some vines near the castle and take some really pretty pictures, then there are actually vines right next to the medieval cité de Carcassonne. My friend has a vineyard directly outside of the castle.

Google Map walking directions from Cité de Carcassonne to vines – 4 minute walk

He doesn’t really do tours or opening hours, but if you just want to see some vines while you’re in Carcassonne then you should visit his vineyard.

 

I wish I had more time to tell you all about VinoCamp’s glorious Day 2 celebration at O’Vineyards.  This will come shortly. Naturally, I’ll also be adding my own media to this very soon and people who missed the conferences will get to listen in on two of the workshops that I attended.

For now, I just wanted to provide an index of some of the great media coverage of the event:

Nicolas de Rouyn – Le VinoCamp, sous les remparts

22h43’s documentary –

11 Le Magazine – Carcassonne. Vin et internet, le mélange du Vinocamp

Domaine Revelh – #Vinocamp #Carcassonne (perspectif vigneron)

MidiLibre – Les nouvelles technologies au service du vin (le Samedi)

MidiLibre – De la ‘blogosphère’ au cep de vigne (le Dimanche)

L’Independant – VinoCamp, ou la rencontre des vignerons et des internautes

ObiWine (I think) – Christiane Mortes presente le Clocher de Limoux au Vin d’Honneur

O’Vineyards – My own summary of Day 1

Day 1 of VinoCamp Languedoc is the day where we actually do the round tables that define the barcamp format. Everything went splendidly. We had three rooms at the Chamber of Commerce in downtown Carcassonne and it was really amazing. The CCI were incredibly supportive hosts. From 8 in the morning until 8 at night, a director or representative of the chamber was by our sides helping us with all the little things that need to get done on D-Day.  And we’re already seeing optimistic press coverage of VinoCamp Languedoc roll in.

Lots of winemakers

As people started filing in, we quickly realized that we were going to have a great number of winemakers.  One of the biggest complaints from previous vinocamps is a lack of winemakers.  So we’re very pleased with the turnout. This producer presence creates a diversity of backgrounds and allows a broader exchange to happen in certain sessions.

Lots of techies

As always, we also had a great number of tech people and web people, a crucial factor in informing the conversations we have in each workshop.  These people do lots of different things from ecommerce to tourism to blogging.  But they all stay really up to date on the new advancements that are shaping the fast-changing world of web communication.

Lots of topics

A wealth of topics were discussed over the course of 9 workshops.

Among others:

• Engaging consumers as an AOC or region
• Uniting villages – An EU plan
• Online presence on third party sites (vinogusto, adegga, etc.)
• Success stories and Fail stories
• L’importance de l’identité visuelle sur Internet
• Bloggers v. journalists, what’s the difference?
• Community Managing

I was pretty worried that a few of these workshops had predetermined topics (chosen by sponsors).  This is a significant deviation from BarCamp format and ruffles our geeky feathers.  But these turned out to be some of the most interesting workshops (for me).  So things went well!

Some topics are a little more tech-centric, and people sorted themselves out effectively independently. On a topic like “What is the difference between bloggers and journalists?” you’re not gonna get many winemakers.  On topics like “Success stories and fail stories of winemakers on the web” you have a lot of producers present to hear what works and what doesn’t work.

Lots of wine

After the workshops, we had a great tasting of wines from the sponsors and the winemakers who participated during the day.  We were also received by the Mairie to have a wonderful tasting of high end wine from the Toques et Clochers barrel auction.  And then we finally went out for dinner in the Cité and an after hours drink at l’Hotel de la Cité.  Good times to be had by all.

🙂

 

 

It’s that time of year when my RSS feed fills up with bloggers posting amateur pictures of almond trees in bloom.  Well technically, the almond blossoms come out in February (except for rare occasions like 2010 where they waited til March).  This week, you really see several of the other fruit trees and flowers kicking into action.  Black cherries, damson plums, quince, and so on.  They’re all coming back to life as the vines weep and show they’re ready to start budding as well.

So what if every blog is posting pictures of blossoms?  Who am I to be any different.

VinoCamp Languedoc
March 19th and 20th
Carcassonne
à la CCI

A detailed schedule will come soon. But the important thing is to book your tickets and hotels for this lovely weekend in March.  A hundred wine professionals and Internet people will come together at the Chambre de Commerce et de l’Industrie in Carcassonne.  There will be a series of round table discussions on Saturday on subjects that will be decided the day of the VinoCamp.  Sunday will consist of a visit to the Cité de Carcassonne and at least one vineyard.

Registration and Wiki

VinoCamp registration is free but mandatory as there are a few questions that will help me organize buses, food, etc.

I strongly encourage you to edit the VinoCamp wiki.  This will allow you to add your name, email address, and website to the common list that we will all use for reference when writing about the event.  Participants in the conference will be able to familiarize themselves with your website before they come to the conference.

What is a VinoCamp? What is a BarCamp?

I’ve written about the nature of barcamps before, but to summarize: VinoCamp is an open conference devoted to wine and the Internet. There is no literal camping involved.   Here is a post with some video of a small round table discussion about Oenotourism from VinoCamp Paris

Who comes to a VinoCamp?

Winemakers, wine retailers, wine journalists, and anybody who makes a living online with wine.  VinoCamp is a place where wine professionals and techies come together to share ideas about the future of wine online.  You’ll get to meet a few Z list local celebrities like me. ;D

Here is my list of the people I met at VinoCamp Paris.  The open nature of the VinoCamp allows you to really meet a lot of new people.  And since everybody has a chance to talk, you can tell very quickly whether a person is awesome or not.