It’s spring and it’s wonderfully hot. We went from one of the coldest winters to one of the hottest Springs. And in brief, it feels like Summer at O’Vineyards.

And now we’re starting to get our dearest vacationers so it feels even more like Summer. The other day, Anthony Swift from Wine Pleasures came through with a group of Norwegian wine women. These wine ladies had just visited Carcassonne’s castle ramparts in the morning where I met the group and led them back to the vineyard just a few kilometers away.

I like all the tour groups we get, but Wine Pleasures was a special pleasure because Anthony is as obsessed with the Internet as I am (maybe more?). So the group doesn’t get shy around cameras. And we get to share the tasting with you.

We did a live stream that you can still access here:

What you don’t get to see in the stream is the delicious schmorgesborg that my mom prepared for the luncheon after the wine tasting. The photos don’t do it justice. But if you follow the blog or visit us with any frequency, you know that my mom is a cooking machine.

You can follow Anthony Swift on Twitter and Facebook.

We were interviewed for Food and Wine Talk, a radio program based out of Miami and hosted by Simone Diament and Carole Kotkin.

Winemaker interview for Domaine O’Vineyards

This was an event organized about a year ago by the CIVL and they had a little winemaker dinner with some American press.  Since our wines had been selected for the US Ambassador tour, we were poked to do this very fun dinner in the medieval castle city of Carcassonne.  There was another larger producer in the Malpere present, so it was a fun western-Languedoc dinner.  Not enough focus on the Malpere and Cabardes, two Languedoc appelations with very peculiar varietals available to them (eg. Merlot, Cabernet)

Here’s the full article about Carole’s Languedoc travels.

I toured the restaurant and cellar at La Barbacane, the main restaurant in l’Hotel de la Cité.  This is one of the big attractions at the medieval castle of Carcassonne.  It’s a huge treat because this Michelin-starred restaurant is a landmark in one of France’s most visited monuments!

Georges Gracia, the sommelier and restaurant manager showed me how everything gets done at the restaurant and we took a moment to talk a little about Languedoc wines and O’Vineyards’ place amongst them.  If you speak French, you should just check out the video footage.  Otherwise, the summary is that the Languedoc is going places and winemakers like us hope to be a pretty big part of this future.

Hey everybody!! My Flip UltraHD came in the mail. I’m really excited. This camera is gorgeous.

I celebrated by traveling to Carcassonne and shooting everything I could including this pensive pigeon.

I will do a lot of random picture posts to share the vineyard and the region with you.  Hopefully they won’t all be Nouveau art-films about pigeons considering barred windows.