“La qualité des terrains se communique aux végétaux qui y sont placés ; elle forme ce qu’on nomme goût de terroir” [Fourcroy, Conn. chim. t. VIII, p. 276]

Enfin, pourquoi nous cassons nous la tête pour faire du vin représentatif d’un terroir?  On peut simplement mettre du terroir dans une bouteille.

J’ai sauté quelques étapes pour sauver du temps et surtout maintenir l’authenticité du terroir.  Voilà pour votre plaisir dégustatif, une bouteille remplie de terre argilo-calcaire, récoltée à une température ambiante de 28 degré centigrade, avec une hydrométrie assez sèche.

Toutes ces qualités, qu’on peut attribuer à une topographie intéressante (amphithéâtre en élévation sur les pieds de la Montagne Noire), ressortent merveilleusement de ce vin grâce a un travail de chai qui favorise la non intervention.

On peut aussi envisager une étiquette “Argilo Calcaire 2010, AOC Cabardes”.

Comme toute mes idées ridicules, celle ci peut vous tenter à en acheter pour du vrai ou comme gag pour un ami passionné du vin.  Par contre, comme toutes mes idées ridicules, ca coûte assez cher pour l’envoi.  Alors 3 euros au chai, mais 13 euros par courrier dans la France.

On peut le faire en bouteilles recyclées, couleur chêne ou ou verte .

Couleur bouteille

Marron €13,00Vert €13,00

Remember that CouchSurfing group that was hitchhiking to all the French towns with dirty names in the southwest?

Well it turns out there is a club of French towns with naughty names. And they have an annual parade.

Well, this means I get to expand my list of favorite town names. Maybe we should do a wine tasting of wines that come from burlesque villages.
;D

Most of the following aren’t so much naughty as they are slightly pejorative or just silly-sounding.  And they’re all in the Languedoc Roussillon:

• Bourg-Madame (Get the Mrs. drunk)
• Saint-Arnac (Saint Ripoff)
• Saint Jean de Cuculles (just naughty-sounding)
• Conas (since we pronounce the S’s at the end of words, bitch)
• Fourtou (an out of the way place where you put all your crap)
• Les Cassés (the broken ones)

Getting into the neighboring region of Midi-Pyrenées, we get a little naughtier:

• Seix
• Salau
• Arnac-sur-Dourdou
• Cornus
• Oô
• Condom
• Montcuq
• Belbèse

This post is brought to you by my dad.  He’s the guy who does all the work around here while I sit around drunk-tweeting.

fellow wine-lovers. It is my sincere intention to keep you informed of the progress of our vines from the budbreak to the harvest. I will try to be as explicit as possible and will be happy to respond to any questions you may have. We will be primarily following the growth of our merlot which is located quite close to the winery so I will have few excuses not to keep you updated. We have just finished our winter trim and I have posted a few photos to illustrate what I am talking about. The trimmings are torn down and dropped in the middle of the row where they will be mulched in place.  The middle wires on the trellis system must now be lowered before the budbreak to limit damage. We have about one week to accomplish this judging by the start of growth on some of the vines. You will be amazed when you see next weeks photos of the vines.

Just after complaining about how there are no meetups around Carcassonne, I see a couchsurfing group that proves me hilariously wrong.  They plan on meeting up and hitchhiking through all the towns with vulgar names in the south of France.  Awesome.

How many villages have dirty names, you ask?  A lot.

• Condom, on the Bises river.
• Couille (Testicle)
• La Conne (The Bitch)
• Monteton (Homophone for “My Nipple”)
• Montcuq (Homophone for “My Ass” with one of those lovely silent Q’s I guess)

This will be a team event. If you don’t have a partner, we can pair you up with someone else.

This is an excellent way to meet new people (CSers and drivers), visit new places in France, and it allows your inner hitchhiker a bit of childish fun.

So what are you waiting for?  Go out and meet some routards and hitch hike through the naughty bits of the Languedoc.

I’m going to try to be there even though it’s a bit of a trek just to get to the first commune…the immaturity of this journey appeals to me on some fundamental level. It’s probably because I turned 25 this week (the last year you can get a carte jeunesse from the SNCF) and I’m afraid of losing my youth.

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We’re experiencing a mighty snow storm these past couple days. Pruning is impossible. Snow drifts have entirely covered small sections of the vines and have blocked a few doors.

Power went out for a bit the other day because everybody in France is cranking the heat. Thankfully, we’re working off a woodstove and we could stay warm.

Most of my appointments for Love That Languedoc have been rescheduled until the roads clear up. We’re not used to this kind of snow down here. We only get a handful of snow days and it’s usually nothing serious. That’s wonderful, but it leaves us a little unprepared to clear roads and whatnot.

I hear a good freeze is good for the vines. Helps the sap run down or something. Well, the vines are chilling.

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.