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 article compares research findings about wine tourism in Champagne and the Languedoc.  If you’re looking for a vineyard to visit in Champagne, I suggest Tarlant who organized my entire trip there.  If you’re looking for a vineyard to visit in the Languedoc, I suggest mine because I want to meet you. 😀

While I visited Champagne last weekend, the Reims Management School was hosting a Fête de la Recherche (and it always sounded like they were telling me to do research “Faites de la recherche!”).  One of the first research projects they presented was a study of wine tourism in the region.  Keenly aware of my interest in oenotourism, my host Melanie Tarlant signed me up to attend.

Steve Charters presents at RMS

Steve Charters, Aurélien Rouquet, and S. Jolly from the RMS presented two studies.  One surveyed 28 producteurs recoltants about their thoughts on offering oenotourisme in an effort to determine what was being done already and what people would be willing to do.  The other study focused on surveying tourists who actively participated in oenotouristic activities.

I’ve asked the RMS to send me a bit of detail about the studies as methodology seems of vital importance on this issue.  But in the meanwhile, I can already talk a bit about the big points they brought up.

Quick ideas that I found interesting:

• The majority of Champagne is sold domestically
• Champagne producers that export successfully are less likely to be interested in tourism
• Champagne producers farther to the south are more likely to be interested in tourism
• Some producers fear they might have more to lose than to gain
• Many wineries value product tasting more than overall experience

Some disorganized personal conclusions on my part:

Champagne’s touristic activity isn’t as developed as I would have thought.  There’s a lot of cool visits to do, but tourism is largely dominated by the negociant houses especially close to Reims.

If it already sells, why do tourism?

Personally, I love the touristic side of the vineyard.  It’s fun to meet consumers.  And I think it adds value to the wine as people learn about where wine comes from and develop a closer relationship with their producers.

But most businesses are going to look at the short term and ask how much money do I make and how much do I spend developing wine tourism?

So it makes sense that wine producers who already sell their wine successfully at high prices tend to lack the motivation to look into tourism.  This turns out to be a bit ironic since the ones who sell their bubbly most easily tend to be located closer to cities and villages with high touristic appeal.  For example, many of the more notorious growers are often located closer to Reims and Epernay which receive more tourists.

Similarly, I’d expect wine producers around Hautvillers to lack motivation to explore oenotourisme, because Hautvillers already has so many tourists.  The village houses the Abbey where Dom Perignon made the first Champagne blends and so there’s a steady flow of traffic consuming local wines at the bars, restaurants, and cafes.  So strangely, they don’t need to do tours.  Tourists will go and drink their wine after doing a tour of the abbey.  Or at least that’s the impression I got.

It’s pretty fair to generalize and say that growers located in the south (farther from Reims and often more dependent on Pinot) have to fight a little harder to sell their Champagne, and that might explain their motivation to explore wine tourism.   Even though they’re farther from the cities that draw the most tourists, they’re willing to fight for it because they need to find innovative ways for people to discover their wines.

Still a lot of improvements to be made

The study found that growers tended to be split into three groups, with some very skeptical producers, some that saw potential, and some who were already eagerly advancing their touristic activity.

Charters specifically cited Champagne Charlier as a leading light in the field of vineyard and winery tours.  That said, the online presentation of their offer looks roughly equivalent to my own vineyard’s (if a little less developed, dare I say).  And I’ve only been at this for a bit over a year.  So there’s still a lot to be done up there.

Should tourism be controlled as closely as production

However, after getting a feel for Champagne’s dual interprofessions (the negociants and growers have separate interprofessional groups), I imagine you can’t make tooo many waves.  Growers expressed a general concern about the overall quality of tours preserving the luxury/prestige image of the Champagne region.  And this makes sense.

Consumers think very highly of Champagne already.  A poorly executed visit could lower a consumer’s image of the region very easily.  Should oenotouristic activity for a carefully protected denomination/brand like Champagne be controlled as closely as the production?  A very good question.  While I would find it laughable for the Cabardes ODG to interfere in the way I run my business, I sort of understand if some Champagne growers think tourism should be developed with certain minimum standards in their region.

But denominations are often promoted as a way to define terroir.  It’s all about the product.  This notion I’m expressing exposes the political notion of denominations like the AOPs which I’d argue are created to protect growers and help them promote their wines as a group.   The beautiful language about terroir goes hand in hand with the political elements.  But the political elements are primary (in my mind).  So even though tourism doesn’t strictly affect the quality of the wine being produced or how representative it is of the terroir, there is an argument for setting minimum reception standards.  But where do we draw a line and say no more bureaucracy past this point?  Hmmmm…

How it applies to the Languedoc

First of all, I think it’s really encouraging that the Languedoc isn’t sooo far behind in this realm.  French wine tourism, on the whole, is still not as good as it should be.  The Languedoc still has a chance to actually surge ahead of almost every other wine region.  We’re still in this!

Additionally, we probably don’t have the same handicap of high tourism areas already selling their wines well.  A lot of beach tourism doesn’t really come to the region for big red wines (partially explaining the shift to rosés at vineyards nearer the coast).  Also, areas with great tourism like Carcassonne and Limoux are not yet world-renowned so we have a vested interest in greeting people well and changing their perception of our wines.  As a result, we really have no excuse!

Furthermore, I think negociants in the Languedoc region could take a much more active role in tourism.  As seen in Champagne, well-executed tourism increases the perceived value of the product (even when the perceived value is already high).  Negociants are perfectly situated to reap the rewards of this kind of activity and don’t face the same sort of constraints as producers/growers.  It’s interesting to see the dynamic between cooperatives and negociants, a subject that I’ll speak about more later, affects tourism as much as it affects production.

I’ve played a lot with graffiti in the past few months and it’s always been pretty popular.  So I should probably post it here on the blog which is a tad more permanent than facebook status updates and tweets.

Sud de France launched an ad campaign with these posters that feature a model who might be eating a picnic on a dock… a picnic consisting of like 300 different products from the south of France including but not limited to an entire leg of ham.  It looks like quite a picnic and she is pretty so you worry that she is eating all that alone (although it’s good to know she’s not annorexic).

Here’s the ad as it appears on the Sud de France website:

I floated a different version of the ad with a thought bubble explaining the concerned look on her face.

Then the other day I saw this TER train:

Normally the trains in the region say “Vivre en Languedoc-Roussillon” but you can’t spell vivre without ivre.  So with one letter removed, the slogan goes from “To Live in Languedoc Roussillon” to “Drunk in the Languedoc Roussillon”.  You have to love French and the efforts of this very inspired graffiti artist.  I swear it wasn’t me.

And now the Outsiders are playing around with a new logo for our event at Vinisud.

You may have seen the images from Mai 1968 like these.  Well it’s gone from “Nous somme le pouvoir” to “Nous somme la pour boire”. 🙂

One of the best parts of the recent European Wine Bloggers Conference in Brescia, Italy is the post trips. Wine regions like Franciacorta (the primary sponsor for the event), il Soave (the region I visited on Sunday), and many others invited bloggers to tour wineries, see historical sites, and taste local food and wine. These trips tend to be very informative, offering a window into the typicity of an area’s wine, the culture that surrounds the vines, and a lot of fun memories. My Sunday trip to Soave was also notable for making me really really jealous.

Jealous of Communication Efforts

Amazing sense of style

First of all, Soave had a great sense of flair for receiving people.  They understood how to use the beauty of the land and how to play it up a little.  A lot of the time, I feel like winemakers in my region forget how beautiful the place is.  I’m reminded of a promotional trip billed as a walk in the Pic Saint Loup where we just walked a few yards in some vines in one of the valleys.  And only when several of the journalists expressed disappointment did our resourceful winemaker/guides realize they could take us up on one of the higher plateaus from which we saw the entire area.  Thankfully that trip was salvaged, but it came close to being a dud (if it weren’t for the resourcefulness of the locals).  On the other hand, Soave did everything right.  With a name like soave, it makes sense that they’d be smooth operators.

But I mean we’d visit a gorgeous vineyard overlooking the valleys below.  And then we’d be confronted with a really unique style of winemaking like the Recioto di Soave.  The tasting was held in the room where they hang all the grapes on string to dry them out before making their pasito.  It is such a stunning site.  Or later in the day, we were received in a beautiful old building in Monteforte d’Alpone with a piano in the courtyard before ascending to a tasting and lunch in the cloister of Carvaggio’s Palazzo Vescovile.  Because that’s just how they roll in Italy.

In short, Soave demonstrated an amazing sense of style and even dramatics without falling into caricature.  They didn’t try to cling to any “spaghetti and meatballs” kind of stereotypes to impress us.  (Ask me about how often I have to eat cassoulet with journalists who visit my region).

video by Ignacio Segovia

But it’s not just fine aesthetics that made me jealous.  Actually, that’s the least of the things I’m jealous of.

Increasing Visibility of Communication Efforts

What I loved most in Soave was their common sense approach to increasing visibility.  They had gone to great expense to impress us and share their amazing culture and wines with us.  So they went a little bit further and hired a video crew to film the entire trip and IMMEDIATELY put it online.  Things were going up almost instantly.  That video at the top of the page where I’m talking about soave was filmed at 10 AM and it was online before I could fill my face with risotto at lunch.  😀

When you put money into impressing journalists/bloggers, you should also think about immortalizing that effort and experience on the Internet.  That way, the small experience that went to a group of 20 journalists can now be rehashed over and over by hundreds or thousands on the Internet.

Using Local Brand Ambassadors

Futhermore… I feel like I’m buring this in the middle of an article when it’s really the most important point in here.  Soave works with local brand ambassadors to amplify their communication efforts.  That’s a fancy way to say they invite their biggest supporters to piggyback on promotional efforts for journalists.  Such a simple idea.  I wish my region did it more effectively.  Right before we arrived to the first winery, our guide let us know that a small group would be joining us.  I wasn’t sure what that meant.  But I talked to members of that second group and it turned out they’re just locals who frequently communicate on the soave brand.  Or people from other parts of Italy who are good spokespeople for soave.  So any time Soave is undergoing the expense of having a group like the EWBC in, they send an email to their best brand ambassadors and allow them to join in on the fun.  The CIVL has asked me to do this once or twice and Sud de France has as well.  I’m grateful, but I think I’m in the minority.  I really wish that I’d run into the people who contribute most to this region’s online communications.  People like Rosemary George, Graham Tiggs, Chez Loulou, Nina Izzo, Michel Smith, Louise Hurren, and so on live really nearby.  They should basically be kept abreast of everything.  Actually some of the people on that list will be at many events, but that’s only because they’ve crossed some imaginary threshold to officially be labeled press or PR people.  The marginal cost of inviting ten more people to a large tasting area is rather negligible.  Of course, if you start including seated meals and hotel rooms, the costs are totally different and you can’t always offer those to everybody.  But anyway, I’m jealous because I feel like the promotional bodies in my area don’t respect their local brand ambassadors as much as Soave does.  That’s the heart of it.  I don’t want somebody to misread this and think that I’m lamenting my personal travails.  Again, several organizations have done really remarkable things for me and opened doors into fascinating events.  But more could be done to make other brand ambassadors feel like they’re really appreciated.

And a final note: In Soave, even larger organizations like Borgo Rocca Sveva are on board with the importance of social media.  I am seeing glimmers of hope and interest from Sieur d’Arques, Anne de Joyeuse, and so on.  But the vast majority of the medium sized coops right up to the UCCOARs seem to be totally uninterested in communicating direct to consumer online.  There are obvious exceptions like Embres & Castelmaure, master communicators who are keenly watching the Internet space.  But these are exceptions.  Borgo Rocca Sveva is enormous, but they still realize that it’s possible to have unique voices online even in an organization of that size.  I wish we had co-ops with websites like Borgo Rocca Sveva’s blog.  EDIT: okay, so while fact checking (I do that occasionally) I discovered that Sieur d’Arques does have a blog? http://sieurdarques.unblog.fr/  Updated on and off since 2009 with lots of different subjects that go beyond the typical “we won an award” type of post.  How did I not know that?  Anyway. Foot in mouth. My bad. 

The region is also working strongly on communicating with consumers online.  Find il Soave on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and so on.

Franciacorta’s efforts

I should also mention Franciacorta’s colossal effort in receiving the conference. We really had a top notch experience in the Santa Giulia in Brescia. Even the hotels chosen had a lot of character. No bland, corporate moments. An entire trip full of charm and quirks. And an enormous sense of cooperation between winemakers (perhaps reminiscent of the strict military style formations in Champagne houses) I’ll probably write about all this on a separate occasion.  But let it be known that I can’t think of Soave’s hospitality without thinking of Franciacorta’s as well.  Italy on a whole was very very good to me.

The Wine is Good Too

Let’s not allow the communication efforts to overshadow the wines.  Simply put, I wouldn’t be writing about soave at all if their wines weren’t amazing.  The reason I chose this trip in the first place is because I thought I could learn a lot about the calcareous soil whites (although I did fall for a few volcanic terroir wines too).  And it was an added bonus that Soave faces a similar challenge to the Languedoc’s.  Soave is a word that was used to describe vast amounts of generic Italian white wine of forgetable quality.  And now the best winemakers in the region are trying to rebrand themselves without abandoning this once degraded name “soave”.  If they can do it, so can the Languedoc.  PS – I’m making white wine on limestone and clay soon so I wanted to steal some techniques too. ;D

Jealous of everything?

Well now, I put a question mark in there. I loved the wines we tasted, especially around lunch time (no big surprise, Ryan likes wine more with food ;D).  I loved the communication efforts.  I loved everything.  But despite all my jealousy and the tastiness of their wines, I’m still very happy in the Languedoc.  I think we have all the opportunities in the world.  It’s just a good idea to look at neighbors like Soave to see what’s being done right in other regions.

I attended the Université de la Vigne et du Vin in Ferrals-les-Corbieres, a small village in the heart of Languedoc wine country.  This post is a summary of my day.  A full pdf of the event program can be downloaded.

In brief

It was pretty cool.  The Uni is a real home-grown event where some very motivated people in the region (namely Nadine Franjus-Adenis) have organized a conference that addresses issues facing contemporary viticulture.

Nadine Franjus-Adenis hosts the Universite de la Vigne et du Vin

Being local, the conference has a lot of personality and is a bit quirky (which you know I am a fan of).  The organizers interrupt speakers every time they use anglicisms.  There’s a lot of occitan thrown around between presentations.  The whole event is clearly taking place in the Languedoc.

And it also feels a lot less pretentious than other more International events.  And the speakers are easily as good here as the ones I see at larger conferences (Wine Futures comes to mind).  You don’t need to be a big wine celebrity to be thought-provoking. Which is funny because the theme was actually about being a big wine celebrity.

2011’s theme – Riche et Celebre

The theme was “Riche et Celebre?”, a playful choice because virtually all of us in the wine business know how impractical it is to think that all winemakers could become rich and famous.

Louise Hurren’s summary on facebook is very accurate:

Essentially, it was about the importance, for wines and wineries, of being known, of having an identity. In French, the process of being first “connu” and then “reconnu”… there was a lot of talk about the need to work together as a group and have a collective identity. Lot of debate about whether to promote under the banner of terroir, of cepage, of appellation, of brand (eg. Sud de France)… and so on.

People presented on a variety of subjects linked to the theme of notoriety.  There were a number of things I disagreed with, but that’s healthy for a real exchange of ideas.  I hate those conferences where everybody agrees.

Actual speaker synopsis

I started writing these up and some of them got very long so I’ll give them their own posts.  Follow the link to read my thoughts on any particular speaker.

Jacky Rigaux, Université de Bourgogne –
Terroir is the best way to promote French wines

Christophe Juarez, France, ton vin est dans le rouge –
Adapting to the modern wine world

Jacques Berthomeau, Ministry of Agriculture & Blogger –
Share your stories and use the Internet

Francois Druel, web consultant –
The Internet is cool

Christine Ontivero, PR –
What Press Agents do

Michel Smith, Jouranlist/Blogger and Winemaker –
How to communicate with journalists

Panel Discussion: Individual versus Collective Identity

• moderated by Hervé Hannin, director of Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Vigne et du Vin
• Jacques Berthomeau, as above
• Elodie Le Drean, filiere vin Sud de France Developpement
• Jerome Villaret, delegue general CIVL
• Xavier de Volontat, vigneron independant & President AOC Corbieres
• Frantz Venes, Chateau Massamier la Mignarde

Volem Dire al Pais – short film interview series with Michel Cano conducting interviews and film/editing by Alexandre Pachoutinsky

Wine tasting with Frederic Senechal from L’Auberge du Vieux Puits (Gilles Goujon three michelin starred restaurant)

coverage of l’Universite de la Vigne et du Vin

Other articles about the event:

• Berthomeau wrote
• Michel Smith wrote

Photos of Universite de la Vigne et du Vin

November 10th, 2011 is Languedoc Day.  Show that you’re participating with a free registration on the LanguedocDay event page.

What is Languedoc Day?

Languedoc Day is an opportunity for lots of people to discover or learn about one of the largest winemaking regions on the planet.  This beautiful stretch of land on the Mediterranean coast of the south of France produces more wine than the entire United States.  We produce more wine than all of Australia too!  Just in this one region!

While a lot of that wine has historically been bottled in bulk under vin de pays names that aren’t always recognizable (big brands like Fat Bastard, Red Bicyclette, and Arrogant Frog all come from here), more and more of our wines are being bottled under the controlled standards of the French Appellation system.  And LanguedocDay is an opportunity for consumers to familiarize themselves with these Languedoc appellations.

What do you do on Languedoc Day?

Think Languedoc. Talk Languedoc. Drink Languedoc.  And not necessarily in that order.

If you drink some Languedoc wine, you’re already doing your part!

Then think about telling your friends.  Invite some people over to share the wine with.  Or throw a picture of the bottle on facebook, twitter, youtube, or whatever websites you like.  Let people know that you’re drinking Languedoc.  And if you add “#languedocday” without the quotes, it will be easy for us to see your participation!

Which brings us to the last way to participate: reading about who else is enjoying Languedoc Day. Follow the conversation on Twitter to see who else is talking up my favorite wine region. Just follow this link:  #LanguedocDay

Personally, I’ll be attending the Université du Vin in Corbieres, a beautiful mountainous region in the Languedoc.  A lot of French winos will be meeting up to talk about different contemporary wine topics around the subject of notoriety.  I think Languedoc Day is a perfect example of how we can try to build notoriety for the region!

Can I drink O’Vineyards on Languedoc Day?

You can drink O’Vineyards any day that ends in Y. 🙂

Unfortunately, my wines aren’t present in the US for the 2011 Languedoc Day celebration.  But there are lots of delicious Languedoc wines you can get your hands on instead so cheer up and bottoms up!

Languedoc Day appellations

Here are some wine appellations from the Languedoc that you might be able to find at a wine shop or Whole Foods near you.

• Faugeres
• Saint Chinian
• Fitou
• Corbieres
• Minervois
• La Clape
• Limoux
• Malepere
• Cabardes
• Coteaux du Languedoc

Who decides it’s Languedoc Day?

The CIVL (Conseil Interprofessionnel des Vins du Languedoc) is a interprofessional group that represents the AOC/AOPs of the Languedoc.  That means that everybody who produces appellation wines pays some dues to the CIVL, and the CIVL then uses that money to promote the entire region’s appellations.

In an attempt to increase the renown of our appellations in the US, the CIVL hire an American marketing group called the Benson Marketing Group to represent our products.  This group has teamed up with Rick Bakas, who successfully nurtured Cabernet Day, to create a Languedoc Day.  In short, this is a unilateral marketing effort.  A lot of people gripe about this saying you can’t just decide it’s Languedoc Day without some consensus.  My view is that you absolutely can.  If you have energy and resources to spend on promoting the Languedoc, then promote the Languedoc already!  No need to sit around making sure the date is okay with everybody.  Just steam forward!  Full speed ahead!

2011 Vintage Report

People have been asking me about how the vintage is going to turn out since back in August.  I’m always hesitant to guess at quality that early in the game, and this year is a perfect example of why we shouldn’t be too confident in our speculation.

All year, the vines were ahead of schedule and carrying a pretty bountiful crop of grapes.  But in the last stretch, conditions changed drastically and how winemakers responded to those changes will lead to  a wide spectrum of results.  I think that quality of 2011 Languedoc wines will vary wildly depending on yield, microclimates, and harvest strategy.  While this variance is always something to consider, it’s especially crazy this year.

O’Vineyards 2011 Vintage

The grapes were tasting great since mid August which is unusually early.  We taste them daily with the tour groups that come through to visit the vineyard.  Normally they don’t start tasting good until closer to harvest.  As I explained to the tour groups, the flesh of the fruit tasted good but the seeds were still green.

As we continued tasting, I felt confident that the ripeness would be there by the second week of September.  Muse the dog was also eating grapes in the second week which is usually a good sign!   The lab was telling us to wait and was predicting that the grapes would be ready late in the third week or fourth week of the month.  I thought that was ludicrous and we went ahead and started harvesting on the night of the 14th.

Grapes came in very well and very ripe.  In retrospect, we sort of look like genius wine wizards.  People who followed the textbook guidelines on how to harvest may have been taken off guard by several of the unusual circumstances this year.

Unusual circumstances of 2011 harvest

It was a very late summer with tshirt and shorts weather through most of September and part of October. This had an incredible effect on the late ripening period for the grapes in my area.  Lots of shriveling and therefore less water and higher sugar content.

There was also a special kind of late season mildew which knocks out the youngest leaves on the plant.  This wasn’t a problem for us because we had low to moderate yields and lots of healthy leaves.  But if you had a lot of grapes on the plant, you might have needed those young leaves in the final stretch.  Then again, most of the producers that really push yield also treat more against mildew and it seemed like my neighbors weren’t much affected by this.

It seems like there were less pips this year.  We didn’t really notice this until decuvage, but it seems significant.  2-3 seeds per grape instead of 2-4.   The grapes also stained our equipment a lot less than usual which might be related to the fewer seeds observation.

It’s also worth reminding you that the vines were very far ahead of schedule earlier in the year.

All this combines for a crazy late season.  Winemakers who harvested later might be facing extreme concentration levels.  The grapes started shriveling very quickly in the record-breaking heat we had at the end of September.  Judging by the dates some people were harvesting, I imagine some of my neighbors were bringing grapes in at 17% and 18% potential alcohol.  These concentrations are obviously TOO high to be making typical terroir wines.  Independent wineries can counter this by illegally adding water (although that’s not an alternative that fills me with joy).  And this sort of cheating can be harder to pull off in larger more public wineries like cooperatives (depending on the visibility and honesty of the winery).

On the other hand, winemakers who brought things in early might face some other issues.  For example, if you prune for high yields, you were looking at exceptionally high yields this year.  But exceptionally high yields can mean it takes longer for the seeds to ripen.  So if you brought in your harvest early, you might still have green seeds.  But if you waited too long you might have ripe seeds but you’ll also have huge sugar levels.

Anyway, we hit some kind of magical middle path.  We pruned for low yields.  The bumper harvest just meant a normal amount of grapes on our vines (floating around 40 hectoliters/hectare).  So we got seed maturity early enough that we could bring the grapes in at a reasonable 14-15% potential for the most part.

And there are lots of other variables I’m probably not noticing or forgetting to mention.  Components like surface area of foliage, depth of roots, deep water reservoirs, and so on.  And there are much finer variables that people hardly mention like leaf attrition, cane width, migration of African swallows carrying coconuts by the husk, etc.  😉

Hopefully this has been helpful and gives people some insight into the 2011 vintage.  Should be a fun one. 😉

We started the machine harvest on September 15, 2011.  The weather’s been perfect and the grapes came in very cool as we started predawn (4h45AM).  A few surprises but lots of good things to report.  High hopes for the rest of harvest and the potential of this vintage for the entire Languedoc Roussillon!

I don’t really have time to wax poetic but there were some take away points worth mentioning:

• After much talk about increased yield, Syrah seems to come in at a very low average of 35 hectoliters/hectare
• WWOOFers are very helpful around harvest time
• Merlot came in very clean with this new harvester
• Syrah was a lot of work at the sorting table (mostly snails) and I think we should do more by hand
• Everything tastes great showing a full maturity despite slightly higher yields in some parcels

Some harvest photos

I got to see a lot of British friends while I was on Naked Wines UK Tour this summer.  Even Jancis Robinson, the queen bee herself attended our London tasting.  And she had exceptionally positive things to say about the innovation at Naked Wines and also the quality of wine.

Overall quality of Naked Wines

“There are no duds, even if most of the offerings are of solid rather than mind-blowing quality – but the range is really interesting (see, for example, boutique Chileans, dry Germans, the stunning value Strathbogie Pinot and Slovenians). And if you search for GV (good value), you will find some VGV and the odd VVGV. But please be warned that not all of these wines will still be available. You can check at www.nakedwines.com.”

Jancis correctly points out that the entire range at Naked is solid quality and there are many hidden gems with very good value.  She also acknowledges that the listed prices are 30% higher than the discounted price available to the thousands and thousands of Naked Angels, paid members of the site.

Impression of the Winemakers

“We were allowed in early at the beginning of the tasting session and it was rather sweet to see this collection of mainly young men, all in the same Naked Wines T-shirt, chatting excitedly with each other, rather like freshers on their first day at university.”

I did like this bit about how the winemakers (myself included) were standing about the room before the tasting like a bunch of first years at university. 🙂  It’s a remarkably accurate description as the whole tour reminded me a lot of college.  Roaming around a new environment with a bunch of great people I just met.  Free shirts.  A bit of drinking. 🙂

O’Vineyards Tasting Notes

I don’t cater my winemaking to specific journalists, but it’s always really nice to hear that very accomplished wine pros who have been around the block like what I’m doing. 🙂

O’Vineyards, Trah Lah Lah 2008 IGP La Cité de Carcassonne 16.5 Drink 2011-2015
Made by Ryan and Joe O’Connell. 65% Merlot, 35% Cabernet Sauvignon. Deep crimson. Nicely integrated. Sweet start and attractively dry, lively finish. Still a bit chewy but chock full of life. 13.5%
£12.99 Naked Wines

O’Vineyards, O’ Syrah 2008 IGP La Cité de Carcassonne 16 Drink 2011-2014
Dry and minerally. Really rather smooth and well mannered.
£14.99 Naked Wines

And I’m not the only one she liked. As mentioned above, no duds in this tasting. The Languedoc did exceptionally well as we represent an important part of the Naked Wines portfolio. Winemaker Ben Darnault got one of the many Good Value awards in Jancis’ notes for his highly drinkable “Very Languedoc” Minervois. And Hegarty-Chamans put forward some nice wines that raised her brow. Always interesting things to drink in the Languedoc. 🙂

I just saw off the last of my Cabernet Day friends.  It’s been a real blast.

Seeing Local Winemakers

2010 was a really heartwarming Cabernet Day because it was one of the first events I organized to really get a great deal of support from local grape growers and winemakers.  I was worried about 2011 because the slightly early harvest means a lot of winemakers are too busy to celebrate with us.

Some winemakers managed to send samples to be tasted in their absence.  Notably, Gerard Bertrand sent a few bottles of his Cabernet Franc from Cigalus.  That’s a big name in the region and I’m so excited that he decided to participate.  And everybody enjoyed tasting the wine while watching high def video footage of the Corbieres vineyard from a helicopter!  Bling bling.  We’ve come a long way from  #Cabernetday’s humble beginnings. ;D

I was also really pleased to see some winemakers tore themselves away from harvest to come in person.  And they brought wines!  Which is also very exciting because a lot of the growers around here are very shy and don’t like promoting their own wine. I’m very proud of them for coming out and braving a mostly anglophone audience to help share some of the Cabernet love.

Sharing with Anglophones

And it should be noted that this year was VERY English-speaking.  Many English families retire to this region around Carcassonne, and I feel like they make up a really strong community that will enjoy a lot of local wines.  Probably 90% of the attendees were speaking in English.

And I’ll add that almost everybody tonight was a wine novice, which is great.  I was happy to have a very professional/wine trade crowd in 2010.  But I’m even happier to share the joys of Cabernet with an amateur/novice crowd.  People who just love life in the south of France and want to drink some good local wine.

We got to spend a lot of time sharing simple winemaker pleasures like “how to taste grapes for ripeness“.  We all went out to the rows of Cabernet Sauvignon and tasted how the fruit was coming along.  Chewed the skins and seeds separately.  Talked about the importance of sugar and phenolics.

It was a lot of fun because we had a huge deal of neighborhood support.  I’m getting too mushy, but it felt wonderful to have such a big block party here at O’Vineyards all around some Cabernet.

Lots of good friends!

2011″s Cab Day turned out very different from 2010 here in the Languedoc, so I’m anxious to hear everybody’s reports.  I hope everybody has a piece of the magic we had here in the Languedoc Roussillon!  Thanks again to Rick Bakas for organizing a wonderful Cab Day.