Oh wow, I forgot how much I love maps.
I’ve been playing around in Google Maps and it’s really fun. Some of you might know that I’m working on a book about the AOC Cabardes and the wines north of Carcassonne. And so I’ve built a big directory and I’m defining certain climactic zones. Blah blah blah. But I took a few hours here and there to plot it down onto a 3D terrain map in Google Earth. And it’s gorgeous.
I’m not sure if I’m even allowed to use Google Earth maps in my work. I’ll have to scour Google Permissions later. But what I can do is share the work so far.
To view in Google Earth, you have to download Google Earth and then use it to open Cabardes.kml
To view the less awesometastic version, just look at my customized google map of the Cabardes. You won’t need to download anything. It’s set so you can make modifications, but don’t do anything cheeky.
Making wine maps is pretty sweet. If you have any ideas on how to format it or what I should add or anything else, feel free to speak up. Oh, I took out three of the cooperatives because they produce very little Cabardes and are on the outside of the AOC zone. If you know the location of the vines that contribute to the Cabardes of those cooperatives, please let me know and I will gladly add the vines to the map.
If you’re wondering what the big splashes of color represent, those are different zones within the Cabardes. An explanation of this map or one like it will be included in the upcoming ebook Introduction to Cabardès along with a directory of these producers and an introduction to the region’s wine and history.
Awesome! Google Maps updated its satellite images of Domaine O’Vineyards and several other estates in our area. The satellite images are in much higher detail than they used to be. And the new images of O’Vineyards includes the winery which didn’t exist in the old images from 2005. COOOL. Check out the map yourself by googling O’Vineyards.
I really like Google Maps. I haven’t checked our map in a little while, but I think this is a very recent update. It appears to be an early spring photo which could mean I caught it just a few weeks after the photo was taken.
For some reason, the map updates seem really important to me. I remember a few years ago (2007?) when Google updated its images of New Orleans and you could see the blue tarps still covering the leaky roofs all over town. You could see some parts of the much publicized lower ninth which had been so destroyed by the canal break.
Now, a more cheerful memory has been built into the Google Map. Domaine O’Vineyards! The winery is built and life has been restored to these vines that were once destined to be ripped out of the ground. Hurrah for new beginnings!
I hope you enjoy this little French wine map from O’Vineyards and Google. The Languedoc deserves a lot more of these updates because there’s a lot of beautiful french wine country. If you find some other vineyard satellite images you like, please let me know and I will post about them too.
