Posted by Joe The Winemaker:

“Finnnnnnnnnnished! The 2102 harvest has finished fermentation and the pressing of the skins was completed Saturday 3rd of November!

When you grow grapes and make wine, you sometimes wonder whether the months of September and October exist. You start to clean and prepare for harvest in late August and the next thing you know; you are getting ready for Christmas!
During the harvest season, visitors are always amazed at how much happens on a daily basis.

Anyway we are extremely happy with the quality of our 2012 harvest and look forward to tasting with all our visitors!”

The Merlot came in last week nice and clean and everything feels great. Another 3AM harvest so some of the photos are a bit dark. But that means the grapes could come in really cool and do a pre-fermentation cold soak.

The juice is tasting yummy and we’re inducing fermentations in two of the tanks. A third tank will ferment spontaneously (hopefully) with the wild yeasts that live on the grapes. Yay!

When I asked Ryan to explain his choice of name for the new O’Vineyards wine OMG, he replied: “I’m an O’Connell. So it’s O’Vineyards, O’Syrah, O’MG, hahaha”

O’Vineyards recently began having visitors taste their new wine called OMG 2011, and your reactions have been promising. For those of you who missed that memo, OMG stands for Oh My God in online communication culture – though if you’re reading this blog, then you surely already knew that.

We have been fortunate to hear professional opinions too, including the Maitre Sommelier of Carcassonne’s Hôtel de la Cité, Georges Gracia. In Georges’s words, OMG has the following characteristics:

—

Eye.

color: purple, black cherry

Nose.
1st nose: red berries; slightly spicy; la garrigue (thyme, laurel, Mediterranean spices)

2nd nose: combination of fruits, prunes and kirsh; beautiful intensity; fairly complex

Mouth.

Freshness, spices, thyme, bay leaves, pepper; beautiful balance

This is a nice aromatic wine that can adapt to a variety of different dishes. It can be drunk at room temperature or slightly chilled, in any season.

Fruit, spices, with a silky tannic wine with Bordeaux-like charisma

—

OMG is available for purchase exclusively at O’Vineyards for now, but will be available elsewhere this coming fall. More details to come.

 

“Some Naked people came to pick up their wine last week, and we all had a blast!”

I admit it was somewhat alarming to hear these words coming from Liz during my first few days at O’Vineyards. I was going to have to live with these people for several weeks, so I needed an explanation. Luckily Ryan had previously posted about the Naked Wines Angels, who are the main actors in O’Vineyards’ new vineyard share program.  One hundred “Angels” rented some of O’Vineyards vines and are paying Naked Winemakers Ryan and Joe O’Connell to see these vines through wine fruition. Now, the Naked Wines Angels are streaming in one by one to pick up their wine. If you are still confused, they are perfectly normal people–properly clothed and everything–they just went that extra mile because they really like our wine.

So, meet Michelle and David. They are Naked Angels. Liz and Joe had the pleasure of meeting Michelle and David (I unfortunately was not here yet) when they stayed at the B&B around two weeks ago. They enjoyed a tour of O’Vineyards and shared good times and good food around the Winemakers’ Table. As Michelle very poetically puts it in her TripAdvisor review: “We arrived strangers and left as friends.” They also reportedly arrived as fully clothed and sober angels, and left as…

The interviewer becomes the interviewee.  How the tables have turned!  Nina Izzo from Lost in Wine dropped by O’Vineyards and we sat in an enormous wine fermentation tank to talk about my appellation, the Cabardes.  This is part of a new series she’s doing called My Wine Rocks in L-R.

Here’s the video:

You can find either of us floating around ViniSud if you’re in Montpellier this week.  Although if you’re looking for Nina (let’s face it: nobody is looking for me) then keep in mind she’s no longer blonde.

On the off chance that you do look for me instead, I’ll be glad to share more information about Carcassonne, the Cabardes or the O’Connells.

The land and vines that we refer to as O’Vineyards have been around for a very long time and they’ve had many names and many farmers. I’m always picking up little bits about the vineyard’s history, and a friend just loaned a book to me that might help shed some light on the vineyard’s origins.

Cartulaire et Archives de l’Ancien Diocese de Carcassonne par M. Mahul.

Editeur: Philippe Schrauben
Mémoire de la Société des Etudes Scientifiques de l’Aude

One passage on Villemoustaussou’s agricultural history notes that in 1777:

“Lorsque Monsieur, comte de Provence, qui depuis a régné si glorieusement sous le nom de Louis XVIII, passa à Carcassonne, on servit à ce Prince des vins de Limoux et de Villemoustaussou; il eût la bonté d’en faire l’éloge à M. de Bezons. Le vin de Villemoustaussou provenait d’une vigne qui appartenait depuis longtemps à la famille Don” (Journal de la Société d’Agriculture de Carcassonne vol IV p. 137)

Basically Villemoustaussou’s wines were served to somebody pretty important and they impressed him. What’s particularly interesting is that the vines were owned by a M. Don, and we bought our vineyard from a M. Dons. That’s likely a coincidence as locals have told me there were several owners between 1777 and Dons. But still a fun discovery! Wouldn’t that be interesting to find that Dons’ family owned the property long before him and made remarkable wines back in the 18th century!?

Learning more about the vineyard is a complicated process because we’re located on the edge of three different villages. Each of the villages may have records of the property and all under different names. And each of those names can change and evolve over time. Often, the area we call O’Vineyards is locally referred to as “Le Thou” or “Lieu dit Le Thou”. I see some records of places called Le Grand Tou (could easily be Le Thou since the H is silent) as well as Dittou (could easily be a name derived from lieu DIT THOU) but I’ll need to do some more reading to see if these are different areas.  I can probably also mention that Thou is a common word in old english texts so that makes searching a bit complicated too.  While searching for the uniquely named Villemoustaussou is a bit easier, it should be noted that there are lots of alternate spellings and older names (latin texts refer to it as Villamostansio, Villamonstantion, and Villamonstantione).

Some of the local vines still carry their older names, notably Barrau, Brau, Rivalz and La Mijeane. Unfortunately, I don’t see much about a winemaking estate named Thou or Tou. One passage describes a property called TISSOT that is on the high ground separating Villegailhenc from Villemoustaussou (this is a very accurate description of our vineyard, especially the Syrah parcel), and there is a Chemin Tissot near the vineyard.  But I can’t be sure without further research on the name TISSOT to see if it is not referencing some other vineyard.  A preliminary search shows we might be very very close to a property called “les hauts de TISSOT”  and we can imagine that the Thou might have been part of a larger TISSOT estate.  More to come.

Also, by extraordinary coincidence, there is an area in Villegailhenc that was called Podium like one of our wines. Podium Giberti, its full name in 1380, is now called Pechibert.

“This was our Christmas dinner wine thanks to Ryan O’Connell and Joe for making such a gorgeous wine!”
—Frankie Jacklin via Facebook

It’s the holiday season and we’re happy to see lots of people are opening O’Vineyards wine with their friends and family.  It’s always heart warming to know that we could play a small part in celebrating the best moments of your lives!

Chocolate and O’Vineyards Tasting

O’Podium on Christmas Eve

Feel free to share more photos and comments on our facebook page or by tweeting @mroconnell.

It’s hard to link directly to specific reviews on Naked Wines, but our UK customers have been enjoying the wines for the holidays too!

And a whole bunch of people will be opening the Proprietor’s Reserve 2006 on New Years Eve at La Barbacane, a michelin star rated restaurant in the medieval castle of Carcassonne.  The wine has been selected for a pairing with “poularde de Bresse en deux cuissons, le suprême poché aux truffes et langoustines, la cuisse confite, purée de cerfeuil tubéreux purée de cerfeuil tubéreux et salsifis au jus, une sauce, un jus”.  Should be a delicious main course on a mouth watering  275€ St Sylvestre menu.

France’s high speed train, the TGV, will one day carry passengers between Toulouse and Narbonne.  The line will also have a Carcassonne stop.  I’m following developments in the planning of this future train line pretty closely.  I’ve uploaded the slideshow presented to the public recently concerning potential installation sites for the new tracks around Carcassonne and the new train station as well.  Download the TGV project slideshow 21 10 2011 complete with confounding maps and bullet points. 😀

Changes required by a TGV line

Interestingly, as I’m writing this, TGV trains already pass through Carcassonne quite often.  But since the tracks aren’t set up for Grande Vitesse traffic, the trains have to run at normal speeds until they reach Montpellier.  I don’t know much about the technology here, but I’ll just say it has to do with magnets and move on. 😀

Anyway, the engineers have to lay new track suitable to the TGVs and this means they’ll have to run the new track north of Carcassonne or south of Carcassonne (going straight through the city makes no sense).  This is when winemakers start to get worried because there are lots of vines north and south of Carcassonne and we don’t want a bunch of train tracks to replace the vines we love so dearly.

From a business standpoint though, it’s pretty interesting since there are plans to build a new station.  If the TGV connects Carcassonne to the grid, it can bring a lot of tourists and business to the area.  After all the work from Bordeaux to Toulouse is done and this project connects Toulouse to Narbonne, the Carcassonne-Narbonne axis will be much closer to Aquitaine.  And I’ll have to do some math, but I think it might bring us closer to Paris too (the current fastest path to Paris is a slow train from Carcassonne to Montpellier and then TGV up to Paris)

Enough babbling!

There’s a lot of information here as the slideshow also presents all the projects from Toulouse to Narbonne.

Since my vineyard is very close to Carcassonne, slides 16-21 are of most interest to me personally.

The slide that made me panic a little

The first reason to panic is just because it looks like somebody’s planning a war strategy.  Or like a geometry textbook just threw up on a map of Carcassonne.  But we’ll try to make sense of this map.

I’ve added a little o’TGV so you can see where O’Vineyards is located.  As you can see, we’re actually inside one of those circular bubbles meant to represent places where it might make sense to put in the new train station.  And that big golden arrow running straight through us is supposed to represent the possibility of a track running to the north of Carcassonne (but not its actual placement).  The bright red arrows cutting through Villemoustaussou represent tracks that tie the new train station to the small, older train station in the center of Carcassonne (but not their actual placement).

It is important to stress a few things:

1. this is still hypothetical planning,
2. many of the arrows are symbolic representations rather than showing physical placement,
3. those enormous circles are very generously sized.

Let’s break this map down in a less panicked way.  The track has to go either north of Carcassonne or south of it.  The big green bands show the zone that is most suitable for a track.  Rather than look at the large golden arrow representing the northern line, realize that the northern line is actually a very thin track that would go anywhere within that massive green band.

There will also be a new gare.  The big green circles are supposed to represent potential sites where it might make sense to build that gare.  The actual station will be a small dot compared to the circles used to represent their potential placement sites on the map.

Also, knowledge of the terrain where my vineyard is located allows me to say that the tracks could not pass through O’Vineyards.  One one side, we’re too hilly.  On the other side, we’re very close to a village.  If the tracks run north of Carcassonne, it’s much more likely that they’ll pick one of the flatter, lower zones like the one running through Conques sur Orbiel.  With a good set of binoculars, we’d probably be able to glimpse the train behind some hills/trees as it passes in the distance.

I also think they’ll favorize one of the construction sites that is already near rails connecting to the old gare in Carcassonne.  Nobody likes to build in the jurisdiction of Batiments de France and the old gare is right next to the Canal du Midi.  The more they can use existing track, the better.  So those dastardly red arrows seem unlikely.  My money is on one of the oblong ovals that already skirts existing track.

Although, that said, I wouldn’t necessarily mind the station being built in that circle really close to O’Vineyards.  If it’s at the far end of the circle, we could get all the benefit of a nearby train station without any of the noise or visual pollution.   It’s too early in the development of this project to know how harmful/beneficial the placement will be. I’ll just have to watch carefully. In February, they’re supposed to make a decision about whether the line goes north of Carcassonne or south.  And at that time, they’ll provide more details about where exactly the tracks would go.

Hopefully, this won’t mar the local landscapes or prevent winemakers from doing what we do best. And as a secondary wishful thinking kind of hope, maybe this will increase land value for a few of the locals.  And make it easier for me to get to Paris one day.  ;D

 

Tonton Marcel, a French and German guide to agritourism, dropped by O’Vineyards toward the end of harvest.  They’re on the lookout for the  unpretentious, country relation of Mr. and Mrs. Smith who also runs accommodations on the farm. 😀

Photos they took while here

 

Tonton Marcel separates the wheat from the chaff

I think this is a guide that needed to exist.  One of the big problems with agritourism is that you’re never sure if you’re getting a cool, modern farm experience or a cheap little cot in a hayloft with a farmer who seems to dislike visitors.  This second group is often a historical artifact resulting from the way farmers used to make a little spare cash.

There was a time when your horses got tired and you’d ask one of the locals if there were any pensions before the next big town.  A place where you could tie up your horses and shut your eyes until morning.  Those places still exist.  A lot of farms and vineyards run their chambres d’hotes or gites in a similar manner.  You show up, get the key, and then they’ll avoid you at all cost for the rest of your stay.  The room is located on a farm, but otherwise you’re as separated from the farm experience as possible.  These places also tend to be a little run down.  A little rusticity can be charming, but people also expect a certain level of comfort.

Modern agritourism, especially in wine, can result in massive investments like four star hotels with a view on the vines.  Every comfort imaginable.  But then these accommodations can go a bit too far and you forget you’re even staying at a farm.

Tonton Marcel seems to seek out the special sweetspot between authenticity and modernity.  They’re looking for operators like my family.  We actually make wine and we’re winemakers before we’re hoteliers.  But at the same time, we understand that you should show your guests a bit of hospitality and we’re savvy enough to include them in the winemaking process when we can. Guests at O’Vineyards will almost definitely remember the winemakers as they look back fondly on their stay.

So the guide finds farms like mine.  And I think a lot of kids my age are looking for this sort of experience.  I say kids because the average age of our B&B guests so far is about 35.  That’s exceptionally low for a B&B.  It’s eye opening for a lot of operators who think that only older couples are interested in the bed and breakfast concept.

So here’s hoping that Tonton Marcel becomes as much a household name as Mr & Mrs Smith.

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