I got an alarming email about a quarry project in the town where I make my wine. It’s very short notice! I have to respond by Monday and I don’t know anything about this project.
I got this email from the person at the Chamber of Agriculture who has been acting as a general manager for the Appellation Cabardes for the past couple of years. Basically, it would seem that somebody is asking to create a quarry in the south of Villemoustaussou, the town where I make my wine. It’s specifically a “carrieres de tout venant alluvionnaire” but I have no idea what that means. A quarry where anybody can come and pick up alluvial deposits? The details of the quarry project are 300 pages long and aren’t included in the email. Instead, there is a short summary of this proposed project and a map of its location attached to the email.
The project is on the opposite side of Villemoustaussou from my vineyard. But I’m still concerned. What does it mean for my vineyard? What can I do? Why do I only have three days to respond to this email?! Why did they wait til Friday afternoon (after my lawyer clocks out for the weekend)?
Here’s the email I received at 6:52 PM:
Bonsoir ,
L’INAO nous a transmis dans le courant de la semaine un dossier de projet de carrière(cf principales caractéristiques en pj)sur la commune de Villemoustaussou. Comme d’habitude il y urgence car il faut rendre une réponse écrite avant le lundi 6 juin donc pratiquement avant le vendredi 3 juin( L’ODG est organisme consultatif.)
Avec Robert Gianesini nous pensions organiser dans l’urgence une réunion lundi soir mais faute de salles disponibles, cela ne sera pas possible.
Je vous propose donc de prendre connaissance des 2 documents qui sont un résumé très condensé du projet qui comporte 5 rapports soit 300 pages et de transmettre à Robert et à moi-même votre avis par mail avant lundi 30/05 14H afin de rédiger un courrier officiel de l’ODG.
I’m so confused. How will this affect the environment around my vineyard? Will we all be consumed in a cloud of dust for twelve years? Or will this have virtually no effect on my vines? How will it affect Brau and Donjon who grow their grapes slightly closer to the affected area?
These are the two documents attached to the email:
What on earth am I supposed to do? I don’t have the 300 page document from the INAO detailing the project. I don’t know any of the consequences of this type of project. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. I only hope that the winemakers more closely affected by this project will see this email before Monday and know better how to respond.
It has recently come to my attention that a lot of Japanese people are talking about my wine without popping into my google alerts. It’s probably related to the differences in language. Even though they usually write the brand in roman characters, there are often kanji suffixes or other weird linguistic quirks (e.g. o’vineyardsは).
Anyway, I did some active searching and found a lot of people talking about the wines. A few highlights:
A little tweeted tasting note. I’m ridiculously fascinated by reviews I cannot read. Google translate’s best effort approximates the review to “good easily”. Love it. Love that people are out there tasting the Mediterranean Mojo 2006.
And then there’s e-American. An online shopping site that offers deals on my Mojo.
But the big player online is Rakuten who are an enormous online retailer. They bought out PriceMinister earlier this year. And they put together this amazing banner that shows the Japanese are as enchanted as we are with the medieval Cité de Carcassonne.
NO VISIT TO THE SOUTH OF FRANCE would be complete without a trip to the Languedoc-Roussillon region, where you’ll find a combination of hilltop vineyards, Mediterranean beaches, and a panoply of France’s most beautiful medieval villages.
–Ryan O’Connell, Tampa Bay Magazine NOV/DEC 2010 p. 141
Add one more thing to the list of jobs winemakers do when they’re not making wine. I’m now a published travel writer too!
Tampa Bay Magazine has posted a couple of stories about the Languedoc-Roussillon region and one of them was written by me. Although they did edit a bit, insisting on some flattering photo captions and more info about O’Vineyards (and employing an alternate spelling of cassoulet). But the point is that it’s awesome for the region to get its name out there in a positive light, and I can’t wait to write more articles like this. I hope lots of people come across it while planning their next trip.
Read the full articles in PDF format: (warning: big files!)
If there are particular magazines that you think I should submit to, please let me know! They can be lifestyle, airline, travel, food, or whatever! The Languedoc Roussillon is so vast, there’s almost always an excuse to write about it.
Here’s the full text of my wine article if you’re having trouble downloading/opening the PDFs.
WINES OF THE LANGUEDOC-ROUSSILLON REGION
The Gateway to the Mediterranean
By Ryan O’Connell
Photography by Noraa
NO VISIT TO THE SOUTH OF FRANCE
would be complete without a trip to the
Languedoc-Roussillon region, where you’ll find
a combination of hilltop vineyards, Mediterranean
beaches, and a panoply of France’s most beautiful
medieval villages. The region derives its richness
directly from this great geographical, cultural and
historic diversity. At first glance, this great expanse
of land (over 10,500 square miles) may seem a little
disconnected, as it incorporates the Catalan villages
of the Pyrenees Orientales, the medieval castles of
the Pays Cathare, the rocky foothills of the Massif
Central, and the Roman amphitheaters to the west
of the Rhone River. However, it is this immense
diversity which nurtured the creativity and bravery
of troubadours, monks and knights from once
upon a time in the same way that it fosters daring
winemakers, chefs and travelers today. While Paris
might be the most notable part of France, this softspoken
region to the south has quietly provided
some of France’s richest cultural heritage for over
a millennia.
It is difficult to pick a city that best represents
this area. But if you need a landmark that typifies
the region’s colorful, storied past, as well as its great
present developments, I would choose the medieval
walled city of Carcassonne. This remarkably preserved
castle town exemplifies the Languedoc’s respect for
its past and cultural heritage. Nearly four million
people a year explore the meandering cobbled
roads, within its epic stone walls, that span nearly
two miles.
[photo caption]
Liz, Ryan and Joe O’Connell are at
home at their O’Vineyards Winery in
the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France.
It’s no wonder that every child in France
learns about these ramparts in grade
school, as each and every stone is filled
with character. In the summertime, in a
unique tribute to the past, musicians from
every continent and genre play to a small
audience in the amphitheater behind the
cathedral. This year, Bob Dylan, Charlotte
Gainsbourg, Motorhead, a full rendition
of Carmen and other musical legends
performed there. And, although each of
these musicians is quite different, they all
agreed to return to this place where the
troubadour singers once ruled and their
songs of courtly love were born.
The modern musicians are all seduced
by the stage in Carcassonne, due in part
to the massive preservation efforts that
date back to the 1860s to make the castle
and its surroundings one of the world’s
best-preserved examples of medieval
architecture and defenses. As you look
through the narrow slits of its zig-zagging
ramparts and gaze out across the terra
cotta rooftops of the homes that surround
the castle, the immense weight of history
is palpable to all.
However, the castle is not just a reminder
of the past. It is also a place filled with
countless quiet moments, where you
can enjoy the present, as cool winds flow
through charming patios and gardens.
The Hotel de la Cité, a five star hotel in the
heart of the castle, was a former abbey and
is managed with a charm and eccentricity
appropriate to the site. You can savor lunch
or dinner at one of its restaurants, Chez
Saskia, a narrow brasserie that protrudes
into an intersection of cobbled streets. The
building feels as if it had grown there
as an offshoot of the abbey, when the
castle population expanded in the early
part of the last millennium. The meals
there showcase the huge variety of fresh
ingredients available in the region. On the
patio behind the hotel, you can enjoy
Blanquette de Limoux, a sparkling wine
from the region that historians believe
to be older than the more well-known
champagne. This gives the region a claim
to the invention of sparkling white wines,
preceding Dom Perignon, the monk who
made a splash in the Champagne region
with his eponymous fizz. It is probably
no coincidence that Dom Perignon was
stationed in a cloister in the Languedoc
before he moved to the monastery in the
Champagne region of France. Records
show that a few bottles of white wine in the
cellar had a surprising amount of bubbles
in them in 1531, when this discovery led the
monks of Limoux to perfect the process
of making their centuries-old sparkling
wine.
While certain microclimates like Limoux
are perfect for growing the white grapes
that go into Blanquette de Limoux, the
Languedoc-Roussillon region is best known
for its rich red wines, such as the ones
produced at O’Vineyards, an estate near
Carcassonne in the foothills of la Montagne
Noire, which my parents, Liz and Joe, own
and operate with me. Due to the vineyard’s
unique position in the region’s Atlantic
Corridor, we have been able to create bold,
fresh wines with varietals like Merlot
and Cabernet Sauvignon, which are
traditionally found in wine regions with
cooler climates, such as Bordeaux.
[photo caption]
The vineyards in the Languedoc-
Roussillon region enjoy winds from the
Mediterranean to the east and cool
breezes from the Atlantic to the west.
[photo caption]
The tasting room at O’Vineyards
has a relaxed, hospitable feeling
that allows guests to linger and
savor the winery’s offerings.
From the tasting room at O’Vineyards,
you will want to travel west along the
Canal du Midi, a 17th Century canal, that
allowed French boats to travel from the
Atlantic to the Mediterranean without
the dangerous month-long voyage on
the pirate-infested waters of the Iberian
Peninsula. The 150-mile-long canal is filled
with small vacation boats that peacefully
float along its length and through its
locks.
Other outstanding wines in the region
are made from varietals more typical to the
Mediterranean, such as a Grenache Gris
from l’Oustal Blanc and Grenache Noir
from Château le Bouïs in the Corbieres. In
the beautiful village of Gruissan, that sits
on the Mediterranean shore, you can
enjoy tasting Château le Bouïs’ Romeo
and Juliet wines, that are alike in dignity
and showcase the well-paired elegance
and fruit of Languedoc wines. It’s easy to
taste the Mediterranean sunshine in
these rich and delicate wines.
The great beauty of this region is also
derived from its impressive diversity.
You can ski in the morning and go to the
beach in the afternoon. The Languedoc-
Roussillon has long been a meeting point
between the cultures of the ancient
Occitan and Catalan worlds that merge
on the borders of France and Spain,
giving the region its wonderful reputation
for wine and cuisine. The Languedoc-
Roussillon region, which once served as a
gateway for Crusaders, is today home to
some of the finest wines in the world.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Ryan O’Connell grew up
in Tampa and moved to France with his parents
after his graduation from college to create
their O’Vineyards Winery. Since then, he has
become an ambassador for the Languedoc-
Roussillon region and has created a video blog,
www.lovethatlanguedoc.com, and a Twitter
site, “languedocjetaim.”He is a noted speaker
on both the wines of France and the affect of
the internet on wineries, with particular
emphasis on the Mobile Web. If you are in the
South of France, he would love to give you a
personal tour of his family’s winery, while his
mom Liz whips up a few of her spectacular
specialties in the kitchen for you to enjoy in
their tasting room. Ryan can be contacted at
www.ovineyards.com.
After seeing all the interest in how Chateau Margaux brings in the harvest, it occurred to me that I haven’t really talked about our own harvest intake. So without further ado, this is how we harvest at O’Vineyards … plus all done with pictures taken by a friendly tourist during our 2010 harvest!
It starts with grapes ready for harvest:
Then somebody picks those grapes and puts them in a bucket. And eventually that bucket gets dumped into a fruit crate.
Those fruite cases are brought back to the winery where my dad slowly feeds the fruit into a destemmer.
The destemmer consists of a large cylinder with a vice in its center. The cylinder has holes that let grapes through but generally don’t let stems through. The vice has arms that turn and pop the grapes off their stems.
Then the destemmer drops the grapes onto a vibrating sorting table. The grapes bounce down the table where my mom, our brave tourists, and I pick out any snails, stems or leaves that made it into the fruit crates.
At the end of the sorting table, the grapes drop off into a conveyor belt that lifts them to the top of the fermentation tanks.
The grapes start their maceration and fermentation in the tank. There are a lot of whole berries and a lot of berries are slightly crushed by the fall into the tank and the weight of the grapes above them.
Big thanks for these awesome photos. They were all taken by Jeremy and his friends who showed up unannounced on our first day of harvest so it is super authentic. No Hollywood mock ups or mise en scene. We were very happy to kick of harvest with them and I hope you enjoy a blow-by-blow photo journey through an O’Vineyards harvest in the south of France.
While this blog can sometimes go on tangents based on my strange, exploratory moods, it is still a winemaker blog. And it is late September which means HARVEST in the south of France. So here it is, my first obligatory vineyard harvest of 2010.
We’re starting with the Merlot, as usual. It’s all by hand this year because we’re worried about the disparity between maturity levels of the grapes this year.
I’ll be posting about the particularities of this year’s vintage. But for now, just pictures of Merlot being harvested … with a vengeance!!
Looking at pictures from harvests all over the northern hemisphere can really show you how naturally beautiful vineyards are. There’s no need for trickery. You can get a lot of mileage out of some relatively cheap amateur photography. You don’t have to touch up or photoshop your pictures later on. Vines are just pretty. And wine is just beautiful.
This strikes me as important, especially after reading Good Grape’s review of Food Styling. The book is written by Delores Custer, a prominent food photographer, and it’s got a lot revelatory insights about advertising photos you might take for granted. How do photographers get cereal to float perfectly on top of the milk? (It’s not milk; it’s Elmer’s Glue.) How is that beer bottle always dappled in the perfect amount of dew? (Again, not dew.) And the truly gross tool known as a T-28 which makes fresh cooked meat look steamy… (Just read Good Grape’s review for this one).
All in all, there is a lot of deception in food marketing. And on the whole, I’m really happy to work in a field where taking beautiful pictures is pretty effortless. I mean, there are parts that are less pretty. And some professional equipment will definitely make your press photos stronger. But artisanal winemakers don’t have to lie. Even the least romantic parts of the job (assembly line work like sorting tables and bottling lines) look pretty good without any effort. The picture to the left is a perfect example from a bit south of here at Domaine Gayda where even the boring jobs look great.
I should mention that Food Styling does contain some wine trickery. If there’s no wine on hand, the photographer can fake it by diluting Kitchen Bouquet with water. You might wonder why a photographer would happen to have Kitchen Bouquet around but not a bottle of wine. Well, they also use this brown thickening sauce to fake coffee, to dye poultry, etc. It’s a part of their tool box.
Dolores Custer and her colleagues are masters of food forgery in a way. And I’m sort of glad I don’t need to use their services. While much of the food and beverage industries are driven to advertise that one fleeting moment where a product looks perfect, wine tends toward a more long-lived appreciation. Maybe that’s why we’re more candid?
It’s a clever conceit, but also — I imagine — functioned as a visceral reminder that our obsession with only buying flawless fruit and vegetables over-prioritises a single, freeze-framed moment in an organic cycle.
–Edible Geography
By recreating a 17th Century still life painting in reality and watching that still life die and live and die again, Grahame Weinbren sort of calls into question our fascination with immortalizing short moments of food porn. Really, a lot of the things we consume are still alive. This is especially true about wine.
Wine is alive and changing all the time and it can be enjoyed at almost any moment. You’re not obligated to wait for some fetishized, fleeting seconds when the wine will be perfect. You can drink young wine to appreciate certain characteristics of youth or you can wait and drink older wines that feature more aged characteristics. Whenever you open it, there it is, waiting for you.
But maybe some of you think I’m getting too philosophical here.
And heck, some people might even think I’m dead wrong about wine photography. After all, it’s hard to flip through a wine magazine without finding three pictures of wine being poured. Is that our obsession? The moment it comes out of the bottle? Are there photographers who pour Kitchen Bouquet into the bottle so the wine will look thicker as it streams out in front of the camera? Not at O’Vineyards.
Harvest is right around the corner at O’Vineyards. I mean that literally. If you walk past the corners of our property, you’ll be surrounded by harvesters.
We aren’t harvesting yet. The grapes just aren’t ready here. In several days, they will be. But not today.
Why are the nearby neighbors harvesting? Different philosophies. Waiting for that last bit of maturity is relatively risky. A sudden and heavy rain could lead to watery grapes and grey rot. Additionally, rain could muddy up the vineyard and make it very hard to pass through and machine harvest. Alternatively, no rain is almost worse for the guys who sell by the kilo. As the grapes ripen in the next seven days, they are likely to lose water weight and start to shrivel up just a tiny bit. When you see a single grape shrivel, you can assume that you’ve lost a huge amount of juice.
With these risks, why does O’Vineyards wait? Well, we don’t mind losing juice if it means that the grapes will have that extra level of ripeness. You can harvest now and get good grapes. But if you wait just a tiny bit longer, you’ll get great grapes.
But we get anxious waiting and preparing. We’re cleaning all the equipment and moving wine around so that there’s enough space to bring in this year’s 100% hand harvest. There aren’t a lot of cool movies to film. I’m basically just cleaning stuff. But here is a picture just to show you even the boring parts of my life have a beautiful vineyard backdrop.
A new facet of this year’s preharvest anticipation is how jealous I am of everybody who is started or done with their harvest (n.b. these people are in microclimates that harvested earlier this year and escape my obvservations regarding the nearby neighbors mentioned above). My web efforts have brought me much closer to a lot of estates in the Languedoc-Roussillon and around the rest of the world. And a lot more people are bringing the harvests online.
It’s oddly distressing to have to watch all these harvests progressing just an hour’s drive away from here. But it’s okay. We can form a club of late bloomers. The tardives climates. The medium to high altitude vineyards. I was commiserating with Castelmaure high up in the Corbieres who look like they’ll start even later than me. I think most of the work getting done so far in the Cabardes estates is limited to white grapes (which aren’t actually included in the classification).
Cabernet Day is tomorrow! September 2nd. The wines and last minute RSVPs are filing in.
And you can still come too! I hope a lot of you swing by Domaine O’Vineyards tomorrow starting around 19h00. We’ll have some stellar wines open. You can show up earlier, but we’ll put you to work. ;D
For those of you who cannot come in person, you can still follow along on the live streaming broadcasts. I’ll have a laptop set up to broadcast a live stream through Live That Languedoc, my ustream channel.
I finally got the flastcreen set up to show cascading tweets all hashtagged with #Cabernet Day. So you had best be tweeting your little hearts out. Tweet til the Cab ripens!
Or if you don’t tweet, feel free to leave a comment in this post or in other posts about Cabernet Day.
See you all tomorrow!
When I first heard about Cabernet Day, my immediate reaction was to jump on board. And I kind of assumed that everybody would follow me unquestioningly… but there have been some questions, rightfully posed, as to why exactly I’m hosting a Cab Day event in the Languedoc. I want to take a moment to explain what Cabernet Day is and why I want lots of people to participate.
On September 2nd, a bunch of people around the world will drink Cabernet Sauvignon and talk about it online. A lot of the talking will happen in real life too at special events organized in wineries around the world. But a lot MORE of the talking will be happening online.
Some will blog, and even more will casually tweet with the hashtag #Cabernet. It’s called a tweetup (twitter meetup … I really hate web-related portmanteaus). And while I personally wanted to have a real-life party, the success of Cab Day will largely be measured by the participation on Twitter and the rest of the online chatter channels.
Cab Day is about celebrating the grape varietal Cabernet Sauvignon, a varietal that is so popular it seems like it doesn’t really need to have a party. So I guess that’s why some people are asking me “Do we need a Cab Day?” and “Why are we doing Cabernet?”
I’m gonna answer these questions in two parts. Part 1, since when do we have to attach moral imperatives to wine parties? Part 2, I need to communicate how awesome Languedoc Cabernet is.
Why people want crazy moral imperatives to party? – A lot of the people who are really into tweetups are also into promoting obscure varietals and communicating on more esoteric themes than Cabernet Sauvignon. I like talking about rare grape varietals too, which lets you communicate on themes like authenticity, local culture, history, etc. But I also realize that a mainstream subject can be just as interesting as an obscure one. And more mainstream topics can bring more people into the fold while very obsucre topics can sometimes alienate people who don’t feel “initiated”.
The interesting mainstream topic – The Languedoc is not known for it’s Cabernet Sauvignon. We’re a Mediterranean region and you can’t grow Cabernet just anywhere around here. So the few parts of the Languedoc that do make great Cabernet Sauvignon absolutely must communicate on that. So I’ll try to round up some Cabs from the Malpere, Cabardes, Aniane and so on. Cab Day is going to get a lot of people online who are interested in the grape varietal and we’ll be able to talk about how certain parts of the Languedoc make really great Cab. Sounds like a great opportunity!
And I hope other winemakers and Languedoc fans will take up the banner with me. Come visit on September 2nd or send your friends. We’re gonna drink great wine, have a blast, and it should be a lot of fun!
Celebrate the Holiays with any of our pre selection cases, get 12 bottles of our Trah Lah Lah 2023 FREE. Catch this deal. Otherwise, you might miss out.
The mixed case will be perfect to taste the wide range of big, bold red wines we make. O’Syrah, Trah Lah Lah, Les Americains, Proprietor’s Reserve.
We try to balance that new world compulsion to make extracted, flavorful wines with an old world tendency toward seriousness and restraint.
We work in the vines all year to make the very best wine possible.
Cheers !
How to find us
Domaine O’Vineyards, located in the North Arrondissement of Carcassonne, is just minutes from the Carcassonne train station, the Medieval City, and the Carcassonne Airport.
GPS coordinates: 43.259622, 2.340387
O’Vineyards
Wine, Dine, Relax at our Boutique Vineyard
Unique thing to do in Carcassonne
Wine Cellar. Winery Visits. Wine Tasting.
Wine & Food Pairing
North Arrondissement of Carcassonne
885 Avenue de la Montagne Noire
11620 Villemoustaussou, France
Tel: +33(0) 630 189 910
Best by GPS.
Follow the signs to Mazamet/ Villemoustaussou using the D118. At the end of the last straight part of D118, you will come to a roundabout with the Dyneff gas station.
Take the exit towards Pennautier. Continue 500m to a small roundabout and go straight over.
Look out for the second road on your right, Avenue des Cévennes which curves up hill (about 1km) to Avenue de la Montagne Noire on the left.
At the last juction, bear left. the road sign “Ave de la Montagne Noire” (confusing as it seems to show a right turn)
After another 500m you will see our red brick color building in the middle of the vines.
