“It’s like a kid in a candy shop when it comes to Languedoc-Roussillon – so much to choose from!”

Cork’d, an offbeat social network devoted to sharing stories about wine, has just published a nice interview with yours truly.

So they shared the O’Vineyards story with their 35,000+ mailing list.  That’s cool.

But more importantly, they’ve been sharing EVERYBODY in the Languedoc-Roussillon’s stories!

• State of the Union: Grenache in the Languedoc-Roussillon’s Maury AOC
• Languedoc-Roussillon: Big Production & Big Value
• Push It To The “Limit” with the Fitou AOC
• Recessionary Times Call For Recessionary Wines: Languedoc-Roussillon Tasting Proves High Value Available in France

I just want to say that I am super excited to see another website putting so much time into the Languedoc and Roussillon.  Remember, we’re one of the biggest wine producing region in the world, and we get relatively little ink in the USA publications.  So thanks, Cork”d.

il y a 1 mois
this only adds to the stereotype? that african women know a lot about nature
–flipthenuts

I don’t check my youtube account as much as everything else these days. But it’s nice to go back occasionally and see that people are still watching and commenting.  Of course, the average youtube comment is very low yield in terms of relevancy and maturity.  But sometimes, you get genuinely interesting comments. And sometimes you get genuinely weird ones.  Like the one at the top of this page.

So my video about cane pruning (guyot) and spur pruning (cordon royat), may be reifying stereotypes about African women.  Oh, youtube, what would we do without you.

Hilarious.
🙂

It’s been a week or so now and I watched a great video recap of what went down in the Access Zone at the London International Wine Fair.  As you can see, I’m not the only one talking about social media and new technology.  Quite the contrary, I was just a small part of a huge new space at the LIWF and I’m really proud to have been surrounded by so much innovation, excellence and friendliness.

So this video from the LIWF will give you a little taste of the events that were programmed in the space and if you want more information about anything, you’ll likely find it on Catavino’s site.

A lot of the time, we use the words conference, salon, fair, expo and show interchangeably (not to mention the French equivalents and the ever popular foire).  Which is sort a travesty because they all have their own nuanced meaning.  This weekend, I’m at the International Grenache Symposium in the Rhone and let me tell you… they have organized a true symposium.

symposium (plural symposiums or symposia)

1. A conference or other meeting for discussion of a topic, especially one in which the participants make presentations.
2. (in ancient Greece) A drinking party, especially one with intellectual discussion.

So we had 6 panels on topics like winemaking, viticulture, marketing and so on.  All Friday, the panelists met to discuss exactly how each panel would approach their topics.  Experts from several continents met to brainstorm and bring some pretty cool ideas to the table.  There’s a real exchange before and during the presentations.  And then, like in ancient Greece, a drinking party with intellectual discussion ensued.

You know I think of myself as an ascended fanboy and this weekend has pushed that feeling into overdrive.  Randall Graham is laughing at my stupid jokes.  Michel Bettane wakes up and says good morning to me as he comes down the stairs at this gorgeous estate in the Rhone.  We share snarky quips throughout the presentations, bouncing back and forth between English and French as we casually discuss the future of the world’s fourth most planted grape varietal.

I am in some sort of storybook where all the people who shape and influence the wine world with their words and their wines have come to share a stage and I get to walk around amongst them smiling and bashfully letting them know that the only reason I’m in France making wine is because they inspired me to be crazy.   Then Herve Bizeul pours me a glass of his finest out of what looked like a nebuchadnezzar… or something… it was huge.

Chene Bleu, an independent and rural estate in the cliffs of the Rhone has created an unforgettable gathering place where some of the coolest people on earth are meeting and sharing ideas and wine.  People from more than a dozen countries are all just here because we really like Grenache and know that we can do a lot with this grape varietal.  The organization has been flawless, all these moving parts quietly and efficiently preparing the next step of our day so that we can almost think it’s effortless.  Like it happens every weekend.  But it doesn’t happen effortlessly or regularly.  This is the first time ever and it’s a once in a lifetime experience.

Incidentally, I really want to get some Grenache vines now. ;D

I just wrapped up my first day at the London International Wine Fair 2010.  It was pretty awesome.  You’ve got the usual schmoozing with winos you’ve met the world over.  And somewhere amidst all the kissing hands and shaking babies (might be backwards, or maybe not) you get to taste a lot of wine.  

One highlight was the launch announcement for the European Wine Blogger’s Conference in Austria this year.  The guy presenting the wines, Willi Klinger, is a champion. He’s amazing. And the wines were neat too.

Also a couple big Languedoc moments which I’ll probably talk more about at Love That Languedoc. But Gerard Bertrand, Puech Haut and O’Vineyards (3 Languedoc properties) all made appearances in the Access Zone on DAY ONE of the LIWF. What that says to me is that the Languedoc is cutting edge on this thing called the Internet.

And of course, if you’d like to see me goofing around with Oscar Quevedo, drinking in the morning, here is the video from Catavino. It has an awkward, wholesome Sesame Street vibe. You know.. if Sesame Street did an episode on winos.

Winery Collaboration from ryan and gabriella opaz on Vimeo.

I frequently talk about how winemakers have more to gain from partnering up rather than dueling to the death.  Well, I’ll be putting my words into action at the London International Wine Fair.  And I won’t be doing it alone.

How do you convince a bunch of wine professionals to work with other winemakers?  You do it with the help of other winemakers, obviously!

I’m going to share the stage with Oscar Quevedo of Oscar’s Wine in the Douro Valley of Portugal.  We’re going to leave the powerpoint presentation at home and we’re going to try to make people giggle as we taste through some of our favorite wines in the world: each other’s!

This offbeat performance is scheduled at 11 AM on Tuesday, May 18th, and it will take place at the daringly named  “Access Zone” of the wine fair.  Please stop by.  You will have a blast.  You will taste some yummy wines.  You will even taste a wine cocktail.  We will break every rule wine snobs hold dear.  And we will do it all before noon time on a Tuesday.  Because that is how we roll in the Access Zone.

11:00 Winery Collaboration with Quevedo and O-Vineyards

Oscar Quevedo from the Douro and Ryan O’Connell from the Languedoc, two powerful social media enabled wine producers, will show the power of collaboration in a live wine tasting of each others wines. Be prepared to laugh, enjoy some great wines, and have a good time. Not to mention learn something about how collaboration will lead to success with your wineries wines!

The Access Zone also has a ton of other wine programming organized by Catavino.  Later on Tuesday, there’s going to be a deal with Tim Atkins (The Wine Gang) and Gérard Bertrand’s ‘Tautavel’ wine.  Bertrand is another heavy hitter from the Languedoc and a French rugby legend, and I guess he’ll be making an appearance too.  If the lineup of the access zone is indicative of the rest of the London Wine Fair, the LIWF should be a hoot and a half.

London, prepare yourself.  You are about to be accessed…hard… ew.

It’s spring and it’s wonderfully hot. We went from one of the coldest winters to one of the hottest Springs. And in brief, it feels like Summer at O’Vineyards.

And now we’re starting to get our dearest vacationers so it feels even more like Summer. The other day, Anthony Swift from Wine Pleasures came through with a group of Norwegian wine women. These wine ladies had just visited Carcassonne’s castle ramparts in the morning where I met the group and led them back to the vineyard just a few kilometers away.

I like all the tour groups we get, but Wine Pleasures was a special pleasure because Anthony is as obsessed with the Internet as I am (maybe more?). So the group doesn’t get shy around cameras. And we get to share the tasting with you.

We did a live stream that you can still access here:

What you don’t get to see in the stream is the delicious schmorgesborg that my mom prepared for the luncheon after the wine tasting. The photos don’t do it justice. But if you follow the blog or visit us with any frequency, you know that my mom is a cooking machine.

You can follow Anthony Swift on Twitter and Facebook.

As you probably know, the O’Podium gift box features one wine aged three different ways.  It’s a unique way to learn the difference between different aging processes because the wine is exactly the same except for the three aging processes:

1. Unoaked
2. 8 months in new American oak
3. 12 months in new French oak

The difference between unoaked wines and oaked wines are pretty well-known.  Oak affects the flavor and complexity of the wine, adding aromatic qualities like toast, vanilla, etc. while also imparting certain structural changes that can add to the aging potential of the wine.

The difference between American oak and French oak is less well-known.  Wine nerds will talk about it frequently, but it’s a rare opportunity to smell and taste the difference for yourself.

American oak is much denser than French oak.  The difference in grain means that American oak can be sawed while French oak is traditionally axed.  Axes follow the grain of the wood, but saws cut against the grain and open up the wood to create a larger surface area that is a lot more porous.  The American oak has an immediate and somewhat superficial effect on the wine.  French oak is a little tighter, adding a subtler flavor and giving more of the nuanced structural qualities for aging.

Anyway, Juliet Bruce Jones, Master of Wine, just did a great write up of how the O’Podium 2005 wines are tasting and compares the three wines in her conclusion:

The wine aged in oak did have more complexity and richness than the unoaked version which was nice but quite simple. The American oak wine was more approachable now, despite the grippy tannins, as the fruit was more forward and appealing. Needs robust food. The French oak gave fine structure but the fruit is still shy. Worth trying in a year or two to see if the fruit has emerged from its hidey-hole.

I’ve been reading about some of the cool stuff going on at Where 2.0, but I’ve got this funny feeling in the back of my head that Where 2.0 might be forgetting the farmers.

That screenshot from Upcoming makes me so freaking sad.  “Sorry, there are no popular events in your area!”  I even lied about my area and made it the biggest city near here.  🙁   Which brings up another problem.  If web services don’t cater to rural areas, countries that are predominantly rural (eg France and Spain) might experience stalled adoption rates, even in moderately sized cities.

For those who have no idea what “where 2.0” is about: the Internet is getting really interested in location location location.

YouTube, Twitter, and the usual suspects all want to know if you’ll please enter geographical data along with every new upload.  Sites like Gowalla and Foursquare are putting big money on geographic location-based gadgets.  And for a while, sites have been finding ways to get people away from the desktop and into the street to meet up for flashmobs, dance parties and massive group discounts.

But these sites have largely focused on big metropolitan areas.  And that’s understandable.  These are businesses and they figure the easiest way to get clients is to focus on places with high adoption rates and a big potential consumer base.  Not a lot of winemakers prune with their iPhone handy waiting to hear about a discount on designer jeans.

And I’m wondering if California winemakers are going to be reaping the profits of proximity to major tech hubs like San Fran while poor old Languedoc hangs high and dry.

Is it part of our job as winemakers in a rural area to assess the current Internet landscape and retool some of the services out their to serve our needs?  I’m working on this idea and I’ll keep coming back to it.  For sure, there are ways that social media can sell wine like when Twitter-ers bid on wine at a Toques et Clochers auction in rural France.  But we might have to actively study these examples if we want to replicate their success.

As a lot of you know, Vicky Wine has been tearing up the wine tasting circuits, with grandiose events in London, Paris and beyond.

In her recent flurry of London tastings, she presented a couple of wines from O’Vineyards (to rave reviews).  And she even found a home for the Mediterranean Mojo in London.

The top notch wine-innovators at Borough Wines are taking the Mojo under their wing for good.  So if you want to get your hands on that Mojo, contact Borough.  And if you want to get a sneak peak before you splurge, keep an eye on Vicky’s page where she’ll announce her next tasting in your area.

A big thanks to Sud de France’s Maison du Languedoc in London, for providing a space for Londoners to Love that Languedoc.

I’ll probably swing by the next London tasting myself.  So you won’t have to watch the ridiculous videos we make to say hello to you from afar. Instead you’ll have to deal with the ACTUAL me.  Thank god you’ll be drinking!! ;D

Intro video from last London tasting: