Travel Articles about the Languedoc Roussillon Region
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.
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.
Well, while I was putting dirt in the bottle, Eduardo del Fraile was putting dirt on the outside!
This bottle was designed to honor Agapito Rico, an important figure in the DO of Jumilla Spain. He was a pioneer in achieving quality wines in this region. The grape that is grown in this land is the Monastrell, a strong flavored grape suitable for arid areas.
There you go. 🙂 I’m not sure if Agapito Rico’s wine goes into the bottles or not. I’ll keep you posted if I discover more.
I was catching up on my favorite webcomics last night and I read this beauty from Wondermark:
It’s not his drop-dead funniest work, but it is awesome and its appearance on the site illustrates a classic web comic phenomenon. He offhandedly made up an academic theory and then a bunch of nerds like me responded with a whole slew of already existing theories in the realms of mathematics, economics, philosophy.
So I thought I would chime in because I am an oenophile and a winemaker to boot. Hey, David Malki, did you know French winemakers read your comics?
Oh, by the way, this is one of those drunken run-away posts that ends up being way too long.
—
The comic
The comic’s heroine suggests that there is a behavioral quandary related to how a person manages a finite supply of a consumable object which increases in quality over time. The heroine further suggests that in the face of a difficult choice, it might be best to show a healthy amount of restraint.
Now, after being flooded with all that information, author David Malki asks:
Is the quality of improvement over time a necessary condition of the Oenophile’s Quandary? Is the question of enjoyment one that can be answered with economics, or should it be left to philosophy? What occasions have caused you to crack open a special bottle of whatever?
Aha, questions that I will take it upon myself to answer.
Is the quality of improvement over time a necessary condition of the Oenophile’s Quandary?
Complicated! Without the quality of improvement over time, the Oenophile’s Quandary is reduced to a simple expression of optimal stopping. However, if we accept the quality of improvement over time to be real, then the Oenophile’s Quandary becomes a totally different problem.
Let’s explain why everybody is trying to compare the Oenophile’s Quandary to the Fussy Suitor Problem. There are similarities but the fact is that wine is nothing like suitors. In the Fussy Suitor problem, you can only pick one person to marry. But there are so many candidates for marriage that you worry you will settle on the wrong one. That’s why it’s interesting for the fussy suitor to study optimal stopping. The Fussy Suitor needs to study when it is most advantageous to stop shopping and settle on a suitor, parking place, dice roll, etc.
If you want to translate the Oenophile’s dilemma in terms of stopping problems like the fussy suitor, you have to realize that the bottles are not the suitors. Oenophiles know exactly what their bottles are at the start of the game. Whereas a part of the stopping problem is that you don’t know if there will be a better suitor, parking place, dice roll, etc. later on. Also, oenophiles can eventually consume all the bottles whereas the suitor has to stop once they’ve made a selection. Hell, the oenophile even has the option of drinking all their wine at once. Needless to say, this is not an option to the fussy suitors who will be breaking a lot of sodomy and decency laws if they try. 😀
If optimal stopping applies to the oenophile’s quandary, it’s because the oenophile must settle on a date to consume each bottle. In that sense, each bottle has a stopping problem where the oenophile must decide to wait for a better occasion to drink the wine. So really, you’re not choosing wines. You’re choosing dates. And the quality of the wine has very little to do with the enjoyment. It’s more the context in which you consume the wine. In this sense, the quality of improvement over time is less relevant and the oenophile’s quandary is reduced to an expression of optimal stopping. Is quality of improvement over time a necessary condition? No. You can lose quality of improvment over time and you’ll still have a basic stopping problem because some days will be better than others for drinking that special bottle.
On the other hand, if you accept that a wine can get better over time (and many wines do, for a certain span of time), then the Oenophile’s Quandary is in no way an expression of optimal stopping. You see, in optimal stopping, the sequence of choices (of suitors, parking places, etc) must be random or at least unknown. If the fussy suitor knows that each suitor will be better than the last, it becomes an exercise in dating as many people as possible in quick succession and then just marrying because you’re so tired of working your way up the pyramid of suitors. If you know that the wine gets better every day, then the mathematician says “This is not a problem of optimal stopping at all. Just wait til the very last minute of your life when the wines will be at their best and drink all the bottles at once.”
Which brings us to the next question:
Is the question of enjoyment one that can be answered with economics, or should it be left to philosophy?
A lot of people will say that economics is the study of enjoyment, or at least the study of choices which are driven by enjoyment and desire. But for every cool dilemma and thought experiment economists contrive to make us think about our desires and our choices, it is important to remember that alcohol deserves a special thought experiment all on its own.
If we allow economists to answer these questions, we need to remember the complex nature of alcohol consumption, which involves a special kind of diminishing return. Economists will quickly admit that the richer you are, the less you can derive from each additional dollar earned. But their dilemmas rarely take into account that one more dollar will make you vomit all over Monty Hall‘s shoes and you’ll wake up hung over next to a goat and a huge orange door with the number three on it. And you won’t understand anything. And you’ll want to know why that goat is being so loud.
So perhaps the solution is to realize that wine requires us to balance two important factors: the quality of the wine and the context in which we drink. The Oenophile with only one case of wine left must balance the optimal stopping decision about the special occasions to drink with the Oenophile’s Quandary of the wine getting better and better. Don’t go too extreme in either direction as you don’t want to be sick as you guzzle all the wine or be a teetotaller who will only toast to celebrate the end of the world.
What occasions have caused you to crack open a special bottle of whatever?
Aha! I knew this moment would come. You’re asking me to use personal experience to demonstrate that balance I was just talking about. Well I have an interesting answer.
While I advocate a reasoned route avoiding extremes of saving all your wine or binge drinking all of it, I also advocate a bit of epicureanism.
Let’s put our mathematician hat back on to see if we can make this work. Oenophiles can’t drink all of their wine immediately because they won’t have any bottles for future special occasions. But oenophiles shouldn’t wait too long lest they miss out on several opportunities. The whole problem is really based on a scarcity of time and wine. Well it’s tough to control the amount of time we have on earth, but we can definitely increase the amount of wine we own. Increase the amount of wine in the oenophile’s collection and the quandary becomes negligble.
That’s why I became a winemaker. I make 50,000 bottles of wine each year. WAY more than I can drink even if I invite all of my friends to every semi-special occasion for the rest of my life.
What occasions have caused me to crack open a special bottle of wine? Is waking up an occasion? It is now.
Additional Notes:
Another expression of optimal stopping that an oenophile might face is the act of shopping for a special bottle. Let’s say the oenophile has a big celebration coming up and has a small budget to buy a very special bottle. He keeps an eye on online auctions. Each time a special bottle comes up, he has to decide whether he will buy that one or wait a little longer to see if a better special bottle comes along. I think that is a more classic presentation of optimal stopping.
—
You can argue that the oenophile is uncertain of how each bottle will age, and that is reasonable. Since we don’t know when a wine peaks or even if its spoiled, the decision becomes slightly more random. But it’s not sooo random that it becomes an expression of optimal stopping. You can have a decent idea of the quality of the bottle without opening it; ESPECIALLY in the case of oenophiles who tend to buy a whole case of that special bottle and check in by drinking one every few years, decades, or whatever.
—
I would object to using the link from Professional Friends of Wine regarding the Myth of Wine Aging to disprove the oenophile’s quandary. While “most wine” in terms of volume does not age well, a huge amount of wine still does benefit from aging. And the article is addressed to “directed to the average consumer, that sometime-wine-drinker whose contact with wine is mostly on special occasions and holidays” while the Oenophile’s Quandary relates specifically to Oenophiles. I’m pretty sure the grandparents of the heroine of our comic know that oenophiles run into age-able wines with a great frequency than the “sometimes-wine-drinker”.
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!
Jancis just wrote a very cleverly titled article “11 into 33 does go” (you have to subscribe to read the whole thing). This is more than just a simple math question. It’s a reference to French department numbers. 11 is Aude (Languedoc) and 33 is Gironde (Bordeaux). And this article talks about the sad truth that nobody likes to discuss.
While tons of our region’s wine cooperatives flounder and go out of business, there are still some cooperatives and negociants with tankers pumping wine nearly 24/7. It makes you think that there’s a lot of hustle and bustle. But where is the wine going? And at what cost?
Well, a short inspection of the license plates reveals a lot. All the tankers filling up with Languedoc wine have license plates that read 33. Gironde. Bordeaux. It’s nearly impossible to prove what happens once the wine gets into the winery since the French classification system is almost 100% enforced by paper trail alone. But that’s where the wine is going. Or at least, that’s where the trucks came from.
I’m really happy to see a writer of Jancis’ level talking about this issue because it’s a real wine story. Not a lot of that in wine journalism today.
I want to change the way winemakers think about participation in social media. I want them to stop treating twitter and facebook like some alien ritual that just goes against the grain of their character. I need them to start thinking about social media the same way they think about every other kind of social interaction.
If you drop in on an independent winemaker, they will generally greet you and offer a tasting of their wines. I’m pretty sure this is standard expectation. When somebody calls you because they read about your wine somewhere, you are expected to do a tasting with them. And you don’t just quietly pour. Most winemakers who acknowledge this expectation to a tasting will also take the time to talk about who they are, why they make wine, and so on. If I’m way off base, let me know in the comments. But I’m pretty sure this is standard fare. If one or two people drop by the winery while the winemaker is there, a large majority of winemakers will take some time with those visitors.
How much time? Even if a single person comes by, I’ll often spend over an hour with them showing the winery, the vines, and talking about winemaking. Even the speedy “gift shop tour” where I just taste bottled wines with them will generally take a good half hour. And I think most independent winemakers are happy to spend this time. 30 minutes for one dude.
Having a little facebook fan page that you update a few times a week will also take about 30 minutes here and there. But a well-groomed fan page will receive hundreds of visitors per week. You see where I’m going with this?
This O’Vineyards website, which consists of a few photos and some sporadic thoughts from the winemaker probably takes me a solid four hours per week. It received 1461 unique visitors in the last 30 days. So for about 16 hours of work, I got to communicate my message to 1400+ people.
Now a significant difference is that these web visitors aren’t necessarily buying wine. The normal expectation is that when you spend 30 minutes with “avertis” wine lovers who swing by the vineyard, they will buy some wine and make it “worth your time”.
But it doesn’t make sense to give up 30 minutes just for a few small 6-bottle sales. Our time is worth more than that! The real benefit of those people who take the time to visit us is that they go home and tell everybody else how wonderful their visit was. It’s good old fashioned social networking. Sans internet.
Some winemakers are shocked at the amount of time and energy I put into the Love That Languedoc wine blog (and to an extent this website). I sometimes spend whole days traveling and filming. And even the off days, I frequently spend 1-2 hours reading other cool stuff on the Internet to be on top of the buzz. It’s a huge time commitment. So why do it?
Because people want me to and it’s pretty fun.
We all have a chance to get thousands of people to visit our websites and facebook pages and twitter accounts and everything else. That’s an amazing opportunity. If I called a winemaker in the region and told him I had a group of 150 people who want to visit tomorrow, that winemaker should naturally want to make some time for them. The Internet is no different. 150 visitors deserve your time. Hell, 10 visitors deserve your time.
So stop saying that the Internet is not for you! Get typing. A few minutes per day just sharing your thoughts and developments around the vineyard might get you a steady flow of visitors. And that has a lot of value.
Agree or disagree? Please feel free (obliged to?) comment!
Well, the people who find this post through Google are going to be exceptionally disappointed, but I promise it isn’t false advertising.
I recently noticed that the youtube video of me drinking dirt had been featured on a tumblr account called Women & Wine. Innocently enough, I went to the site to see exactly how the video had been presented. I would not remain so innocent.
My dirt-drinking video has somewhat hilariously earned a place on this tumblr account devoted to naked girls and wine. I’ve heard google and other search engines can be pretty harsh if you start linking to naughty neighborhoods, so I’m going to abstain from linking. But you can find it by typing in “womenandwine . tumblr . com” without the spaces and my specific video can be accessed at “bit.ly / wineporn” sans spaces. Before checking it out, allow me to remind you that the abuse of pornography can be dangerous for your health. And don’t even try to operate heavy machinery while under the influence of pornography.
I’m sure my parents will be proud to discover that I’ve finally made the big time and broken into wine-themed Internet pornography. It’s been a long time coming given my embarassing knowledge of all things naked and vinous.
The presentation is a little dry if you’re not in the biz, but I think Rick has some very interesting experience and he shares some truly outstanding numbers. In a time when everybody in California was hurting, St. Supery saw some impressive numbers, retaining their wine club members and increasing direct sales despite the fact that the economy is hurting. And without pitching the wine directly!
There’s also an interesting moment where Rick talks about catering to a client who didn’t like the bottle (way beyond the call of duty) and then it turns out that she’s a writer for the New York Times. While the story sort of enforces the idea that a traditional journalist is way more important than a normal consumer and he lucked out, there’s also this theme that you should treat everybody like an important journalist. Customer is king. And sometimes, it turns out they are actually secret journalists or Zeus disguised as a swan.
But beside the risk that every client is Zeus disguised as a swan, you just have to be nice to wine drinkers because they are people and you should be nice to everybody.
There’s another moment of VinoCamp Paris where Vicky Wine said something very nice about my wines (or about me).
She said that it is very important for winemakers to connect with wine drinkers. Because when she drinks a wine, she makes judgements about the winemaker or the label or other things that float around outside the bottle. And one of the reasons she likes my wine is because she knows all the stuff I’m doing online, and all the tastings I do, and (as somebody in the group quips) because we are buddies. But there is no shame in being buddies!
😀
And I don’t have video of it, but Emmanuel Delmas said something to the same effect. It’s unavoidable that once he meets me or sees my videos online, my wine will have a sort of exuberant, energetic feeling. It’s a happy wine! And then we’re left wondering if the wine truly resembles the winemaker or if it’s just that we’re influenced by our perceptions of the artist. . . . interesting questions! And all arguments for the winemaker to make themselves visible online (when time permits).
I know the blog has been super self promotional lately, but it’s because I can only tell you about lifting wires so many times before you start to hate me.
Here’s a picture of dad lifting wires in the Cabernet (which we finally finished!) But now we have to go back to the first wires we lifted in the Syrah and lift them some more. Like painting the Golden Gate Bridge, by the time you finish the far end, you have to go back to the beginning.
But amidst all this lifting, I took some time to organize our media and press coverage (no easy task because of the variety of languages and the fact that so many traditional media outlets refuse to get online).
And I found a comment that I really liked. Bol d’Air, a magazine insert that comes with l’Independant once per week, finished an article about my family and our wines with a nostalgia-filled reference to Suzy Delair’s singing. What better way to bring you a breath of fresh air than Suzy Delair showing off her Trah lah lah?!
This is from Quai des Orfèvres (1947) where Suzy portrays the seductive Jenny Lamour. People always ask me why I named a wine Trah Lah Lah. Here is one more reason.
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.
