Ryan O'Connell of O'Vineyards is a young man doing his best to get some publicity for the small, pretty and distinctive wine region where he is based, Cabardès just north of Carcassonne in the western Languedoc. He is an active tweeter @mroconnell and begetter of www.love-that-languedoc.com.
In fact Cabardès is only just in the Languedoc, on its north-western limit. West of here the terrain is definitively influenced by the Atlantic rather than the Mediterranean and cereal crops predominate. East of here is Vineland. The growers of Cabardès are therefore allowed – nay, required – to grow a mix of Mediterranean and...