Crès Ricards, the blog

Oenothera d’Automne, at last!

Every year since the heatwave of 2003, we have been hoping for another dry, sunny period at the end of the summer that would allow us to harvest the Marselan late and produce another vintage of this wine, which met with such great success.

The rains we had in October 2004 and 2005 ruined our hopes of preserving the grapes until the required stage of “hyper-ripeness”. In October 2006, the rains were less abundant, the grapes withstood them better and this allowed us to produce one barrel of Oenothera d’Automne.

We had to wait until 2007 and its Indian summer for our patience and perseverance to be rewarded and to be able, on 29th October, to harvest perfectly healthy grapes with a potential alcohol of 22% vol!

After many long weeks of gentle vinification, interspersed with many racking operations, an almost perfect balance was reached and then maintained naturally: 15% vol. with 76 g/l of residual sugar! Aging of the combined 2006 and 2007 vintages could now therefore begin, partly by tank-aging, and partly in two-year old oak casks.

Oenothera d’Automne is now ready to be bottled. We will be doing this on 25th July and about 4,000 bottles of 50 cl will be produced. So from next autumn this should be enough to satisfy all those of you who have been waiting for it and asking us regularly when it will be available.

What more can I say about it? Well, as in 2003, the 2007 version of Oenothera d’Automne has surprising aromas of figs, walnuts and mocha, and on the palate there is a balance of sweetness and smooth tannins which add an extra touch of coolness. A beautiful wine to discover or to enjoy again.

Vinisud 2008

We are pleased to inform you that we will be at the Montpellier Parc des Expositions on 18, 19 and 20 February 2008 for the 8th VINISUD exhibition (International Exhibition of Mediterranean Wines and Spirits).

This event will give you the opportunity to:

• Taste our entire range of wines with us on our stand in Hall 2, A105 (in the Terrasses du Larzac area).
• Discover Alexaume 2005, Stécia 2005 and Les Hauts de Milési 2005 at the Mediterranean Palace self-service tasting area (Palais Méditerranéen) in Hall 12.
• Or enjoy Alexaume 2005 and Les Hauts de Milési 2005 in the company of our oenologists from Natoli & Coe on their stand in Hall 6, A60

Come and meet the Terrasses du Larzac winemakers who will be exhibiting together in Hall 2, for a relaxed drink "on the Terrasses!"

The Best for 2008!

As 2008 begins, everyone at the Domaine des Crès Ricards would like to wish you and your loved ones a happy New Year.

You have shown us through your many visits to our site and to this blog that you are interested in the news from the winery. This year we will continue to do our utmost to help you experience our daily life as winemakers.

We hope we will live up to your expectations and we thank you all in advance for your confidence and loyalty.

A visit from our Japanese client

On 1st October, we had the pleasure of welcoming Mrs Harumi Tsuji to the Domaine des Crès Ricards, who is the General Manager of Wine Press International.

As well as wanting to taste our new vintages, the purpose of her first visit was to find out about our soils and growing conditions, to visit our wine-making facilities and to examine our cultivation and vinification methods.

Although we did not have time to visit the entire estate, Mrs Tsuji was nevertheless able to discover the pebbly soil (galets roulés) of the Terrasses du Larzac while visiting our plots of Carignan, Grenache and Mourvèdre and her visit to our cellar gave her a better understanding of the vinification techniques we use and our approach to quality assurance, which enables us to ensure the traceability of our operations.

As it is always very pleasant and instructive to talk with Mrs Tsuji, who through her training as an oenologist, her solid background as a wine waiter and her current activities has a perfect understanding of the wine world, this day was undeniably fruitful and consolidated the partnership that exists between our two companies.

The Bettane and Desseauve wine guide and "Le Grand Tasting"

As we have already mentioned in our microblog, we are particularly pleased to be featured for the first time in the Bettane et Desseauve wine guide "le Grand guide des Vins de France".

The winery appears in the section:
" the best producers in France, offering faultless and regular quality in their entire range. "

The wines cited in the article devoted to Domaine des Crès Ricards are:

Oenothera rouge 2005 (15,5/20)
Les Hauts de Milési 2005 (15/20)
Alexaume 2005 (15/20)
Cousin Cousine 2004 (14,5/20)

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In conjunction with the publication of their guide book, Michel Bettane and Thierry Desseauve are organising "Le Grand Tasting 2007" on 30th November and 1st December at the Carroussel du Louvre, Paris.
The aim of this wine lovers’ event is "to taste the best wines from France and elsewhere and to meet the people who make them"

As well as the opportunity to meet these wineries, gourmet workshops and several other activities are also planned

We will be present at this event (table 54) and we invite you to come to meet us and taste our various wines.

Let’s talk about… Merlot and paella

Alexandra and Stéphane, both fine gourmets and wine-lovers, own Les Paillottes Paillotes camp-site in Ruoms, gateway to the Ardèche Gorges.

« In our "Guinguette" (an informal outdoor restaurant), the Merlot 2006 from Domaine des Crès Ricards is a wine our customers appreciate very much. Classically, it is the ideal accompaniment to our simple but high quality dishes, such as grilled entrecote steak or three-peppercorn kangaroo kebabs.

For a more exotic combination, we like to serve it with our special house paella, every Thursday during the summer.   
To the surprise of our customers, who would usually serve paella with rosé, we believe that the simplicity of this varietal wine and its perfect balance adds to the convivial aspect of this Spanish dish.   
Visually, the beautiful bright crimson colour of the Merlot and the vibrant medley of colours in the paella mean that this food/wine pairing cheers up our guests’ tables.   
And as for the taste, the paella’s spicy saffron and sweet peppers are complemented by the cinnamon notes of the wine.   
The sweetness of the onion does very well with the stewed cherry notes of the wine. The length of the Merlot is not at all undermined by the mixture of seafood, chicken and chorizo.   
In short, we find this pairing as unusual as it is perfect! »

Special “Paillotes” Paella

For 6 people: 6 pieces of chicken (drumsticks or thighs), 180 g of peas, 300 g of cuttlefish or squid in strips, 450 g of seafood cocktail, 12 whole mussels, 6 large whole prawns, 150 g sliced onions, 18 slices of strong chorizo, 600 g of rice (we prefer Camargue rice for slow cooking), a tin of whole peeled tomatoes, fish or seafood stock, 1 sweet pepper, 1 lemon, olive oil.      
      
Fry the chicken and chorizo in the olive oil in a large frying pan, add the peppers and onions and fry until golden, then add the peeled tomatoes with their juice. Once the tomato juice and tomatoes have reduced, add the fish stock, then the peas, followed a few minutes later by the squid and the seafood cocktail, then reduce for 30 minutes. Add the rice and cook for 20-30 minutes, then add the mussels and prawns.      
Remember to stir often.

The launch of "Crès Ricards, the microblog"

A few days ago we set up a syndication feed on the famous Twitter service.

If you have not heard of this service yet, in which case I recommend you read the Techcrunch France column (an excellent blog on Web 2.0, though in French of course!) "10 conseils pour bien utiliser Twitter", it is used to answer the question "what are you doing?".

Why did we set up this microblog?
Our internet approach is largely based on a desire to communicate with enthusiasts and future enthusiasts of our wines by sharing our passion with them and providing additional information about the wines, events and life at the winery.

Twitter fits in perfectly with this strategy and means that information that we currently do not include in our blog can be communicated more easily (particularly when on the move) and spontaneously.

This new channel of communication, like our blog, is written in French and English and is structured around a number of subjects (which may evolve over time) that appear at the start of each post:

• Twitt : instant information about what we are doing, what is happening at the winery, etc.
• Blog : announcements when a post has been added to our blog
• Tastings : events where you can meet us and places (restaurants, wine merchants, wine bars) in France and abroad where you can discover our wines.
• eBay offers: our eBay auctions at special "discovery" prices

How to consult and subscribe to this microblog
If you are already a member of Twitter or would like to become one, just add cresricards to your list of friends.
Otherwise you can consult and/or add this new RSS feed (French version / English version) to your favourite aggregator.

We welcome your opinions and comments on the addition of this new method of communication!

Guillaume Foltran

"Les Papillonades" : a wine-tasting event at the wine merchant’s La Cave d’Occitanie

La Cave d’Occitanie at Saint Jean de Védas has a “certain concept of wine” which it holds dear and includes inviting a winemaker to come and present his or her wines every Saturday.
This year, with the arrival of summer, Stéphane and Sophie have decided to innovate by periodically proposing "another concept of wine", focussing on one wine-making sub-region.

On the 16th June, it was the turn of the Terrasses du Larzac sub-region, which featured the wines of Domaine des Conquêtes, Domaine des Grécaux, Domaine Fons Sanatis, Domaine des Crès Ricards and Mas Conscience , not forgetting l’Aveyronnais who supply local produce to the catering sector and the group AOC who provided the musical entertainment.

Naturally, most of the wines were based on Syrah, Grenache, Cinsault and Carignan; the varieties for which this sub-region is famed. However, the many enthusiasts who attended also had the opportunity to discover the delights of certain vin de pays wines made with "forgotten" grape varieties, such as Aramon or Alicante.

Three cheers for this initiative which proved to be a great success and demonstrates the extent to which true professionals are prepared to go for their "certain concept of wine and how to promote it”.

La Cave d'Occitanie
8 route de Béziers
34430 Saint Jean de Vedas
Tél. : 04 67 69 02 55
Map

The “Syrah du Monde” competition

How would a wine made predominantly from the Syrah/Shiraz grape variety, cultivated on pebbly (galets roulés) clay and limestone soil in the Coteaux du Languedoc compare to wines made from the same grape cultivated on other soils and in other parts of the world?

I have often asked myself this question and as a winemaker I am interested in this sort of comparison in order to gain a better understanding of my products. The "Syrah du Monde” competition, organised for the first time this year, seemed to me a good way of answering it.

Reading through the list of award-winners on syrah-du-monde.com, one has to acknowledge that this competition attracted some impressive participants: 17 countries were represented, and a good number of greats from the Rhône valley were there.

Would our Coteaux du Languedoc be shamed by such competition?
I did not think so when I submitted the sample and I was right because our wine Oenothera Rouge 2005 was awarded a silver medal.

Launching your business on the web

The June edition of the magazine L'Entreprise contains a special report on this theme.
The Domaine des Crès Ricards is one of 7 featured businesses "who have succeeded on the web".
The part of the article about us relates our internet approach, which we have already discussed at some length in previous blogs!

On this occasion, the magazine sent Dahmane a professional photographer to the vineyard (each example being illustrated with 2 photos), with whom we spent a few very interesting hours.
I had no idea of the amount of work involved in producing two photos… preparing the equipment, make-up, composing the scene and no less than 170 shots, and the atmosphere throughout was both very professional and really friendly.

We therefore thank Amaury Mestre de Laroque for this article and Dahmane for the photos and the enjoyable time we had together. For more information about Dahmane’s work, I recommend visiting his website.

Guillaume Foltran