A: My name is O'Connell. On a more abstract level, it always seemed like my name was a funny testament to the strange mix of cultures in my heritage. My mom is French and Vietnamese and my dad has ancestors on the Mayflower Compact, but we somehow managed with one Irish Catholic who slapped his name on the whole family. We're proud of this big mix and, here we are, putting the name on everything we can.
A: I use a lot of different barrel makers, and each of them has provided me with a variety of barrels with different styles and composition. We are currently winnowing down which barrels we like best for each wine. We are currently favoring new French oak with some second year American oaks, usually cooped by companies around the Cognac region. In something like an order of importance, the coopers are Seguin Moreau, Sylvain, Francois Freres and Radoux. There were a couple other guys who didn't make it into the exported wines. It's very surprising how much a wine can change in one barrel versus another barrel from a different cooper.
A: The coopers explain that one has tighter grain. When they work with American oak, they have to saw it whereas they can use an axe to work with French oak. Sawing opens the grain up and makes much more surface area so American oak barrels will have a more immediate and important effect on the wine. This difference becomes less marked in second or third year barrels.
A: We bought all new in 2005 and we have them on rotation so we replace a third of them each year. After four years we use them for table-making, fine art-painting, archway supports, sink pedestals, cascading down Niagra Falls, etc. You can buy a used up barrel for show, but it's probably cheaper to get one from a vineyard in your home country as these things weigh a bit.
A: Low. We go between 25 hectoliter/hectare to 40 hectoliters/hectare. It's tough to translate that into tons/acre since tons are just a unit of weight and hectoliters are volume. Even though all wine ends up being about the same density (just a little less dense than water), there's no 100% way to convert hectoliters to tons for harvest yields since the density of grapes on the day of harvest can vary significantly compared to the density after vinification.
A: At the bottom of a bottle, my dear.
A: It's actually pretty straightforward. We read a lot of books and we listen to what people say. People can have very different opinions about how you should treat the vines, what the weather means for you, etc. When a lot of people generally agree on something, we assume it's true and work with that in mind. When people all recommend different courses of action, there are telltale signs that can lead you to discovering the truth.
A: How can you be visiting this website if you have a job? I was over there a lot in 2005 and 2006. Now that I'm in charge of selling the wine, dad pulls the yoke most days (not literally). But I still get to go back for the peak times like harvest, crush and certain important parts of spring and green harvest that can move around.
A: I sell the wine. It's very complicated, but I can distribute the wine to licensed vendors in Florida. They can sell it to you.
A: No. I can ship it from France (no ground shipping rates across the Atlantic Ocean) and then I'd be liable if you didn't file your Federal and State excise tax reports (and it takes about three years of accounting experience before you can even understand what form to fill out first).
A: No. I really wish it was different but it isn't.
A: The legal fees involved in researching and (inevitably) litigating this avenue of sales would not justify the maximum few hundred cases sold over the Internet. A lot of those California vineyards are acting on a court decision in specific states like the one in Florida that declared certain protectionist legislation was unconstitutional, opening the way for other states to sell with the same terms. France is not, however, such a state.
A: We are currently looking into expanding the ruling to include foreign vineyards, annexing France to the Union, and developing a tax-refuge on an offshore oil platform in International waters, but it's really, really not worth holding your breath.
A: Heh heh. Well, I'm not really sure I'm allowed to name my vendors on this site. It's some sort of tied-house evil law that dates back to the repeal of prohibition. The government has established several divisions to ensure that the fine citizens of Tampa Bay, Florida are not overrun by the evils of fine wine and associated vices like enjoying good food, relaxing and potentially clinking glasses with that special somebody. Write your congressperson if you feel like I should be able to tell you what retailer to buy my wine at.
A: Look: just go to your favorite/nearest independent wine shop. Force them to carry the wine. Have them call or email me. You can call me in front of them and hand them the phone. You need to be aggressive if you want this wine. Same with restaurants. Don't waste your time on places that are too big to notice the difference between good wine and sour milk (like Mega-Everything-Wine-Co). I have a better chance of selling wine to McDonald's.
A: I think so! I don't sell it at Total Wine. You cannot find it at Publix or other major grocery stores. The Wine Warehouse does not carry my wine either. Sometimes, you can special order through the latter, but they will not have it in stock on short notice. Jen's Wine Shop on N. Dale Mabry has repeatedly refused to taste the wine. Beaune's/West Palm Wines in Ybor City has tasted it and refuses to carry it. Somebody said they tried to buy a case and that the man working there refused to order it for him, providing no reason for the decision.
A: A lot of businesses are not run as competently as you might imagine. Some businesses are promoting specific distributors because it is more profitable in the short term to carry certain wines and to ignore consumer demand for new products. This wine is good and it is priced very competitively, and some people have admitted as much to me as they are refusing to buy it.
A: Yes, very fancy restaurants. The fanciest. If you go to a fancy restaurant that doesn't have an O'Wine, ask to see the sommelier and mention that all the other fancy restaurants carry the wine.
A: Me. Vanessa Jaeger does a lot too. She actually put together the O'Varietal labels. I did the Podium packaging from start to finish. The logo is a bit of a collaborative effort with a lot of input from Phil and Janet Henderson who were visiting us at the time we were conjuring up the labels.
A: It's abstract on purpose. I know what I meant for them to be, but part of the fun of the wine is hearing what each person smells, tastes and sees. People see dancers, hands, chromosomes in mitosis (personal favorite), and a plethora of dirty parts.
A: It's almost always me (Ryan O'Connell) since dad (Joe O'Connell) is over in France pulling the yoke for the both of us. Mom (Liz O'Connell) is usually helping my dad out so she's almost always in France. On occasion, we'll have our good friends (like Eugenie Bondurant) help us out since they have heard us talk about the wine enough to copy the entire spiel.
A: It's on three townships: Villemoustaussou, Villegailhenc, and Pennautier. These are all directly north of Carcassonne (satellite image of the castle), a medieval walled city, that you can see from the vineyard. Here is the Google map of it, but these pictures are very old and do not show our awesome new winery facilities or any of the vine improvements we've made.
A: Yes. Email me. I also know some cool stuff in that neck of the woods, so you can contact me before you actually plan the trip, and I can offer some advice here and there.
A: I really never know how to answer that question. It's like asking what type of person I am. There are a lot of different variables that you could be referring to. Varietal, country of origin, sweetness, boldness, general attitude on life?
O'Merlot is a staunch supporter of freedom of speech. He enjoys long walks on the beach, but thinks pina-coladas ruin your palate. He is looking for a big pepper steak to settle down with, but he doesn't believe in having pre-assemblage relations.
A: We've got Syrah, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. We make a lot of blends, but we also sell single-varietals for each grape. I don't know which clones we have. The French aren't all about clone types like Californians are. We're looking into it though.
A: We make it in the south of France, in the Languedoc. It's all grown, produced and bottled on the estate. We're not shipping juice or grapes. It's totally single-estate and French.
A: No. I have a small parcel of Chazin, but cha-what? I don't make wine with it. I let a local grapegrower take care of it with specific standards and he takes the grapes at the end of the year in exchange for the use of his equipment when we need it.
A: Sometimes, you sell a large amount of Chazin to a winemaker only to find out that they don't make any wines with Chazin in them. They kind of wink and suggest you try their Chardonnay. So I don't think it's commercially available, or even possible to find.
A: No. But if you write me with a self-addressed stamped envelope, I will send you a packet of Splenda (while supplies last).
A: I am 22. I actually wasn't old enough to drink the wine in the US, the first year I was making it. That is why I am thankful that I wasn't in the US.
A: I actually grew up in Tampa, Florida. I speak French and I am half-French, but these colors don't run. YEe-haw! (red white and blue is just bleu blanc rouge backwards...)
A: My mom is French-Vietnamese and she raised me speaking only French. My dad learned while they were dating because mom's friends would talk about him in French and then laugh a lot.
A: Would you believe that this is actually a very infrequently asked question? It's always about the wine and the south of France.
A: I was born in Venice, Florida. I grew up in Tampa and the surrounding area. I went to school in Apollo Beach, St. Mary's Episcopal and Tampa Preparatory. I spent my college years at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana!
A: I'm sure you do, but I needed to say Louisiana somewhere on the site so that search engines like google can find me. I'm sorry if I offended you.
A: I was actually the first class to graduate after the storm. Thankfully, I had decided to skip a semester to participate in the first harvest with my parents. That meant I was nowhere near the school when Katrina stormed through. Nothing makes you know you've made the right choice by following the family business like narrowly avoiding an act of god that changes the face of your previous path forever.
A: It was hard to update. The old site is archived here if you really miss it.
A: Almost definitely, eventually. If you know a distributor who would like to sell the wine to a vendor who will sell it to you, please force the whole chain of command to contact me.
A: I'm not looking for any children just yet. Especially ones who drink.
A: It's pretty hush hush. But general tips for being classy in life: live as hard as you can, do things you love when you can, and help people in the community around you. These things make you more visible. Some folks get invited just by knowing somebody, and they get wine and company...but the people we really cherish are our friends who live well and fully, always trying to improve their community. Also, we like good drinkers and people with appetites.
I'm in the process of moving all of this information
A: I'm in the process of moving this whole section to a new website where I look at interesting or funny Google queries about wine and answer those questions.
A: This isn't a strictly scientific conversion, but you can approximate that 1 hectoliter of red wine is approximately equivalent to 0.183 U.S. Tons of red wine.
A hectoliter is a measure of volume. A ton is a measure of weight. Any conversion table you find floating around (in a book or on the Internet) from volume to weight is going to assume a standard density. Since wines aren't all the same density (they vary as a product of remaining sugars and other such variables), you have to remember these are generalizations.
Since most wine is kept at about the same temperature and is about the same density, you can approximate that 1 hectoliter of red wine is approximately equivalent to 0.183 U.S. Tons of red wine.