You're Invited: Indigenous and Godforsaken French Grapes #Winophiles #GodforsakenGrapes

Inspired by Jason Wilson's book Godforsaken Grapes: A Slightly Tipsy Journey Through the World of Strange, Obscure, and Underappreciated Wine,* for the second French Winophiles' event of 2020, I am inviting the #Winophiles crew to explore indigenous or 'godforsaken grapes' from France with me. Last year this book came across my desk and I was instantly intrigued because I love learning new things and I, especially, love tracking down oddball wines.

You might be asking yourself: didn't I just see this event for #WinePW?? Well, yes. Just at we shined the spotlight on biodynamic wines across all three of our wine groups last year with Gwen of Wine Predator at the helm, I decided to ask the groups to look at godforsaken grapes through multiple lenses.

Last month, the #WinePW discussed godforsaken grapes from anywhere in the world. We had wines from Macedonia, Georgia (the country, not the state), California, Austria, Turkey, Italy, and Southwest France. You can see that line-up in my post for that event, An Unlikely Match: A Thai Favorite + A Qvevri-Aged Wine from the Republic of Georgia.

This month, the #Winophiles are looking specifically as grapes in that category from France only!

Here's an excerpt of Wilson's book to whet your palate: "Wines made with off-the-beaten-path grapes are fascinating and eccentric, but they are also practical: They repay an adventurous drinker by providing excellent value.

"When I think of interesting-but-affordable wines, I think of southwest France, and places like Dordogne, Garonne, and Gascony. ...the best wines here are made from négrette, tannat, mauzac, fer servadou, and petit manseng. No, I am not just making up gibberish words, I promise. Those are names of grapes that come from Fronton, Madirn, Marcillac, and Gaillac. ...Theya re actually quite ancient. Winemaking, in fact, flourished here with the Romans, long before it did in Bordeaux" (pg. 46).

You do not need to have the book in order to participate. Just pick a French varietal that is indigenous or that you think is underappreciated. Open it, taste it, pair it, and share it with the #Winophiles for our February 2020 event on February 15th. But I will create some suggestion lists and post them in our Facebook planning group if that helps to inspire you.

Details for participation

Are you ready to jump in and participate in the February #Winophiles of 2020? I hope so. This is a slightly more focused look at Indigenous or Godforsaken FRENCH Grapes, versus the worldwide look from last month’s #WinePW. Here are the #Winophiles’ details…

Send an email to tell me you're in. Include your blog url, Twitter handle, link to your Pinterest profile, and any other social media detail. If you know your blog post title now, include that...but you can send me that a bit closer to the event, I'd like to get a sense of who's participating and give some shoutouts and links as we go. The email is constantmotioncamilla[at]gmail[dot].com.

Send your post title to me by end of day Sunday, February 9th, to be included in the preview post. I will do a preview post shortly after getting the titles, linking to your blogs' homepages. Your title doesn't need to include the hashtag #Winophiles, but all your social shares should.

Publish your post anytime from Friday, February 14th until Saturday, February 15th at 6:00 a.m. Pacific time. You can always schedule your post in advance if you will be tied up around then.

Include a link to the other #Winophiles participants in your post. I'll provide the html code you can easily put in your initial post--which will link to people's general blog url--then updated code for the permanent links to everyone's #Winophiles posts on Saturday morning.

Get social! After the posts go live, please visit your fellow bloggers posts' to comment and share. And join us for the Twitter chat, if you can.

Sponsored posts OK if clearly disclosed. Please be sure to disclose if your post is sponsored or if you are describing wine or other products for which you have received a free sample.

Live #Winophiles Twitter Chat February 15, 8 a.m. Pacific time: Participating bloggers and others interested in the subject can connect via a live Twitter chat. It's a nice bring way to bring in others interested in the subject who didn't get a chance to share a blog post. You can definitely still join the blog event if you're not available for the live chat.

Please let me know your thoughts and questions in the comments; or you can also email me at constantmotioncamilla[at]gmail[dot].com. Cheers!

*This blog currently has a partnership with Amazon.com in their affiliate program, which gives me a small percentage of sales if you buy a product through a link on my blog. It doesn't cost you anything more. If you are uncomfortable with this, feel free to go directly to Amazon.com and search for the item of your choice.