Recent Coverage 

	The Times, Christmas Gift Guide The Times, 30 November 2011. Festive Cheer  When Paul Samms opened a long tin box under the Christmas tree at his Sussex home he found a sommelier's apron and a certificate informing him that he had the rights to six merlot vines at Château Beau Rivage, near Bordeaux, for the next year. For a man who is fond of his food and wine it was an excellent gift.  "Everybody fancies they know something about wine but, if all you have ever done is pull a cork or open a screwtop, this is a very enjoyable way to learn more about it," says Samms, who works in the London currency markets. The present, from his wife, Lesley, cost € 249 (£ 206) and also included an online code to view his vines and follow their progress and an invitation to a wine experience day at the vineyard.  He had the chance to see the vines, meet the winemaker and learn how vines are pruned and the wine is made.  He is now looking forward to the delivery of six bottles from his vines in the middle of next year. gourmetodyssey.com
	France 3, 13h avec vous France 3, 6 october 2011. Report featured on France 3 television lunchtime news featuring the Harvest Experience Day at Château Beau Rivage. Follow this link to view the clip. (French language)
	Gourmet Odyssey, the site to get a foot in the vineyard Terre de Vins, October 2011 Adopt a vine or make your own micro-cuvée?  Several winemakers propose such packages, but the internet site of Gourmet Odyssey takes care of everything for you.  The company created by Mark Bootherstone, a fan of gastronomy, travelling and wine, lets you set off on your adventure in a click from 149 euros! The site has partnered with 5 winemakers who work organically.  The vineyards are located in the four corners of France; Domaine Allegria in the Languedoc village of Pézenas, Château de la Bonnelière in Chinon in the Loire Valley, Château Beau Rivage in Macau-en-Médoc in the Bordeaux region, and in Burgundy, Domaine Chapelle in Santenay and Domaine Jean-Marc Brocard in Chablis. A Personalised Vintage Once the vineyard has been chosen, the internet winemaker adopts between 6 and 36 vines for a winemaking year.  The number of vines corresponds to the number of personalised bottles of wine that they will receive at the end of the adventure. To enter into the world of wine, a welcome gift pack is sent, containing a sommelier’s apron, a DropStop, a personalized certificate, a brochure explaining the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience, and an access to the Customer Portal. Throughout the year, the internet winemakers have the possibility to visit the vineyard during one of the Discovery, Harvest or Vinification Experience Days. Gourmet Odyssey also offers the creation of your own wine, called a micro-cuvée. This other experience is possible in the Languedoc winery of Allegria.  During this oenology course, you get to taste and identify the different grape varietals, and to understand their characteristics.  With the help of the winemaker and a graphic designer, it’s up to you to decide the blend of your wine and the look of your label.
	La Gazette Gastronomique #1 GQ Magazine.fr, April 2011 Discovery: Gourmet Odyssey For those whom the world of wine fascinates, attracts, and entices to learn more about what is hidden behind the bottle, Mark Bootherstone has created a service with 4 organic vineyards that allows you to adopt some vines, watch them develop over the internet, and visit the winery to work on the vines and the wine.  The experience can go as far as producing your own barrel of wine (300 bottles), where the blending of the wine and the labelling is left to the complete choice of the client.  GQMagazine.fr (article in French)
	Make your dreams a reality by renting a piece of a vineyard Management, March 2011 N° 184, Page 102 After work > Art de vivre > Oenology Live a rare wine adventure by buying your vintage on the vine at a winery.  You’ll pamper your cuvée and receive your own personalised bottles of wine.   Whenever they are entertaining, Camille and Frédéric make waves by serving the wine which comes straight from their Burgundy vines.  Like almost 10 000 French people, this Parisian couple have immersed themselves in virtual winemaking.   Our Selection… Burgundy: Domaine Chapelle, Santenay. Terroir: This Côte de Beaune winery has been in the same family for more than a century.  Cultivated organically, the estate produces many fine wines (nuits-st-georges, chassagne montrachet, santenay…) Wine: The cuvee Clos de Cornières, available in the rent-a-vine experience, is a good Santenay (red wine), hand harvested and matured for 12 months in oak barrels.
	The Best Addresses for Online Shopping before Christmas A Nous Paris, 29 December, 2010. For the foodies, numerous sites propose marrying utility and pleasure... ... Same principal applies to wine from different regions 5Bordeaux, Burgundy, Chablis).  GourmetOdyssey.com enables you to adopt your own vines and become a "winemaker" for a vintage.
	Adopt your own vines for personalised wine; UNCORKED Hull Daily Mail, 30 October 2010. Could this be the ultimate Christmas gift for wine-lovers - your very own vines in a French vineyard, producing your own wine? The idea is certainly catching on - Gourmet Odyssey is a French-based company selling more and more "wine experiences" to British oenophiles (that's wine enthusiasts in everyday language). And this month they responded to demand by increasing the number of participating wineries from two to three. The Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience is designed to go beyond the traditional wine tasting and vineyard tours. The cost - from about £132, depending on the chosen winery - includes the chance to adopt from six to 36 vines in your chosen vineyard, the ability to follow their progress online and a choice of up to three wine experience days at the vineyard, with the opportunity to bring a guest. The end result is from six to 36 personalised bottles of wine your vines have helped create - the number of vines you adopt equates to the number of bottles of wine you'll receive at the end of your wine experience. For your wine experience days you can choose from wine discovery days, harvest experiences and vinification experiences, the latter being an opportunity to learn what happens to your wine as it matures, between fermentation and being ready for bottling. Gourmet Odyssey offers the experiences through three partner vineyards - in Bordeaux, Burgundy, and now the latest winery, producing Chablis, less than two hours from Paris. For more details on Gourmet Odyssey, visit www.GourmetOdyssey.com
	Good Ideas on the Web Cuisine et Vins de France, Juin – juillet – Août 2010 N° 134, Page 160. Vine Rental www.GourmetOdyssey.com More than just a gift, this site allows you to give a passionate experience, that of the vine. You can offer a wine enthusiast the possibility to adopt their own vines and follow all the stages of winemaking via a newsletter. Before receiving their bottles, the virtual wine makers can personalise their own wine labels.  According to the wine experience chosen by the gift-giver, they also get the opportunity to participate in the harvest or in the blending.  For now, the site offers this wine adventure in Burgundy and the Bordeaux region, in two organic wineries. From € 149
	In Vino BFM Radio 5th June, 2010 Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience discussed during the In Vino show featuring Alain Marty, Philippe Faure-Brac, David Cobbold, and guests.  In Vino is France’s only radio programme that is 100% dedicated to the world of wine and vineyards.   Download the In Vino podacst from the 5th June and listen from minute 51.20 to minute 52.50. (Interview only available in French)

Media Pack

Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience

Download the media pack for the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience (pdf 624kb) 

Press Releases  

New Wine Experience Launched by Gourmet Odyssey. Blend your own Barrel of Wine.    

Paris, 27 April 2010

Gourmet Odyssey, specialists in gastronomy discovery experiences, announces the launch of their second offering for wine enthusiasts, the Gourmet Odyssey Micro-Cuvée Experience.  This offer gives the opportunity for private and corporate clients to create their own barrel of wine to their taste and in their image.

To establish the Micro-Cuvée Experience, Gourmet Odyssey has partnered with the Allegria winery, located in Languedoc, southern France.  Allegria has also join the network of partner vineyards available in Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience, the adopt-a-vine offering proposed by Gourmet Odyssey since 2009.

The Gourmet Odyssey Micro-Cuvée Experience

The clients of the Gourmet Odyssey Micro-Cuvée Experience will spend two days at the Allegria winery, located in the picturesque village of Caux in the AOC region of “Coteaux du Languedoc Pézenas”.  During their visit, they will get behind the scenes to learn about the art of winemaking, how to cultivate the vines, and most importantly to understand the difference of each grape varietal, how they are aged and blended to make the wine.  Having tasted and noted the different characteristics of 5 different grape varietals (Carignan, Mourvèdre and 3 lots of Syrah from different vineyard plots), the clients will be able to choose the grapes and percentages used in the blending of their own barrel of wine.  They will also spend time with a professional graphic artist to design the labels which reflect their image by choosing the style, colours and name for their wine labels.  Once the wine has matured, the clients will receive 300 bottle of their wine, marked with the label they have created. 

Mark Bootherstone, founder and Managing Director of Gourmet Odyssey explains, “The Gourmet Odyssey Micro-Cuvée Experience responds to the dream of many people yearning to create their own wine.  With the help of Ghislain and Delphine d’Aboville, the owners of Allegria, our clients will be able to make the real decisions of a winemaker by choosing the composition of their own wine.  The demand for this offer has come from private individuals and companies who wanted to go even further in exploring the world of wine than our Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience offers.  The Gourmet Odyssey Micro-Cuvée Experience is ideal for a group of friends, a small wine club, or for an original Team Building idea for companies.  The time spent at the vineyard is private and exclusive for each order, and we’re expecting groups of between 10 and 20 wine loving friends, colleagues and corporate clients to share the experience together.”

Ghislain d’Aboville adds, “For Delphine and I, it’s a great opportunity to share our passion of winemaking with wine enthusiasts.  And it’s also chance to spend a fun time in this magnificent region between the sea and vines.  We have many good addresses of villas, hotels and restaurants in the region to help ensure that the Gourmet Odyssey clients get the most out of exploring the terroir and local gastronomy during their stay.”

The Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience

Allegria also becomes the fourth partner vineyard of the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience, and the first in the Languedoc-Roussillon region.  The Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience allows wine lovers to adopt a vine at Allegria and to follow all of the key stages in making wine right up to the bottling of their personalised wine bottles.  The clients can also choose to include hands-on experience days at the vineyard to participate in some of the work such as pruning or the harvest.

The price of the Gourmet Odyssey Micro-Cuvée Experience starts at € 4,800.
Learn more about the Gourmet Odyssey Micro-Cuvée Experience

The price of the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience starts at € 144.
Learn more about the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience 

Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience Extends to Chablis   

Paris, 22 October 2010

Gourmet Odyssey is pleased to announce the addition of the Chablis winery, Domaine Jean-Marc Brocard (http://www.brocard.fr/), to the adopt-a-vine partner vineyards included in the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience.  

The Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience offers a unique behind the scenes journey into the life of a winemaker.  Clients adopt their own vines in France at one of Gourmet Odyssey’s partner wineries, and follow all of the key stages in wine making; from nurturing the vines, harvesting the grapes, blending the wine, all the way through to receiving their own personalised bottles of wine that the grapes from their vines have helped to make.

The addition of Domaine Jean-Marc Brocard’s Chablis “La Boissonneuse” is the first white wine producer to join the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience.  The wine was carefully selected for its zesty freshness, and minerality.  Domaine Jean-Marc Brocard is one of the leading winemakers in Chablis, and has converted much of their vines to organic and biodynamic cultivation, including the vineyard selected for Gourmet Odyssey.

Céline Brocard, Director at the winery and daughter of Jean-Marc Brocard, explains that “our partnership with Gourmet Odyssey enables us to get even closer to our customers, and helps raise awareness of all that is involved in making our wine.  There are more and more wine tourist activities being developed in France at the moment, but few that revolve around the actual participation of the client in the winemaking process, as is the case with the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience.”

Mark Bootherstone, founder of Gourmet Odyssey, continues “some people dream of owning a vineyard and producing their own wine, others want to know the story behind the wine and the winemaker…  Whatever the reason, our clients tell us that the most appreciated aspect of the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience is the interaction with the winemakers, not just listening to them, but learning by working side by side with them, not just being told how wine is made, but by seeing, touching, smelling, tasting and participating in making the wine itself.  It’s therefore essential for us to choose winemakers who are open, friendly and want to share their profession.  It’s precisely what we found when we visited Domaine Jean-Marc Brocard, as well as an excellent wine!”

The Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience is most often bought as an original wine gift for an established or budding wine connoisseur, whether for a close friend or relation, or as a corporate wine gift for a valued customer.  The price for the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience at Domaine Jean-Marc Brocard starts at € 169 for six adopted vines, a welcome pack, monthly updates from the winemaker, and six personalised bottles of wine at the end of the experience. 

Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience Selected by Regional Tourist Offices in Burgandy and Bordeaux   

Paris, 16 June 2010

Gourmet Odyssey (www.GourmetOdyssey.com) is proud to announce that its wine tourism product, the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience has been added to the services officially selected by the Office de Tourisme Intercommunal « Beaune, Côte et Sud » (www.Beaune-Tourisme.fr), and by the Conseil des Vins du Médoc (www.Medoc-Tourisme.com). 

Wine tourism is a growing sector in France.  According to a study carried out in 2007 by the Conseil Supérieur de l’Oenotourisme (Executive Wine Tourism Council), seven million people a year participate in a wine tourist activity.  The Conseil Supérieur de l’Oenotourisme has called for those involved in the French wine trade to propose innovative activities that promote the culture and heritage of wine in France.

The Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience is an innovative way for established or budding wine connoisseurs to discover and learn more about all the key stages in making wine.

For a wine making year, these wine lovers adopt vines (from 6 to 36) in one of the Gourmet Odyssey partner wineries, which today includes Domaine Chapelle in the Burgundy village of Santenay, and Château Beau Rivage in Macau-en-Médoc, close to Bordeaux.

Mark Bootherstone, the founder of Gourmet Odyssey explains that, “the main difference between the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience and more traditional vineyard tours or tastings is that the clients actually get involved themselves in the making of their wine during the Wine Experience Days spent at the winery.  The experience days are a hands-on and fun way to discover the world of a wine maker.  For example the clients find themselves amongst the vines to prune them, remove leaves, or harvest the grapes, or in the cellar at the moment the wines are blended.  These are special and magic moments, shared with the winemaker.”

The customers can also follow the progress of their vines and wine virtually by way of newsletter and photos which are sent to them and published in their client portal.  At the end of the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience, which can last up to 2 years, they receive a personalised bottle of wine, labeled with their name, for each adopted vine.

The Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience is most often given as an original wine gift, particularly for an unusual birthday, wedding, retirement, father’s day or Christmas present, or as a corporate gift that makes a change from a case of wine, and lasts long in the memory. 

Adopt a Vine with the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience    

Paris, 3 February 2010

Gourmet Odyssey has partnered with independent and organic winemakers in France to provide the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience.  Each customer will adopt their own vines in a French vineyard for a winemaking year, follow the progress of their vines and the wine making process, and receive their own personalised bottles of wine that the grapes from their vines have helped to produce.

Other “adopt a vine” schemes already exist, but the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience offers a much more involved experience with between 6 and 36 bottles of personalised wine included in the package.  The heart of the concept is for the customers to visit the winery, meet the winemaker, and actually get involved themselves in helping to make their wine through the choice of 3 wine experience days.

The Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience makes an original present idea for any wine lover, whether they are already a connoisseur, or whether they are just starting out on the journey to learn more about wine.   When buying presents for a special occasion such as St Valentine’s day, a 60th birthday, wedding or retirement, people are looking more and more to offer an original experience that lasts long in the memory.

At each winery, the customer can choose to adopt between 6 and 36 vines.  The number of vines adopted corresponds to the number of bottles of wine that the customer receives at the end of their Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience.  Each bottle of wine will bear a personalized wine label.

The three wine experience days that customers can choose from are the Discovery Experience, Harvest Experience, and Vinification Experience where they will learn and participate in activities such as pruning, harvesting, blending and bottling depending on the experience and the time of year chosen.  Each wine experience day is valid for two people, so it gives a great opportunity to plan a short break to explore one of France’s wine growing regions in Bordeaux or Burgundy.

The recipient also receives a luxury Welcome Pack containing a sommelier’s apron, Drop Stop, certificate and personalised brochure that explains the programme is sent to the customer.  Regular updates from the winery about the vines and the wine-making process are sent by newsletter to all customers to follow the progress remotely, so even if no wine experience days are chosen, they benefit from a virtual experience.

“The essence of the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience is to learn about wine by getting involved in making it, to meet the winemaker and share in their passion, to visit some of France’s most beautiful regions, and to have a whole lot of fun,” says Mark Bootherstone, the founder of Gourmet Odyssey.  “I’ve always loved visiting vineyards and wine tasting, chatting with the winemakers and learning about the different regions and terroirs, but I’ve always wanted to go further.  I’m somebody who learns by doing, not just through listening and reading, and I wanted to make this possible for others too.”

Gourmet Odyssey has partnered with Château Beau Rivage in the Bordeaux region and Domaine Chapelle in Burgundy.  Other wineries and regions will follow.  Both of these independent wineries were selected for the high quality of their wine, the friendly and welcoming character of the owners, and the environmentally responsible way in which the vines are grown and the wine produced.  Indeed, Domaine Chapelle has just received official Organic status from Qualité France, and Château Beau Rivage is currently converting to becoming Organic and should become certified for their 2011 vintage.  They have both received numerous awards and recognition from the wine industry.

Jean-François Chapelle, the owner of Domaine Chapelle, in Santenay, Burgundy (http://www.domainechapelle.com/) believes that “the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience gives a unique way for people to get behind the scenes and to see for themselves what it takes to be a winemaker.  The public are becoming much more interested in gastronomy and wine – where do the products come from, how are they made, how environmentally friendly are the production methods used?  Our partnership with Gourmet Odyssey helps de-mystify the complex world of winemaking in a fun and interactive way.”

Prices start from € 149 and then increase depending on the number of vines adopted, the winery chosen, and the number of wine experience days selected. 

About Gourmet Odyssey

Gourmet Odyssey is a boutique French company that specialises in gastronomy discovery experiences where the customers actually participate in the making of the gourmet product of their choice from one of Gourmet Odyssey’s quality, independent partners.

Each partner is meticulously chosen for the excellence of their produce, their infectious enthusiasm and passion for their profession, and the environmentally and ethically responsible production methods used.

Gourmet Odyssey was founded by Mark Bootherstone, a British citizen who lives in Paris with his French wife.

More Information

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