I tried it, but got the same failure. See below.

mike@mike-gateway-laptop:~$ sudo rsync -azvv -e ssh --exclude
'/home/mike/.gvfs' /home/ mike@...:/mike_laptop_home
opening connection using: ssh -l mike 192.168.1.101 rsync --server
-vvlogDtprze.iLsf . /mike_laptop_home
mike@...'s password:
sending incremental file list
rsync: readlink_stat("/home/mike/.gvfs") failed: Permission denied (13)
rsync: mkdir "/mike_laptop_home" failed: Permission denied (13)
rsync error: error in file IO (code 11) at main.c(595) [Receiver=3.0.7]
rsync: connection unexpectedly closed (9 bytes received so far) [sender]
rsync error: error in rsync protocol data stream (code 12) at io.c(601)
[sender=3.0.7]

Did I still do something wrong?