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Tour de France 2020

Blimey, they’re not making this easy for me. Why can’t they just pedal round the Médoc for a couple of weeks?

Wout van Aert comes from Antwerp, and I know the De Koninck brewery is there as I’ve seen it at the end of the street where Dada Audio are based. (Yes, I’ve been there too. Sorry.) It’s a decent brew, but that seems a little tenuous, so...

About a km from today’s route you can find Cave Pottier, artisan manufacturers of fruit-based alcoholic apéritifs. You can order them online or buy them in local markets including the one in the nearest town, St Georges-de-Luzençon, through which the Tour whizzed today. I’ll let you choose the bottle.

https://www.cave-pottier.fr/4-vins
 
Marchbanks, you should get in touch with ITV...I reckon you could get a 30sec segment at the end of each days' broadcast! Keep it up.
p.s. Intrigued as to what you will cook up for the last day..;-)
 
robs said:
Marchbanks, you should get in touch with ITV...I reckon you could get a 30sec segment at the end of each days' broadcast! Keep it up.
p.s. Intrigued as to what you will cook up for the last day..;-)
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That gig has already been filled
 
robs said:
Marchbanks, you should get in touch with ITV...I reckon you could get a 30sec segment at the end of each days' broadcast!
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I don’t think so - I would imagine they are aiming to present cycling to impressionable youngsters as an exciting sport, not to traumatise them for life.
 
Frankly there is as little chance of finding a bottle of wine produced on Stage 8 of La Tour de France as there is of getting a mobile phone signal at Les Tours de Marchbanks. So let’s turn to Nans Peters. He was born in Grenoble. This doesn’t bode well, as my friend Hervé lives in Grenoble and has never once mentioned local wines, let alone recommended them.

But local-ish wine there is - IGP Vin d’Isère, apparently from grapes grown on the slopes of the Grésivaudan valley running from Chambéry in the north to Grenoble in the south. I’ve tried to find the winemaker closest to Grenoble, and Thomas Finot is my best offer. He is at Bernin, about 8km from the city centre. Here he is...

finot.jpg


...and my suggestion for a bottle is Tracteur Rosé, seen just beneath his mouth, as labels featuring pink tractors are at a premium nowadays.
 
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Interesting stage today, Roglic did not look as strong & his team disappeared around him. Yates had a good ride, didn’t panic, there will be some twist & turns to come.

Pinot, tragically predictable.
 
A dark day for Thibaut Pinot. The great French hope has his annual bad day at the tour.
Pinot Noir.
Or Pinot Nah.....
 
Woodface said:
Interesting stage today, Roglic did not look as strong & his team disappeared around him. Yates had a good ride, didn’t panic, there will be some twist & turns to come.

Pinot, tragically predictable.
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Yes very entertaining day today. Yates did brilliantly to keep in touch. Excellent ride.

Shaping up to be very interesting.
 
I was particularly disappointed to see Julian Alaphilippe go fizz...BANG!!! And not just because we share the burden of a first name :(
 
Feared for Yates then the boss pointed out he could be keeping under his red line and pacing.
Seems like he was. Interviews may prove that.
A good race this year.
Wish all of the crowd would wear masks, especially those shouting
 
It’s hardly transmissible outside in conditions like that I believe, not really an issue if they’re kept back a decent distance
 
tqineil said:
It’s hardly transmissible outside in conditions like that I believe, not really an issue if they’re kept back a decent distance
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That's exactly the point, they were in the face of the riders, yelling their heads off. Only a matter of time I reckon.

It's very unfair for the riders to have to go through that when most of them are trying their best not to get it or spread it.
 
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With all due respect to Tadej Pogacar, I think we’ve covered Slovenian wine, and the prospect of another sour, low alcohol bottle doesn’t excite me.

Fortunately the Tour went through a wine-producing area today, and a rather good one - Jurançon, sitting in the foothills of the Pyrenees south of Pau. Jurançon wine is white, and can be dry or sweet. I’m rather fond of proper sweet wine (ie late harvest, not crap wine with a bag of sugar added) so I thought I’d suggest one for today’s bottle.

Today’s route passed the end of two different roads with a vineyard on them, and I’m going to choose Domaine Cabarrouy for a number of reasons - it’s further up into the mountains which seems to appeal to these cyclist chappies, the proprietor is a lady named Skoda and that’s what I drive, the bird on the label reminds me of Professor Waffle and most importantly, get a load of this review from Le Monde newspaper...

Domaine de Cabarrouy, « Ambre de Samonios », 2015, blanc moelleux

Autrefois appelé « cuvée passerillage », ce flacon nous a tout de suite interpellés : ses arômes sont à tomber. On sent l’acacia, le sapin, une belle longueur mentholée accompagnée de poire. Malgré le sucre, la bouche est acidulée. Remarquable. 15€.

I want one. Right now!

jurancon-samonios.png
 
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