Today’s stage winner, Daniel Martìnez, was born in Soacha, a suburb of Bogota. There is a Colombian wine industry, but it would appear the only area with any real pretensions is north of Boyaca, 100km distant.
On the other hand, towards the end of today’s route the Tour went by the front gate of what appears to be a decent winemaker...
...in the village of Châteaugay, north of Clermont-Ferrand. The cyclists wouldn’t have seen the sign, because they came down the hill. I hope the traffic light was in their favour - I bet they would have been annoyed if they had been made to wait for a tractor or somesuch to come through in the opposite direction.
Châteaugay is an AOC under the umbrella designation of Côtes d’Auvergne. Once again, the area has been promoted only recently, being awarded AOC status in 2011. The Hachette guide thinks highly of the Tourlanias Châteaugay, often awarding it two stars (= ‘
remarquable’) - including in the most recent edition, as the Tourlanias were proud to point out on their Facebook page -
It’s 100% Gamay, and reasonably priced (in the 5-8€ bracket.) The production is tiny (1,100 bottles) so the chances of finding one outside of the immediate area must be pretty small. I certainly drew a blank trying to find any for sale online. But if the Hachette Guide can locate one, I’m sure we can too. So that’s my suggestion for the day.
https://www.hachette-vins.com/guide...el-tourlonias-chateaugay-2016-2019/201925801/
(I love the notion of some of these obscure winemakers looking themselves up on Google and wondering why they are on a website full of people arguing about which the best DAC chips, coffee grinders, sports cars, guitar amps and televisions.)