More on the Road of Le Tour

As predicted, I’ve not managed to drink along with the route of this year’s Tour de France. Nope, I’ve not managed to post daily notes or wine-related stories that relate to the locale of each stage. Fact is I’ve had a hard time keeping up with the race itself. I managed to completely miss what’s arguably been the most exciting stage of the race thus far – the finish atop Arcalis in Andorra. Somehow, so did my DVR; so I’ve seen only the brief highlight reels of Alberto Contador dropping the other overall contenders during Stage Seven’s mountaintop finale. I haven’t even watched yesterday’s stage yet, much less today’s (which should still be in progress as I write). So don’t spoil it for me by spouting out the results. I’ve got some catching up to do.

In that spirit, here are a few highlights and observations from week one of Le Tour. I’d hoped to share them earlier but hey, what can I say?

En route from Marseille to La Grande-Motte, Stage 3 took the peloton straight through the heart of the Camargue and the network of lakes of the Bouches du Rhône, south of Arles and Aix-en-Provence. I recognized the countryside right away but was pleasantly surprised when I recognized some of the actual roads the race was traversing, as the pack climbed the Category 4 Côte de Calissanne. It’s a pretty little bluff in the immediate environs of Château Calissanne, an estate in the sprawling Coteaux d’Aix en Provence AOC that my wife and I visited on our honeymoon back in 2000. I profiled Château Calissanne last year, after a visit from their then commercial director allowed me to taste through their more current range of wines and reflect on our trip.

While the Stage 7 finish atop Arcalis may have given us the most exciting finish of the Tour thus far, it was the Stage 4 team time trial (TTT) that’s proven to be the most decisive stage of the race up to this point. It was one of the craziest, most dangerous TTT courses I’ve ever seen, twisting and turning, climbing and dropping through the narrow roads around Montpellier, the capitol of the Hérault and of the Languedoc-Roussillon. TTTs are more typically held on wide open roads as a sheer test of speed, precision and teamwork. While crashes in a TTT aren’t entirely uncommon, there were just a ridiculous number of spills in this year’s stage, the most dramatic of which has to have been the off-road wipeout of half the Boygues Telecom/Bbox Team.



After Stage 5 took the race through the heart of Corbières on its way from Le Cap d’Agde to Perpignan, Stage 6 saw the entire race transfer into Spain for a stage from Girona to Barcelona, finishing atop the Montjuich hill. When I think of Barcelona, I tend to think more of Antoni Gaudi and the beaches of the Costa Brava than of wine. If you were listening closely enough during the evening coverage of Stage 6, though, you may have caught commentator and ex-racer Bob Roll’s typically anti-Gallic comment that he “had to go Spain to find some good wine – an '04 Priorat….” As absurdly misguided as are Roll’s opinions on wine, he was right about one thing: Priorat is indeed just down the coast, to the south and west of Barcelona. Here’s another hit from the archives, my notes on the Priorats of Trio Infernal – Spanish wines made by a bunch of Frenchmen. Take that, Bob Roll!



To round things up….

Author Robert Camuto, who was kind enough to guest post here with the story of his day at Stage 2 of Le Tour, also chimed in with a response to my assertion that there is no wine grown in the tiny principality of Monaco, where the Tour started this year. Confirming my suspicion, he dropped this little tidbit my way:

“Bellet (Nice) would be the closest appellation to Monaco. Bellet has about 12 producers and is the only in-town appellation in France. Reds are made from the Folle Noire (lit. "Crazy Black") grape, which sort of unbelievably can have some fantastic pinot qualities after a few years in bottle. Best producer = Clos St. Vincent. (biodynamic etc.).”

As Le Tour reaches its midpoint, 31 Days of Natural Wine is heading towards its final stages at Cory Cartwright’s blog, Saignée. If you haven’t been following along, put down your work, sit down for a spell and catch up; you’ll find it worth your while. And stay tuned in the closing days for my contribution, an interview with Mr. L’Enfant Terrible himself, Michael Dashe of Dashe Cellars.

Finally, in the wake of all this action, I managed to miss a minor benchmark. My recent piece on the Chablis of Laurent Tribut marked my 500th posting here at MFWT. How’s that for a little pat on the back? Maybe I should open something decent tonight to celebrate.

First though, it’s time to grab some lunch and catch up on the Tour….

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Robert Camuto at the Tour de France

As hinted at and hoped for in my last post, today’s story takes us right back to Le Tour de France; this time, though, we get to experience it through the eyes of someone who is actually there.

Robert Camuto and I first made the cycling connection after I reviewed his book, Corkscrewed: Adventures in the New French Wine Country. When I saw Robert’s photos (on Facebook) of his day spent with friends watching Stage Two of the Tour, I had to ask him if he’d be interested in writing about the experience here at MFWT.

Robert is a frequent freelance contributor to Wine Spectator and many other print publications. You can follow his regular adventures at Corkscrewed.info. Needless to say, I’m excited to welcome him here as guest blogger today. So please read on and enjoy!



It’s Not About the Bikes: The Tour de France Passes Chez Nous

By Robert Camuto

I always wondered why it is so many wine lovers enjoy watching professional cycling. And I finally figured it out: It’s one sport you can drink wine with and really feel like you’re part of the event. (The vinous equivalent of the relationship between weak, gassy beer and the NFL).

What it took for me to grasp the obvious was the Tour de France running right by my house—I mean on the street right outside last Sunday. In other words, the road that we use every day to go to the bakery or the post office or to carpool was transformed into the pitch for the world’s third most viewed sporting event (after the Olympics and the Soccer World Cup). And the sidewalks that day were turned into one 100-mile tailgate party.

The Tour de France is, of course, much more than a sporting event. MUCH much more: It’s a three-week national (actually international as it crosses France’s borders) street party. Most people in France couldn’t name more than one or two cyclists in the race or explain the teams and point system. But that’s not the point. The point is all about ambience, which, not surprisingly, is a French word. From a public point of view there is more effort put into the pre- and post- race festivities than the actual race which whizzes by in a few seconds.


A big part of ambience is the gorgeous vistas, the villages and France’s terroirs. Yes terroirs. It would be one thing for me to sit here and write about the steep contours of the Pyrenées or the Luberon mountains, or to even show you pictures. It’s quite another thing to see cyclists straining to crawl up those rocks in the summer heat as the asphalt practically melts.

The whole ambience and terroir thing not only complements the wines—it makes them taste even better! I can assure you that for the grueling mountain finale up Mont Ventoux on July 25, I will be raising a glass of some modest Côtes du Ventoux which on that day will taste more profound than Domaine de la Romanée-Conti.


When race day arrived we had only an approximate idea how many friends and neighbors would be showing up for our race-watching party and barbecue. (It turned out to be about 20. I still haven’t made a final count.) Because the actual road was closed off from 11 a.m.—about three hours before the pack of cyclists came though —everyone had to arrive at least part of the way on foot.

Picking the wines for the occasion was not too difficult. It was hot. It’s summer in Provence, and on this day the tour left Monaco for Brignoles—right in the heart of rosé country.

The overall quality of Provence rosés has increased so dramatically in recent years it has made lists of star producers obsolete. If the wine is to be served on a cool evening I’ll go for a complex, darker Bandol or Coteaux d’Aix. For an afternoon rosé, I like to keep it simple: paler smooth-drinking wines made without headache-inducing chemicals priced between 5 and 10 Euros the bottle from appellations like Cotes-de-Provence, Coteaux Varois, Palette, Corsica and (the hilltop AOC in Nice) Bellet.

For the tour, we skipped bottles altogether and went B.I.B. (less waste, cost) with 5-liter packages of two Grenache-Cinsault-Syrah blends from the Var not far from the Tour’s stopping point that day: a delicious rose-petal colored wine from (organic producer) Domaine de La Grande Pallière followed by a salmon-pink wine from Domaine Thuerry.


We began gathering on the sidewalk around noon. That morning we’d installed the LANCE OUI CAN! sign on our front wall, and on our fence we posed a baguette marked with “Just Do It” in yellow (official Livestrong) chalk. About an hour before the cyclists comes the arrival of the caravane—the parade of wildly decorated publicity vehicles that tosses out free caps, bottles of water, saucisson and candy.

The neighborhoods of our village emptied to gather along the route, and we talked to neighbors we’d never met, shared rosé with a television crew that had stopped to film us, cheered for products, banks and companies that we don’t even know or like without any thought, and called out bravo! to the French riot cops on motorcycle.

Then–after their caravan passed—there was this deep, strange silence as we waited for the Tour to arrive. When the cyclists did arrive, the crowds exploded in cheers. There were four cyclists out front and then a few seconds behind, the peloton – the pack of unimaginably close riders pedaling workmanlike.


“Did you see him?” friends ask. Well yeah, sort of. I mean I could never tell you which particular part of that multi-colored blur that flew past us was Lance Armstrong.

While the cyclists continued their work for another two hours, we fired up the barbecue and ate and drank—summer salads accompanied by delicious grilled Merguez (lamb) and Chipolatas (veal) from an Arab- Hallal butcher in Grasse. (These butchers make some of the best artisanal sausage in France now.)

For the second round of barbecue, we brought out bottles of the red wine I made in my garage with friend and wine collaborator Ken McNeill. Our 2008 cuvée of 2 Gars Rouge (Two Guys- Red) is made from Carignan (also picked in the Var) from the vineyards of our friends at Domaine Borrely-Martin. It was young and fruity and good and nobody was making tasting notes.

The Tour de France isn’t—to paraphrase Lance—about the bikes. Just like wine isn’t really about the notes or about how many flavors you can identify in a glass, or about making a lifestyle statement. It’s all about sharing nourishment, this miracle of fermentation, and some moments together.

* * *
Buy Robert's book.
And like Cory said, not a used copy.
Like the baguette says, just do it!

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And So It Begins Again

Le Tour de France. For the 96th time in 106 years, the Tour began the annual pageantry of its circuit around France on Saturday. Most Americans may have been busy that morning preparing for their 4th of July festivities. I on the other hand was glued to the tube, forgoing the Wimbledon women’s finals – not to mention the possibility of a bike ride of my own – to watch the opening time trial of this year’s Tour.

Stage One:

Fabian Cancellara crushed it, storming the 15.5 km time trial course in and around the principality of Monaco nearly 20 seconds faster than his nearest rival. Monaco served as an epically beautiful starting point for this year’s race, even though, as the second smallest country in the world, a crossing into France was required as there aren’t 15.5 kilometers of suitable roadway in Monaco. (Trivia award of the day to anyone who can tell us what the smallest country is.)

Ever since I started this blog a couple of years back, I’ve thought about what a great idea it would be to map out a wine trail that follows the Tour route, writing up a wine or wine region (or beer or cheese, when necessary) that matches up with some point along the road of each day’s stage. But I’ve never managed to plan well enough ahead to lay it all out. This year, I didn’t even come up with an entirely appropriate pairing for day one. I’m not aware of any wine being produced in Monaco, so Provençal rosé would have made the most sense. Not a bottle in my cellar at the moment though… sad but true. Champagne might have been a fittingly celebratory substitute but, believe it or not, I wasn’t in the mood for wine that early in the day. Besides, bubbly is even more appropriate for the final day in Paris. So, given the race on the Riviera and the Swiss stage winner, I opted for something not too far off.

Coste della Sesia “Rosa del Rosa,” Proprietà Sperino 2008
$18. 12.5% alcohol. Diam. Importer: Petit Pois, Moorestown, NJ.
If you’re interested in somewhat detailed background information about Proprietà Sperino’s “Rosa del Rosa,” a Nebbiolo dominated rosé from Paolo de Marchi’s estate in Lessona, check out the review of the 2007 I wrote for WBW 47. For today’s purposes, suffice it to say that the 2008 is the color of a perfect slice of watermelon, right down to the pale greenish rind around the rim of the glass. In the mouth, it’s slightly frizzante – some bottles more so than others – and full of cranapple snap. Less complex than the 2007 in aromatic and textural terms, it’s still wonderfully refreshing, fruity and flavorful. Not too shabby an accompaniment to a dinner of pasta with a quick garden vegetable sauce.

Stage Two:
The first road race of this year’s Tour, Sunday’s stage left Monaco, following briefly along the Côte d’Azur before swinging upland through the heart of the Var. While I did get to drink some cool wines on Sunday, none were from Provence, the Rhone or the Var, much less from the Isle of Man, home of stage two winner Mark Cavendish. Perhaps I can coax Robert Camuto, author of Corkscrewed and recent contributor of a great segment to 31 Days of Natural Wine at Saignée, into guest blogging about his experiences – and what he drank of course. Sunday's stage passed directly in front of his house in the Var Department. That's him below, being interviewed by a press crew from France 2.



Much More to Come:

This year’s course is a strange one. Starting in the extreme southeastern corner of the country, it runs clockwise, eventually doubling back very close to where it’s passing in the first few days for the penultimate stage finish atop Mont Ventoux. From there, of course, there’s a transfer to the outskirts of Paris for the now classic and largely ceremonial yet still ferociously contested finishing circuits around the Champs-Élysées. As mentioned earlier, 21 Jours des Vins du Tour de France is not to be this year. But I imagine I will make another stage stop or two along the virtual route. Enjoy the race, all.

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Corkscrewed Reviewed

“A good wine is a wine you find to be good. A great wine is a wine that you remember. As for all the rest… all the rest is literature.”

Though the words above were uttered by Côte-Rôtie producer Gilles Barge, their inclusion in Robert Camuto’s new book, Corkscrewed, serves a solid turn as metaphor for the spirit encapsulated in Camuto’s work.

Part memoir, part travelogue, Corkscrewed leads us not through tales of the good or great wines the author has drunk nor, for the most part, through trips to storied estates. Instead, Mr. Camuto takes us on a journey of the paths less traveled in French wine country. Along the way he spends time with struggling independent vignerons and contemplates the future of obscure vines, while the contemporary culture clash in the world of French wine takes center stage. What we read about are the moments and people, not just the wines, that struck a chord deep enough to take root in his memory. And the book’s style, literary as it is, puts a positive spin on the closing of Monsieur Barge’s quote.

Mr. Camuto paints a picture of French wine culture not dissimilar from that depicted in the film Mondovino, contrasting the spirit of the independent vigneron with the machinations of the “big” wine industry. His journey begins in the sleek, competitive wine scene of Bordeaux, but quickly follows the first of his many subjects, François des Ligneris, from his estate in Saint-Émilion to what’s clearly the winemaker’s greater passion, a property in the Corbières. From that point on, Camuto doesn’t look back. He spends the remainder of the book traversing the rural wine villages of the South and Southwest of France, with brief sojourns to Alsace, Burgundy and the Loire, focusing along the way on the challenges inherent to the rustic lifestyle associated with growing wine in the French countryside. Though Camuto’s overall conclusions are fairly similar to those drawn in Mondovino, his overall tone is thankfully far less cruel. His villains are less caricatured, less demonized, and his heroes are painted with warm strokes, yet broadly enough to let their character show through, warts and all.

Corkscrewed is not without its own warts. Camuto sometimes plays coy as to his own experiences and opinions, opting instead to let his characters do the damning where damning seems due. In one passage from the chapter “Drinking with Uncle Jacques,” Camuto utters a simple, hedonistic “mmmmm” in response to a vintage Maury poured at Mas Amiel in the Côtes du Roussillon. It’s Uncle Jacques, one of the author’s more colorful protagonists, who quickly lays down the dirt on the wines at Mas Amiel: “They are too much, too fruity, too caramel, too sugary…. It was like you took a prune, put a piece of caramel on it and ate it…. I tell you, it was something else, syrup maybe. But it was not wine!”

After spending the bulk of the book championing the unsung heroes of the French wine countryside, the chapter dedicated to Nicolas Joly – owner of the famous Coulée de Serrant in Savennières and great campaigner for the biodynamie movement – comes across as surprisingly requisite. On a more personal level, I’m irked by the demonization of a cyclist, dressed in lycra and pedaling furiously through the Ardèche countryside. I’d like to be cycling through the Ardèche myself, and I certainly wouldn’t be doing it on an old single speed bike with a baguette in the basket. But Camuto puts the image to apt use, contrasting the old school, slow and steady lifestyle of the struggling vigneron with the invasion of the modern, the incursion of the fast and an unwillingness to stop and experience the native pleasures of place.

Whatever quibbles I may have found with Corkscrewed, they are clearly outweighed by its merits. Mr. Camuto’s writing is precise, entertaining and compelling enough that it should appeal to audiences beyond the normally narrow scope reached by wine books. It reads very much like a collection of short stories that come together to form what is essentially a non-fiction novel. It travels a road that I’d very much like to follow. The individual stories alone are very much worth the price of admission. The fact that they come together to form a much greater whole makes Corkscrewed a rare gem in the field of wine literature and a highly recommended read.

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