Wine & Food of Le Tour 2019: Stage 11: Albi > Toulouse

Where are we? Toulouse: LeTour tells me that: Toulouse already has on its soil sites associated with UNESCO’s World Heritage list: the St. Sernin basilica and the St-James Hotel-Dieu are listed as parts of the St. James Way in France (1998) a 12.6-km section of Canal du Midi (1996) flows across the city. On the strength of this heritage, Toulouse is preparing a bidding project encompassing the historical centre, which it wishes to see inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List. Restoration work has been undertaken to put the historical centre of Toulouse on the indicative list submitted by France to UNESCO. This is the first step before the application itself, which will be prepared in the years to come. The decision will ultimately be made by the French government. The average time to complete an application is about ten years.

Specialties: foie gras, cassoulet, Toulouse sausage. Violet (flower, candy, perfume). 5 starred restaurants.

 

The stage: LeTour twitter thinks this could be the last stage for the sprinters for a while. Everyone seems less than certain.
Our break of the day is established early:

🚩 Wheels are rolling, stage 11 is underway. Breakaway of the day is already formed:

🚩 Ils sont partis ! Le départ réel de cette 11ème étape a été donné et l'échappée du jour est déjà formée :

🇫🇷 @PerezAnthony1
🇫🇷 @StephanRossetto
🇫🇷 @L_Calmejane
🇧🇪 @AimeDeGendt#TDF2019 pic.twitter.com/7EC0rLK63E

— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 17, 2019

 

So it went, with little excitement. Seventy kilometers to go and the gap was 2:06. Time for a picture.

🏁 68 KM

⏱️ The breakaway is 2' ahead of the peloton.
⏱️ L'échappée a deux minutes d'avance sur le peloton.#TDF2019 pic.twitter.com/4W5NeMHowH

— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 17, 2019

 

And some amazing field art:

Clean lines, grand scale, moving animals, on theme and highlights the agriculture of the local region in a creative manner... downside not all of the sun flowers bloomed in time 8/10 #fieldart #sbstdf #couchpeloton pic.twitter.com/cSXipQAjE7

— CyclingCentral (@CyclingCentral) July 17, 2019

  

Thirty five kilometers to go and the gap was 1:20.
Crash! Lot's of people down or delayed.  Terpstra looking not good at all. Word would come soon that he would abandon.
Ahead, they were heading for the inevitable sprint. After several near misses, Ewan!

Top-10 on Stage 11 #TDF2019 pic.twitter.com/4SiiCpSlku

— the Inner Ring (@inrng) July 17, 2019

 
GC:

1	JULIAN ALAPHILIPPE	21	DECEUNINCK - QUICK - STEP	47H 18' 41''	-	B : 24''	-
2	GERAINT THOMAS	1	TEAM INEOS	47H 19' 53''	+ 00H 01' 12''	-	-
3	EGAN BERNAL	2	TEAM INEOS	47H 19' 57''	+ 00H 01' 16''	-	-
4	STEVEN KRUIJSWIJK	81	TEAM JUMBO - VISMA	47H 20' 08''	+ 00H 01' 27''	-	-
5	EMANUEL BUCHMANN	12	BORA - HANSGROHE	47H 20' 26''	+ 00H 01' 45''	-	-
6	ENRIC MAS	25	DECEUNINCK - QUICK - STEP	47H 20' 27''	+ 00H 01' 46''	-	-
7	ADAM YATES	101	MITCHELTON - SCOTT	47H 20' 28''	+ 00H 01' 47''	-	-
8	NAIRO QUINTANA	61	MOVISTAR TEAM	47H 20' 45''	+ 00H 02' 04''	-	-
9	DANIEL MARTIN	121	UAE TEAM EMIRATES	47H 20' 50''	+ 00H 02' 09''	-	-
10	THIBAUT PINOT	51	GROUPAMA - FDJ	47H 21' 14''	+ 00H 02' 33''	B : 8''

The wine: Mas del Perie les Escures 2014
From an importer: Fabien Jouves is from an old farming family in Causse and became a winemaker in 2006 when he created his first cuvée Mas del Périé on the highest slopes of Cahors.

In this region, Malbec (Côt) is the king of grape varietals. Located between Quercy and Cahors, Jouves wanted to choose parcels that could help him show a diverse range of Malbec expressions. Following biodynamic agriculture adds strength to his terroir by supporting the whole environment from the vines to the animals.The whole vinification process occurs naturally, without any additives. The wine is then aged until maturity, either in concrete tanks, barrels or large wooden vats (foudres), depending on the wine’s personality.

The food:  Violet candies  Do I like these? No. But my daughter adores them. So much so that she has candied violet ice cream cake every year. The New York Times tells me that: FRENCH people often eat violets, as anyone who has made a close study of French pastry can tell you. The little purple sugar flowers often seen on ornate cakes and candies in Paris patisserie windows are not a chef's imitations of violets but real violets that have been mummified in sugar. By themselves, these crystallized flowers, brittle and slightly perfumed, taste like bath salts. The flavor blends particularly well with chocolate. According to both a 19th-century confectioner's manual and the best-selling French herbalist Maurice Messegue, candied violets are recommended for chest disorders.
The world's only manufacturer of violettes cristallisees is Dedieu Candi Flor, a small family company in the Toulouse suburb of Bonnefoy. Its specialty is known worldwide: The Queen of England may occasionally crunch a Dedieu violet, since Dedieu sells to her purveyor of chocolates, Charbonnel & Walker of Old Bond Street, London. Whether the Emperor of Japan has tried and enjoyed crystallized violets is unknown, but Japan is the company's newest and fastest-growing market.
Once the capital of the Visigoths, Toulouse has often been called the capital of violets - specifically, the luxurious, long-stemmed, double variety. Some Toulousains remember prewar days, when the Sunday market around the Romanesque Church St. Sernin was purple with baskets of violets. Now, if anything, it is blue with blue jeans. Today, Toulouse is better known for its aviation and space industry: The Concorde was built here, and the first European space shuttle, Hermes, is expected to blast off from here in 1995.
But even now, with violets costing $28 for a bunch of 50, there are reminders of the time when Toulouse was nicknamed ''la cite de la violette.'' The city's football team wears violet shirts, and one can buy violet perfume, violet liqueur and, above all, the traditional violet-patterned miniature hat boxes of crystallized violets in every confectioners' and pastry shop in town for $11 a pound.