Sunday, September 20, 2020

Wine of Le Tour 2020 Stage 21

From the race director: Emotions run high on the final stage of the Tour. Light hearted in the first part of the race when time has come to celebrate and congratulate one another with sometimes a sip of champagne. Then comes the pleasure of re-discovering every year the Île-de-France area and Paris of course. Finally there are the shivers, the flower bouquet on the Champs-Ẻlysées indeed remains one of the most coveted on the sprinting planet. Unless…
Specialties Mantes-La-Jolie: onions (fair)
Specialties: French gastronomy, more than 13,500 breweries and restaurants

The stage: Well, now. Had you bet me when the race started whether or not they would make it to Paris, I would have assumed not. But here we are. Of course, I also would not have bet on Pogacar beating Roglic by so much in the time trial yesterday that he would finish the race in the yellow, white and polka dot jerseys.
Which is, as "they" always say, why they play the games, run the races, etc.--we never really know.
146 to start the day today. 
As we wait for the celebratory bubbles:
Also:
Some trivia: Since 1975, the first time the Tour finished on the Champs-Elysées, only four riders didn’t win from a bunch sprint: Alain Meslet in 1977, Bernard Hinault in 1979, Eddy Seigneur in 1994 and Alexandre Vinokourov in 2005.
Also, on our winner: 
1st Slovenian to win @LeTour
1st rider to dominate the overall, KOM and Best Young Rider standings in the same edition. 1st rookie to win overall since 1983. Youngest winner since 1904.
Hi Paris! Always: Ah, the regularly scheduled doomed attack: Swift, Périchon, Schachmann and Van Avermaet were 20'' ahead of the peloton with 30 kilometers to go.
20 kilometers to go and it was down to 15 seconds.
Two laps to go and it wad down to 12 seconds.
One lap to go and there were 3 still out front.
Bennett, celebrating green in style.
The stage:
The final GC:

General Classification after stage 21
PlaceRider (Country) TeamResult
1Tadej Pogacar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates87:20:05
2Primoz Roglic (Slo) Team Jumbo-Visma00:00:59
3Richie Porte (Aus) Trek-Segafredo00:03:30
4Mikel Landa Meana (Spa) Bahrain McLaren00:05:58
5Enric Mas Nicolau (Spa) Movistar Team00:06:07
6Miguel Angel Lopez Moreno (Col) Astana Pro Team00:06:47
7Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Team Jumbo-Visma00:07:48
8Rigoberto Uran (Col) EF Pro Cycling00:08:02
9Adam Yates (GBr) Mitchelton-Scott00:09:25
10Damiano Caruso (Ita) Bahrain McLaren00:14:03

The wine: Champagne Lelarge Pugeot Bises NV From Copake Wine Works
It always seems fitting to end the race with Champagne. It is a both a celebration of the race and a reward for the rather early hours I keep for three weeks. This year, Christy provided quite a treat indeed. Her words: dosage = honey!!! (it's been declared illegale!)
The importer says: Bises is the same base wine as the Blanc de Blancs—a blend of different Chardonnay parcels grown on sandy loam. The 2012 vintage, which the majority of this base wine comes from, was a difficult one—as it rained for four straight months.

Bises uses organic, local honey for dosage as opposed to their usual organic cane sugar. Using organic, local honey was a trial to try and work with what is around them and to be more self-sufficient. 

“[The honey offers] a roundness to the wine, tinier bubbles and a more natural aspect to the wine since the honey is sourced from bees staying in the forest right next to our vineyards” – Clemance Lelarge

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