Giro Stage 7: Campania

The climbing has begun, sort of. Today's stage was 110 kilometers from Maddaloni to the summit of Montevergine di Mercogliano. Bart De Clerq launched an escape on the climb to  Montevergine that lasted all the way to the finish line, barely. Michele Scarponi launched an attack in the final kilometer and he brought a hard-charging group of four favorites -- accompanied by overall threats Vincenzo Nibali and Roman Kreuziger, as well as former winner Stefano Garzelli. Scarponi outkicked his companions but missed catching De Clerq by inches.

Maglia Rosa:  Peter Weening

Stage winner: Bart De Clercq

Region: Campania

Wine: Bruno de Conciliis Selim 12.5% abv  $21.99

 

They say:

Jazz music is our way of making wine.
We improvise the melodies of the grapes.
We make a unique performance of every harvest
Selim is like Miles, in his late phase, light and chilled out,
When only the sound of his trumpet reminded listeners of his sad ballads,
A profound music but deeply enjoyable like our sparkling wine,
A boat wine with the same disposition as the one of the land where it is produced,
Sweet and impertinent at the same time,
The first Aglianico grape-based sparkling wine produced in Campania.

 

I say:  Crisp, refreshing, fruit forward with apple notes. 

 

 

Giro Stage 6

And today we are in the Lazio, traveling from Orvieto to Fiuggi Terme.

To be honest, this was a dull stage. The stage was a long slog of 216km circling just east of Rome, one of those that were it in the middle of the race, I might find myself zoning out on. Predictable break and almost the predictable win by Petacchi

 In other news, Sunday's stage to Mount Etna in Sicily might be forced to alter its route. Europe's most active volcano erupted again last night, though so far the race is saying plans have not changed. A small crater released some lava and dust on the volcano's east flank. This activity shouldn't threaten the stage but the Giro will monitor the situation in the case of further eruptions.

Stage: Francisco Ventoso

Maglia Rosa: Peter Weening

Wine: Capolemole Carpinetti 06 $19.99

They say: Carpineti’s organic estate, farmed with the assistance of his son, is one hour outside Rome. His “Capolemole” is produced of Bellone, a native variety of Lazio, and perhaps sharing DNA with Malvasia. Plinius called it the "fantastic grape" while others have dubbed it not so fantastically. This white wine crafted of organic Bellone shows a creamy, stone-fruit quality. Some citrus character shows with a nutty redolence.

I say: Agreed on creamy and nutty but still maintains a freshness.  In the best possible way, a fun wine.

Wines of the Giro Stage 5

After Monday's tragedy and the symbolic and very emotional ride of Tuesday, on Wednesday the cyclists raced again. Today's race was 191km in Umbria from Piombino to Orvieto. It was an up and down day with three short climbs at Saragiolo, Croce di Fighine, and Valico di Monte Nibbio. On this final climb, the riders raced over gravel roads. Another 10 kilometer sector of gravel finished just outside 10 kilometers to race. The dirt rides provided the expected drama with crashes, near misses and a lot of dust. In fact, the Universal Sports coverage delighted in contrasting the dust of today to the mud of last year. Honestly, the mud looked like more fun and riders reported that the dry conditions made the road more slippery that they expected. In the end, Peter Weening soloed to both a stage victory and a day in pink.

Stage Winner and maglia rosa: Peter Weening

Wine: 09 Milziade Antano Grechetto dei Colli Martani $13.99 12% abv 67wine

They say: Despite its Greek origin, Greccheto has been cultivated in Italy since antiquity. Milziade Antano, a true traditionalist in Umbria, produces his 100% Greccheto in the Colli Martani DOC. Stylistically Antano would be in the old school in wine making terms – the lack of intervention in the winery, no barrique and no high-tech equipment.  All of Antano’s wines speak to the strength and passion of the land and the people who till and harvest its fruits. The wine is varietally true, full-bodied and showing subtle lemon and mineral character.

I say: Refreshing. Dry with citrus and floral notes. Makes me wish for a warm day on a lounge chair in my yard or a summer party. Well, in places that are warmer in July than San Francisco. Probably also very nice after a 191km dusty bike ride.

Wouter Weylandt

I'm not a cyclist. The last day of my freshman year in high school a classmate was killed on her bike. My response was to stop riding. A few years ago, I went so far as to buy a bike in an attempt to try again. However, the streets of San Francisco were too intimidating and I gave up.  Thus, I suggest you skip my babbling below and take a look at this post from Bikesnobnyc

I'll not be writing about today's Giro wine. Like many cycling fans around the world, I was watching live coverage of the Giro this morning. The stage was moving along as expected, with a break up ahead and the peloton closing in when all of that ceased to matter. Universal Sports, and I assume all others, showed footage of a fallen rider, later identified as Wouter Weylandt. It was clear from both the initial shot and. the follow-up of medics doing CPR, that this was not the typical race injury. Indeed, by the time I got to my desk at work, reports had come out that attempts to revive him had failed and that he had died. He was 26 years old and his wife is reportedly pregnant with their first child, due in September. More information about Weylandt can be found on numerous places online including Podium Cafe, Velo News, and The New York Times.

I recorded the stage, along with watching it live, but do not think I will ever need to re watch. The stark reminder of the dangers of the sport was chilling and one I will not forget anytime soon. David Millar, the new wearer of the maglia rosa said it better than I ever could: “I love cycling, and I've always been enchanted by the epic scale of it all, it was why I fell in love with it as a boy. Yet Wouter's death today goes beyond anything that our sport is supposed to be about, it is a tragedy that we as sportsmen never expect, yet we live with it daily, completely oblivious to the dangers we put ourselves in. This is a sad reminder to us, the racers, what risks we take and what lives we lead."

Stage 2 Alba to Parma

Stage win: Alessandro Petacchi

Pink: Mark Cavendish

Alba to Parma. A long, clearly doomed one man break. A short, also doomed, escape after the bunch came back together. Hands flung in anger. It must be our first sprinting stage. Indeed, Alessandro Petacch won his 22nd career stage of the Giro d'Italia in the longest stage of this year's race. The stage ended in a long, flat, straight run-in to Alba with Petacchi beating Mark Cavendish by a tire width. Cavendish complained that Petacchi illegally veered off his line to interfere with his sprint, but there was no official action taken. 

Btw, if you are a cycling fan on twitter, I suggest following both @MarkCavendish and @Mark_Renshaw for an insider's view of the art of sprinting.

Region: Emilia Romagna

Wine: Camillo Donati Malvasia  $20.00

Importer's note: The Donati estate is a family estate started in 1930. They cultivate 11 ha of vines (7 of which they own as Tenuta S. Andrea and 4 which are leased at Tenuta Bottazza) using organic and biodynamic practices They are about 20 km away from Parma in the hillside at an altitude of around 250 m with an eastern exposition.

All the grapes, including the white, are fermented like red wines (with skin contact), without temperature control, and use no other controls or enhancers at fermentation, no fining, no acidification or de-acidification, no selected yeasts, etc.The carbonation of these frizzante wines comes from the traditional method of refermentation in bottle, a method that does not require preservatives and which makes this wine, unlike those produced in charmat method, age better. The wines are not filtered and are topped with a crown cap (a traditional closure for some decades in this region).

I say: Frizzante for Mother's Day! Orange, dry, beer-y. Herbs, honey yeast and tannins.

Giro 2011 Stage One

And we're off. Or they are off. Or some such thing. Saturday marked the start of the 2011 Giro. This year, The  Giro will celebrate the 150th anniversary of Italian unification. The racers will ride 3,522.5 km and tackle nine mountain stages with 21 Category 1 or 2 climbs and seven mountaintop finishes. 

But to start, a team time trial. For those not familiar with the sport, the TTT as it is known, features entire teams of riders racing against the clock rather than each other. Teams start at equal intervals, usually two, three or four minutes apart. The recorded finishing time in a team time trial is based on the 5th rider of that team. Therefore a team may choose to have a few of its riders take a death pull towards the end of the TTT event, in which the riders take as hard a pull at the front to lift the pace at the cost of exhausting themselves with no hope of being able to latch onto the back of the formation for drafting. They then drop back and leave the remainder of the team to finish the time trial.

Winner: To the surprise of exactly nobody, HTC won today's team time trial to Torino
Pink: Marco Pinotti (note for non-cycling fans, much as the leader of the Tour de France wears yellow, in the Giro the leader wears pink, the maglia rosa. In the past, this has meant that the Giro is K's favorite race of the season)

Region:  19.3-km from Venezia Reale to Turin beginning and ending in Piedmont.

Wine:  La Torrazza Erbaluce 08 
12.5% abv $21.00

Importer's notes: "Luigi Ferrando has long been the leading winemaker of the Canvese region in Piedmont where his family's winemaking tradition goes back to 1900. Like many of our other producers, he has strong ties to his local region. His attachment and commitment run deep, and have led him to collaborate with other winemakers and academics. They are responsible for discovering and preserving local winemaking traditions that might otherwise have been lost. His sons, Roberto and Andrea, now work with him on the estate, thereby assuring the continuation of the Ferrando tradition.

Around the village of Caluso they raise some interesting local grape varieties, and are particularly known for their Erbaluce di Caluso. Erbaluce is an ancient white grape originally form the alpine foothills of upper Piedmont. It has a bright acidity, an elegant underlying minerality, and an overall structure that makes it the ultimate flexible wine: producing everything from sparkling wine, through bone-dry, off-dry, and late harvest wines."

I say: Nice acidity and minerality. Brisk. Kind of like the weather in San Francisco.
 

Hospice du Rhone

Before I descend or, given this year's route, ascend into the Giro, I wanted to report back on my trip to Hospice du Rhone and my champagne detour.
I was delighted to receive a media pass to HdR. It is one of those events that I had always meant to attend but there had always been a conflict. This year I thought I might be able to make the entire event–seminars, tastings, a rose lunch and more. Alas, day one of the event conflicted with our sales conference, so I spent my Friday talking with our reps about the fall list. Which, to be honest, is not a bad way to spend a day. As I have said before, I'm very excited about the Fall 11 season for, among others, Gerald Asher, Jamie Goode and Sam Harrop, Eating Mud Crabs in Kandahar, Breaking Through Concrete, Weighing In, Rioja, Theise in paperback with a new preface and a book I kinda-vaguely helped acquire The Art of Eating Cookbook.
My role at the meeting done I jumped in the car and drove down to Paso Robles. I had missed the seminars and walk around tasting, but met up with future UC Press author Lisa Shara Hall for the Soiree dinner. Food, wine, and a chance to stretch my legs after both a long day at the meeting table and in the car made me feel much better about life.
The next morning we were up and at 'em early for breakfast followed by a seminar on the wines of the Roussillon moderated by another future UC Press author, Patrick Comiskey. Judging by his introduction, he may have a possible sideline as an old school evangelical preacher. This seminar was excellent, providing an introduction to a region I knew little about, with a panel of winemakers and wines that really spoke to their theme "They Have a Dream." I found myself thinking many of these wines would be helpful for the Pyrenees stages of my wines of the Tour de France. Coming, once again, in June.
Next up was a second seminar: High Noon: a pictorial and narrated tour of the 2011 growing season of McLaren Vale with Drew Noon of Noon Winery. For me the highlight was tasting the three components of the 2010 Eclipse, grenache and both destemmed and whole bunch shiraz.
Then it was time for lunch and the annual auction. The auciton was a chance to bid on on rare and one-of-a-kind auction lots generously donated by Hospice du Rhône friends and worldly Rhône producers. I did not take home any lots.
After a bit of a break it was on to the Saturday Grand Tasting. As I had tasted at several of these producers at the recent Rhone Rangers, I concentrated on either new to me or foreign wineries. Highlights included the biodynamic AmByth, Guigal and a glass or perhaps two of a 96 Clape Cornas.
Later it was off to the Farewell BBQ with more food, wine and even some craps. I admit to calling it an early night as I had plans for my Sunday. In all, I thought this was a really well-done event, worth the drive from the Bay Area. Although I missed a day of seminars, the ones that I attended were both educational and entertaining. A second highlight, of course, was the opportunity to spend time both with the winemakers but also other industry friends. I will admit though that it was a bit odd at first to be back at the Paso fair grounds.  The last time I had been there, it had been with K for the fair, show pigs, Tim McGraw performing, ferris wheel and all.

Sunday I was up at 6:30 and out the door to meet Lisa for our drive up to Pebble Beach. Few things would have inspired me to be out that early, but I found I could not turn down a chance to taste 1990 vintage champagne. 1990 has been called one of the greatest vintages in recent memory and an opportunity to taste and compare Deutz, Grande Dame, Feuillatte, Dom Perignon, Tattinger, Salon and Moet & Chandon was a can't be missed event. The panel, led by fellow Red Sox and Carolina basketball fan Bruce Schoenfeld included, among others, Raj Parr and Larry Stone, who may avoid comparing champagne and blondes in the future. As many of these champagnes are out of my budget even upon release, it was wonderful to taste them and to ponder house style and vintage. My three favorites were the Salon, Dom Perignon and the Deutz.
Next up was a visit to their Grand Tasting tents before heading back up to SF for dumplings and oolong before dropping Lisa at Bart and heading home for an early night. Well, at least until twitter let me know about the breaking news story.