Tuesday, July 6, 2021

Wine & Food of Le Tour 2021, Stage 10: Albertville to Valence

Where are we? The Savoie and Drome.

Albertville:Le Tour remembers the Olympics: Albertville is located at the crossroads of valleys and on one of the largest ski areas in the world (Pays du Mont-Blanc and Tarentaise). Close to Annecy, Chambéry, Grenoble and Lyon and at the centre of some of the richest nature reserves in Europe (Vanoise and Grand Paradis national parks, Massif des Bauges regional nature park), it has made a sustained effort to promote sporting activities and top-level sportsmen and women, which gives it a dynamic image where companies specialising in mountain sports can naturally set up.
The Olympic city has developed its mountain jobs campus, which aims to host professional training organisations on its territory and thus become a real learning city. The aim of the Mountain Professions Campus is to provide training organisations with the best possible reception conditions, in particular by making available equipped training rooms and facilitating access to accommodation, catering and entertainment to guarantee quality sessions. The Olympiade will soon welcome all those who want to train in Albertville. Located near the Olympic Hall and the National Ski and Snowboard Centre, the campus is also located next to the cult site of the 1992 Winter Olympics, the Olympic Park, which has been completely redeveloped to accommodate tourism, sports and leisure activities and culture.

Valence: The local tourist site has a museum for us today: 
The Shoes Museum in Romans takes us on a journey through the ages The International Shoes Museum in Romans is an invitation to travel, both across the world and through time. This museum will make you wonder... why do we wear shoes? Is it because of historical reasons, geographic, artistic, aesthetic, technical, economic, sociological, anthropological...? The universal object that is the shoe has been around for thousands of years.The tour of the museum tells the story of how the shoe industry came to be in Romans, how shoes have evolved in different civilisations such as Muskateer boots, the little shoes for the mutilated feet of Chinese women, Egyptian sandals, etc. There are over 16,500 items on display in the museum's collections, covering Ancient Times right up until today. It is an original experience discovering the museum's collections, ranging from the most traditional of shoes, to some very strange-looking ones. Then the tour will lead you to the more contemporary collections with shoes by some creators of the 20th century. These creators have really left their mark on the shoe industry and
 shoe-wearing habits, namely André Pérugia, Roger Vivier and Andrea Pfister.
In case you were wondering, and I was: There is a specific reason why the Shoes Museum is in Romans. The town was put on the map thanks to the shoe industry and it is now well-known for leatherworks and shoemaking. At the end of the 19th century, this industry began to prosper before becoming the main economic activity here, turning Romans into "the capital of luxury shoes". Romans-sur-Isère was first and foremost a town with a booming tanning industry. This was because at the time, the town had access to clean and clear-running water from the Isère and canals close to the Presle district, making it the perfect place for tanning leather. The shoe industry then understandably developed in Romans so that the manufacturers could be as close as possible to the suppliers.

Le Tour specialties:
Albertville: diots (sausages), polenta. Region of Beaufort cheese, Tome des Bauges, Savoy wines (white & red) from the vineyards of Albertville.

Valence: caillette (meat and vegetables cooked in a crépine), suisse (shortbread biscuit with orange blossom), pogne (brioche), ravioles (speciality of Romans), Balrhona chocolates (Tain-l'Hermitage), black truffles from the Drôme (80 pc of French production), wines (Saint-Joseph, Crozes-Hermitage)

Christian Prudhomme says
At the footstep of the Savoie resorts, the quality of its infrastructures and its welcoming atmosphere makes Albertville the perfect host city. But this time, the doorway to the Alps will not send the riders towards the summits. By heading to the valleys of Isère and of the Rhone, the course is clearly made for an explanation between the sprinters.


The stage: Sprint stage? Maybe. The break of the day was small, just Houle and Van der Sande. At the sprint point, with Cavendish not taking part, maximum points went to Colbrelli. Seventy eight kilometers to go and the gap to the duo out front was 1:20.
Small crash, taking out almost all of Team Ineos, though they would be back up riding. Ahead, there was talk of a thunderstorm.

Fifty kilometers to go and the gap was around one minute.
The sprint finish ahead looked not too crazy at least.
Around thirty seven kilometers to go and the break was caught, as riders started to follow off the back.
Yikes, as the pace picked up, a mechanical for Colbrelii at just the wrong moment. He did make it back.
An echelon and a small gap. Cavendish was wisely staying glued to Alaphilippe. Riders had been shelled out the back, but most of the top riders were there.
Wow. After an amazing day of work by the team, Cavendish with the win!
Stage:
os.Rider Name (Country) TeamResult
1Mark Cavendish (GBr) Deceuninck-QuickStep4:14:07
2Wout Van Aert (Bel) Jumbo-Visma
3Jasper Philipsen (Bel) Alpecin-Fenix
4Nacer Bouhanni (Fra) Team Arkea-Samsic
5Michael Matthews (Aus) Team BikeExchange
6Michael Mørkøv (Den) Deceuninck-QuickStep
7André Greipel (Ger) Israel Start-up Nation
8Peter Sagan (Svk) Bora-Hansgrohe
9Anthony Turgis (Fra) TotalEnergies
10Cees Bol (Ned) Team DSM  



The wine
Mickael Bourge Cornas 2016
When Christy describes something as a favorite, I do not hesitate.
From an importer: Mickaël Bourg's grandfather was a mason at Cornas, and Mickaël decided to go into wine after two years of working as a mechanic. He rents a few vines from Matthieu Barret, where he has worked, and made his first wine in 2006. He has grown his Cornas vineyard from 0.5 to 1.5 hectares.
Whole bunch fermentation on the reds.Mika produced between 2 to 3 barriques of Cornas and St Peray.

The foodPogne de Romans Time for some bread. in this case, a sweet brioche. We liked this recipe enough that we ended up buying the book it was from, Scook by Anne-Sophie Pic.

The recipe was clear and easy. On day one you make a poolish out of yeast, flour and water that ferments in the fridge overnight.

The next day you add more yeast, flour, sugar, salt. eggs, milk butter and orange flour water to the mixture and knead until it forms a ball. You then let rise for a few more hours before shaping it into a ring and letting it rise for a two more hours.


Finally, you brush the top with beaten egg and sprinkle with course sugar. It then bakes at 350 for about 25 minutes.

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