Go Emma Go!

Hurrah for Emma Pooley who won Silver today in the women's time trial. Having put in a fabulous performance Sunday to help Nicole Cooke take Gold, this one may not have been expected, but was certainly deserved. Go Emma!

Go Nicole Go!

No wine today, I'm too excited. Did you see Nicole Cooke winning gold in the road race today? If not, why not - it was amaaaaaazing. Go Nicole go!

Toasting with Ridgeview Merret Grosvenor 2004

Hurrah for Mark Cavendish who sprinted across the line to take the longest stage in the Tour de France today. A bit harsh on the breakaway who he sprinted past, but hurrah none the less.

Time for an English (yes I know he's Manx but you try growing grapes there) sparkling wine. A Ridgeview Merret Grosvenor 2004 which I bought last year when I drove through the Sussex countryside and saw a 'vineyard' sign. They gave me a few glasses of wine and let me wander around the vines taking nerdy photos.

It's a very good wine with a smooth mousse and distinct yeastiness which it's a cliche to call brioche. There's citrus too, but more grapefruit than lemon. It's one of England's more widely available sparklers as Waitrose do stock it when they can. The quality is unfortunately reflected in the price, expect to pay about ��22, more than your average grande marque Champagne in a supermarket, but it's worth a try to dismiss any thoughts about English wines being inferior.

Oh, and it's an excuse to post the picture I took of Cavendish winning a Tour of Britain stage again.

Sweet Sparkle Of Success

I have been drinking wine this week, but I've been spilling it on my notes. If you haven't been watching then now is the time to tune into the World Track Cycling Championships in Manchester.

Vicky Pendleton and Chris Hoy have been cleaning up in individual events, Wiggins and Cavendish won the Madison and Rebecca Romero, having tired of just winning world medals for rowing has picked up a couple of golds for herself.

That's nine golds so far, count 'em - nine - 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 - and there's more racing today with Chris Hoy in the 1K time trial and Victoria Pendleton in the Keirin. I don't want to be greedy, but ten medals would be nice.

Time for a gratuitous shot of Mark Cavendish winning the prologue of the Tour of Britain.

Premiere Sauvignon Blanc From The Loire

The Paris-Nice cycle race is underway and men in brightly coloured lycra are whizzing through streets that I bimbled through slowly in the cold rain as I cycled my way along the Loire. One of the things that kept me going was the promise of a decent glass of wine at the end of each day's ride. We mmostly opted for a jug of house white along the way, and in the sections covered by the Pro-teams for the last couple of days that was Sauvignon Blanc.

The closest I've had to those refreshing cold wines back home is Premiere Sauvignon Blanc Vin de Pays du Jardin de la France. It's dry with a high acidity and tastes of fresh grass with grapefruit. The flavour isn't overly intense, and it has a medium body matched by a medium alcohol level. It's about £4 a bottle, which is probably double what we paid in bars for similar quantities fresh out of the tap.

It's not the best Sauvignion Blanc in the world, in France, or even in the Loire, but it tastes like the kind of wine you would be drinking whilst eating your dinner, looking out through the rain at the Loire as it rolls past.

A Toast To Mark Beaumont

Slightly off topic today, but you can choose your own wine to toast Mark Beaumont. He's just become the fastest man to cycle his way around the world. 18,000 miles in 195 days, by himself. It was a crazy adventure and not without peril and incident, including being run over.

For those of you geeky enough to want to read about the bike and the kit he took it's all here. (I know you're out there, my Google stats tell me people find this blog looking for such phrases as 'cycling bum rash' and 'cycling feet blisters smell').

Beautiful Bierzo

I was delighted to find a Martin Sarmiento 2003 Bierzo in Majestic. I'd cycled through Bierzo in 2003on my way to Santiago, stopping in Villa Franca del Bierzo because I felt horribly ill. Having stuffed myself silly on seafood the previous evening I was dealing with the unattractive consequences of an upset stomach full of squid ink.

The surrounding countryside was fabulous, and the vineyards inviting. This wine was bright and a lively red. Attractively fruity it had plenty of cherries and redcurrants and raspberries, soften by just enough smooth vanilla oak.

At ��9-10 it was an interesting change, as a well balanced, food friendly wine. Again, I suspect my sentiment may have an influence on my perception of the wine, but that is really the point of wine for me.

Deviation

A wild weekend of sport has just given me too many choices. England played adequate football and the Rugby World Cup offered a vast range of nations wines to try, but instead I headed down to Crystal Palace and the Tour Of Britain Prologue.

Here's a shot I took of Mark Cavendish 100m from the line, a gross dereliction of my marshalling duties, but he was clearly on the finishing straight of a winning circuit.

Normal wine service will be resumed soon.

German Disappointment

Cycling had another setback today as Gerolsteiner have pulled out of sponsoring their team. It's a bit of a blow as it always made flying Lufthansa that little bit more enjoyable when they gave me a bottle of cycling sponsor water. From now it will just be a bottle of water.

If I wanted German and watery I might opt for Weight Watchers Riesling. It's pale, but not interesting. It tastes a little bit like wine. Maybe wine that's had some grape juice added and then been watered down a bit, perhaps to be given to children. Naughty children, who need to learn the error of their ways.

If wine drinkers need to lose weight then walking to the restaurant or wine shop is a great way to start, working out by carrying wine home could help. Drinking this is not the way to go.

Vino!

Wow! The Tour de France had a fabulous day today, with Filippo Pozzato taking a stage which saw the yellow jersey crash and recover and David Millar take a temporary lead (OK for about three minutes, but it made me happy).

The big story was the Astana team. Big hitters Kloden and Vinokourov both crashed in style. Kloden may not get back, having broken his bottom, which is a major problem on a bike! Vino staged a fabulous comeback with help from six of his team-mates and absolutely no-one else. An oddity in bike racing, which has a bizarre code of good manners which would normally see the peloton letting a faller make his way back after an accident or mechanical mis-hap 20km out. He managed to get back all but 80 seconds, a fabulous achievement but a massive handicap.



I'd love to toast him with a glass of Kazakh wine. Yes, it exists, and it is made from grapes, despite what you may have heard from Borat. Unfortunately there's no immediate plans to export it to Europe, but quality is said to be returning to the pre-Soviet level.

All that and they cycled through Chablis. I had a Caves de Chablis 2005 from Majestic ready to watch it with this evening. It was a good value example, fresh, minerally and medium in alcohol. Zippy apples and nectarines with a sherbet edge. At £8 it's good value, but couldn't rip my attention away from the lycra!

On a completely random side note I saw two, count them, two Barloworld trucks on the motorway today. I've never seen any before in my life, but they must have been out there. Advertising works.

In search of Belgian wine

Today's Tour de France presents me with a bit of a problem. It was in Belgium, the stage was won by a Belgian, Gert Steegmans, followed across the line by Tom Boonen who is, as you've probably guessed by now, a Belgian. So a fabulous day for Belgians everywhere, but unhelpful in choosing wine.

I looked back over my notes and I've never knowingly tried a Belgian wine. It's not a big country, even if they did produce wine in reasonable quantities I imagine they'd probably drink it all, as we do here in England. My search led me to Clos d���Opleeuw Chardonnay which Jancis Robinson recommends, but you have to order direct from the producer. Andreea recommends this 'very Belgian' choice, again available only in Belgium, and to be served only with asparagus!

If you know of any Belgian wine available in the UK, let me know, otherwise I'll stick to chocolate, beer and moules et frites.

Bold Australian

Against the odds Robbie McEwen came from the back of the peloton with grazed knees and elbows to win the bunch sprint and the stage in Canterbury today. Go Robbie. So time for a bottle of Lindemans Bin 65 Chardonnay 2006.

It's in a sensible screw top bottle. It smells toasty and oaky with melon and ginger underneath coconut and cream. It's dry with a balanced acidity and quite full bodied. The toasty flavour brings more spiciness on the palate with a little ginger as well as pineapples and peaches. At 13.5%, with a really easy drinking smoothness it does pack quite a punch.

Like Robbie, Bin 65 is a reliable choice, good value, approachable, likeable and very Australian. I suspect I'll need to shop for more Aussie wines over the next 21 days.

Fortunately I wasn't in charge of the section in which Mark Cavendish crashed into a spectator, I've added a gratuitous shot of a Briton leading the Tour to celebrate.

Hurrah for Vicky Pendleton

It���s been a very good day for British cycling. At this year���s World Track Championships the GB team has picked up 11 medals, seven of them are gold and three of those belong to Victoria Pendleton ��� go Vicky!

Time to crack open some sparkles. I was down in Somerset a few weeks ago, and stopped by a farm shop where I found some Exmoor Brut, a sparkling wine from the County. I���d never heard of Dunkery Vineyards, and the farm shop assistant was quite insistent that I double check the price as it was ��13, not ��3. It seemed reasonable to me, it���s not easy growing Pinot Noir in England, though it seems to be getting easier as the world warms up.

It was a pale lemon gold with plenty of persistent bubbles. It smelled yeasty, very yeasty, marmite and feet with some lemony citrus. The bubbles feel smooth in the mouth, and it���s just off dry with perhaps a little too much acidity but not an offensive amount. Medium bodied with more yeasty bread and zippy lemons, there was a hint of softer summer fruits.

Exmoor Brut is a good wine, and it would hold its own against cheap Champagne and Cava. If it���s anything like other English sparkling wines it���ll get better quickly.

If Pendleton, Hoy, Wiggins and the squad were choosing a wine to celebrate tonight, I���d be happy to give them this, though I feel they deserve Nyetimber, it���s worth seeking out.

Quiztastic

A couple of quizzes for you today, on two of my favourite subjects - wine and cycling.

With the new cycling proficiency training programme coming in to the UK, the BBC have a cycling quiz here. I bombed - really badly. My parents had convinced me as a child that it was illegal to cycle on the road without passing the test. I think I'm a better cyclist than I was when I was 8, just like I'm a much better driver than I was at 18, bt I wouldn't want to take either test again for real.

The Independent are plugging their wine supplements that come free with the paper all next week. You can find the wine quiz here. I did far better on the wine quiz.

To complete my hobby-quiz-fest there's a board game quiz here. I could identify only one map of Sweden. Sorry Sweden, I'm just not geeky enough.

Heavenly

I tend to choose wine as much on romantic whim as carefully balanced knowledge, so when I saw Domaine Saint Benoit VdP 2003 I had to have a bottle. Cycling the Loire this summer I came across the Abbey of Saint Benoir between Gien and Jargeau. It was quite the most beautiful moment. The church itself was huge, though quite plain, with impressive stained glass. As I walked in the organist was practicing and I was hit with a wave of Frankincense in the coolness of the church, a full assault on all the senses.

The monks I met outside found it hilarious that we were cycling in the pouring rain with absurd rain jackets covering our tops, but with pink legs out in the wet. They were very sweet about it and wished us Bon Courage, rather than Bon Voyage - rarely a good sign.

So Domaine Saint Benoit had a good start, but it's not from the same neighbourhood. It's a Chardonnay from Provence, made in 2003, a very hot year in a hot part of France. That said this wine didn't show signs of being cooked.

It's was pale, bright and a soft yellow. It smells lightly of peaches and elderflower blossom. It's dry with a medium acidity and no oak. The peaches follow through, with some melon and pineapple lurking in the background. Even the 13% alcohol doesn't hint at the heat of 2003.

At around £6.50 a bottle this is a perfectly good wine. It didn't overwhelm me in the same way as the Abbey of Saint Benoir did, but that's a lot to ask from a mid-priced, mid-week bottle of wine!

Success is sweet

Today was a big day in British sport. A huge day in UK cycling. You may not have noticed. UK Cycling was busy sending the Tour of Britain the wrong way this weekend, whilst Nicole Cooke was winning the UCI World Cup, with a race in hand. Go Nicole! Time for a sweet wine to celebrate.

I had a Chilean Concha y Toro Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc 2002. It’s a beautiful, warm golden colour. It smells deliciously of honey and melon and apricots with just a touch of dried fig and orange. There’s a hint of noble rot, but it’s not overwhelming.

It’s sweet, but not cloying, and has a lively acidity to balance it. It feels full and warming in the mouth, but at just 11.5% it’s the fruit that’s doing it, not the alcohol. The honey taste continues, with cantaloupe and marmalade and orange juice and allspice.

At around £6 a half bottle it’s great value, and it’s lovely with a dessert, or even as a dessert. Enjoy!

Kiwi Cuvee Sauvignon Blanc
Vina Maipo Reserve Sauvignon Blanc
Reuilly "Les Bouchauds" Sauvignon Blanc
Pouilly-Fumé "Les Ferrés"
Montana Sauvignon Blanc 2005

Loire to the left of me Alsace to the right

The fun thing about cycling through France is you’re never too far away from a good glass of wine. Fortunately, driving through England you’re never too far away either!

Last night we had a Tesco Finest Alsace Riesling 2004. It’s pale, with just a hint of bright greenish lemon. It has a fresh floral aroma with just a touch of citrus.

It’s dry, with plenty of limes and just a touch of stone fruit, the florality doesn’t really carry through to the palate. There’s good acidity softened by a little bit of oak, but it’s very much in the background

At around £6 a bottle it’s good value, and with an alcohol level of 12% perfect for a midweek meal.

Dipping a Toe in the Rhone

I started my summer cycling trip in the Rhone, so it’s only fair to drink a little now. Domaine Vieux Manoir de Maransan 2004 is a blend of Grenache Blanc, Roussane, Viognier and Clairette. That’s a lot of grapes!

It’s a rich lemon colour with plenty of fresh fruity aromas. There’s apricots and limes galore on the nose.

It’s dry with a refreshing level of acidity, but it’s the fruit that really comes through. More apricots and peaches, with citrus fruits and a touch of something almost like cinnamon.

It’s 13% alcohol, but feels quite rich and full bodied with the fruit really hanging around and spice developing on the length.

This is a fantastic value wine at around £5. Majestic currently have it on multi-buy for £4.49 and it would make a great change from a supermarket Chardonnay for a cautious wine buyer wanting to dip their toe in the Rhone.

Sancerre

The town of Sancerre is perched high above the Loire, a fact you get to fully understand when you've cycled up the hairpin bends to it in the driving rain.

My beer-drinking cycling buddy found it a little odd that I felt the need to stop and take pictures of the vines, soils and fruit, but I'm sure you'll appreciate them.

I did find it amusing that Sancerre is twinned with Eccleshall in Staffordshire. An unlikely choice, and unfortunately I don't have any pictures of Eccleshall, but if you know why the two towns are twinned, do let me know.

Vin Valley

I'm back from a two week stint cycling along the Loire. We started out at St Etienne with some Cotes du Rhone, working our way through some run of the mill local wines before reaching the fairy tale castle of Pouilly-sur-Loire, and Pouilly Fume, and cycling upwards into Sancerre. Never let anyone tell you that the path along the Loire is flat.

We carried on through Coteaux du Giennois country through Briare and Gien in the driving rain. Orleans followed, before the fabulous Chateau at Chambord and the Cheverny to go with it. Into Touraine, through Montlouis and Vouvray before visiting St Martin of Tours and enjoying a spot of Chinon.

There'll certainly be no lack of rain in this vintage, it was relentless, something you tend to notice on a bike.

We stuck to buying wines en pichet (or carafe) from the neighbourhood we were in, after all I can buy good bottles here at home, but can't experience the feeling. Sancerre was probably the best wine we tried, and at E12 for 50cl, by far the most expensive, but it was in a fancy, touristy, restaurant. The Chinon was a delightful surprise, and Vouvray the best deal by quite a margin - fabulous stuff at E7. The VDQS from Orleans was perhaps the worst glass I encountered, but as it came free with my meal I could hardly complain.

Unfortunately the panniers on my bike weren't up to bringing much home, but I have a stock of Loire valley wines I'll no doubt be working my way through much more enthusiastically now that I can visualise the terroir, and of course the terror of cyclists bum rash.