On the Pauillac waterfront

It is nearly a month since the climactic time trial stage of 2010 Le Tour de France finished along the waterfront at Pauillac on Saturday 24th August. There still remain some vestiges of its passage in the town mainly in shop displays. On the waterfront there is a still a trailer with a rider taking a reviving swig of red along with a barrel, a lamb and a grape picker plus a château that has echoes of Pichon-Longueville. Perhaps if Andy Schleck had grabbed a bottle of red on his way into Pauillac that Saturday he would have found the strength to overtake Alberto Contador.

Red dope - the key to victory?

Pauillac shop display

 A traditional but messy way of opening a bottle of sparkling wine

My posting this week on the Les 5 du Vin blog is about sprinter Mark Cavendish and matching him with a suitable wine, especially following Sunday's explosive charge up the Champs de l'Elysée. Clearly it has to be a sparkling wine and I've chosen an English sparkler that celebrates the man who may have invented sparkling wine – Christopher Merret. 

With an amazing turn of speed Mark Cavendish destroyed his opposition on the Champs de l'Elysée this afternoon. As soon as Mark started his sprint he left the rest for dead and won once again by several bike lengths. This brings his stage victories in this edition of Le Tour to five and a remarkable 15 stage victories in total, so 13th in the list of all time Tour stage victories. Now just one behind the great Belgian sprinter, Freddy Maertens. Two more stages and Mark Cavendish will be in 8th position – see next post.

Unfortunately his poor start to the Tour cost him the Green Jersey, which as I predicted was won by Petacchi. Contador, of course, won overall with Andy Schleck as the best young rider and Antony Charteau winning the polka dot Mountains Jersey.