Cycling French Life French Provinces Paris Podcasts: Cycling French Living French Provinces Paris Podcasts
by maribeth
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Listen to Graham Watson Talk the Tour
2010 Tour de France Route
The 2010 Tour de France route was posted just over a month ago which means that hotels along the course are booking up fast. There’s still time, however, to plan a trip to take in some of this renowned bike race next July. Renowned Tour photographer, Graham Watson, will tell you how. Read about what I wrote about Graham and his book, “Graham Watson’s Tour de France Travel Guide,” here. You can also listen to Graham speak about the Tour and more by clicking on the play button here:
Podcast (bonjour): Play in new window | Download
Talking the Tour with Graham Watson
The Old Always Contrasts the New at the Tour de France
By now you must have figured out that I have a thing for France. But it has come as a surprise to many (mostly my French friends!) that I’m crazy about the Tour de France. How can I not be? What a wonderful display of French countryside and good looking men! Of course I also like the international flair of this epic bike race and cycling itself. (Once I figured out that it’s both a team and an individual sport, I became fascinated with how well the cyclists work together. Or not.)
Graham and His Basque Driver of Twenty Years
So you can imagine when I was pitched the idea of interviewing Tour veteran Graham Watson on Travel Fun, I jumped at the chance. Graham, a renowned cycling photographer, has followed the Tour for about three decades. He’s one of those dudes perched on the back of un moto that careens in and out of the peloton. He’s one of sixteen Tour photographers that has that privilege. (There are 150 official Tour photographers in all.) “Being a photographer on a motorbike at the Tour de France is the best job there is,” Graham admits without a grain of conceit in his ever-so charming British accent.
I was thrilled to be able to chat with him on the phone from London, fresh off the Tour (that ended this past Sunday). With the exception of any mention of good looking guys, I learned Graham was attracted to the Tour for much the same reasons as those that have made me such a devotee. “It was the color, excitement, drama and the possibility of discovering France that drew me to the Tour,” Graham admitted. In 1977, during his first trip to the Gallic land and his first Tour de France, he realized “France wasn’t so bad.” Indeed the Tour has been a wonderful means for experiencing France for Graham and today he readily acknowledges that he’s a Francophile. (So much for the Franco-British and British-Franco rivalry!)
A section of La Corniche, between the Col d'Aubisque and the Col du Soulor, in the 1995 Tour de France
Graham shares his passion for France and the Tour de France not only through his photography but also through a newly-released book, “Graham Watson’s Tour de France Travel Guide,” a must-have for Tour enthusiasts whether you’re planning a trip to France or not. It’s an insider’s guide to the Tour, beautifully presented with lots of How to information, four-color maps, photos by Graham and others, history and anecdotes and more.
This book provides you with all that you need to happily navigate this exciting sporting event. It even tells you how to meet the pros, something that I was fortunate enough to do—totally by accident—a number of years ago. I ended up staying in the same hotel as the U.S. Postal Team one night and actually met Lance on the eve of his legendary Alpe d’Huez win in 2001. That’s the kind of amazing encounter you can have at the Tour. “Cycling is a very modest sport,” Graham says. “The riders do meet and greet the public. They’re not super stars that hide beyond a stadium.”
Graham has seen the Tour de France evolve from a parochial French event in the late seventies to the big international event that it is today. His career got off the ground along with the success of cycling greats Greg Lemond, Sean Kelly and Phil Anderson. Lance Armstrong has certainly given us all the ride of our lives at the Tour. Isn’t it wonderful though to be debriefed by someone that his been so entrenched in the peloton for so many years? Thanks Graham for marrying your two passions: cycling and photography. And I might add, for choosing to do it in France.
Always an Exciting Finish on the Champs-Elysées
Tips for Attending the Tour de France from Graham Watson
-Target three to four consecutive days (stages) in the Alps or the Pyrenees and then spend about the same amount of time discovering some place else in France.
-Begin planning your trip once the Tour route has been announced mid-October. Graham feels that the Internet is a great resource for booking hotels. Know that many rooms are taken first by the Tour, so you have to get on it fast.
-Your best chance for meeting a cyclist is after the finish line when they often have to pedal out of the secured area.
Consult “Graham Watson’s Tour de France Travel Guide” for many more!
For up-to-the-minute news about competitive cycling, check out VeloNews.
More Graham Glory
Thank you to Graham Watson and VeloPress for the use of the above images.
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by maribeth
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KOTO, Kittens and Kookiness
My Friends and Me at KOTO’s Purple House on Pine
Leave it to KOTO, our beloved community radio station here in Telluride, Colorado, to bring me back into the fold. I’ve been wanting to get back on the air with Travel Fun, my talk show on travel, and start blogging again for quite some time. But life has kept me occupied with other doings and it has been hard finding the time for these two favorite ways of being in touch with you.
My last post, which highlighted a photo of my mother and me fresh from the hairdresser, was in March 2021. Sadly, my sweet mama passed away that following July and exactly three months prior to that–in April–my dear brother, David, succumbed to his three-and-a-half-year battle with cancer. Needless-to-say both left a gaping hole in my heart as well as much to do, including clearing out a large family home stuffed to the heavens with belongings and an abundance of memorabilia. The fact that all of that occurred back east–a great distance from Colorado–in the height of a pandemic and after much caretaking made it all the more complicated. But I’m back in Colorado now full-time slowly picking up the pieces of my life after having been intimately involved in theirs for many years.
KOTO is the heart and soul of Telluride. Most of the community, its visitors and folks tuning in from afar turn to our little radio station, an NPR affiliate, for all kinds of musical entertainment, talk, news, the avalanche report and other important announcements such as a lost dog report or road closures and traffic slowdowns due to a mudslide or elk crossings. Plus, they regularly broadcast most of Telluride’s big music festivals, including the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Telluride Jazz Festival and Telluride Blues & Brews Festival. Its audience is truly worldwide. So when the bright and shining Cara (Pallone), Executive Director of KOTO, asked me to be a guest DJ for KOTO’s 2022 Summer Fundraising drive, a live one-hour segment Friday, August 19 from noon to 1pm, I was deeply honored and also somewhat daunted; I knew that this marked a time when I was to put it in gear.
And maybe you thought I was just horsing around in my little town of Norwood, Colorado?
Me Down on the Farm in Norwood
Admittedly I love the peace and tranquility of this old ranching town less than an hour from Telluride and I have been hooked to the Netflix series “Heartland.” But you can take the girl out of Paris but never Paris out of the girl. As much as I’ve embraced a more down-to-earth lifestyle in Colorado, there’s still a big part of me that’s every bit of a Parisian sophisticate.
With KOTO’s Summer Fundraising theme of Across the Universe, I thought I’d dust off my cowboy boots (gardening clogs, actually) and tell you my story.
I’ve been a travel writer since the late eighties. I lived in France eleven years and have traveled back to Paris and the French provinces considerably since I moved back to the States in 1994. France has always been my specialty but since I moved to Colorado over twenty years ago, I have also become passionate about and well versed in the American West. I authored five books on France, three shopping and touring guides to Paris, one shopping and touring guide on the French provinces and one travel memoir entitled A Tour of the Heart: A Seductive Cycling Trip Through France. I segued into travel writing after I had created a shopping service in Paris, called Chic Promenade. During those years, I lead people on the discovery of off-the-beaten-path boutiques and also arranged behind-the-scenes visits of the big names such as Hermès, Dior and Nina Ricci.
My Travel Memoir: Tour of the Heart
I’ve traveled extensively throughout the world to places as far-flung as Guilin, China, and big parts of Morocco and Nova Scotia. I’ve written about many of these places at my blog, www.BonjourColorado.com. I’ve fallen way behind on posting there because I have been involved in lots of family doings since 2016. But I’m back at it now!
In past years, I’ve freelanced for Forbes, The New York Times Syndicate and a number of other outlets. I currently write online content for Discovery Map, a company that publishes those colorful, hand drawn maps that you find in about 150 destinations throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico. For them, I’ve written about great places to visit such as the Outer Banks, of North Carolina, Cape May in New Jersey and Bozeman, Big Sky and Livingston, Montana, to name a few. And yes, I even wrote about Telluride because there’s a Discovery Map here as well. I have to admit it’s the longest and most inspired writeup of all that I’ve done. I also recently wrote a blog for them entitled “Summer Travel Woes: How to Make the Best of Your Airline Experience,” which anyone planning to hop on a plane anytime soon should read.
Steve and Me at Telluride Jazz Festival
I am happy that a few special guests will be chiming in during my big Guest DJ appearance on Friday. Steve Togni, General Manager of Mountain Lodge Telluride and also my partner of almost fourteen years, will be there to talk about the hospitality industry in Telluride and also to tout a very special Mountain Lodge premium that he has graciously donated.
John Gerona, Owner of The Village Table in Telluride Mountain Village and another of my favorite persons, said he’ll stop by. That will give us the opportunity to thank him for providing a super convivial and delicious dining experience to the community for the past ten years.
On Duty as a Telluride Ski Instructor
Noah Sheedy, Director of the Telluride Ski & Snowboard School, will be popping in as well. I’ve been a ski instructor in Telluride for almost nineteen years, a profession that has helped to balance out my writing career–and me–in many ways. If KOTO is the heart and soul of Telluride, then Telluride Ski Resort encompasses a good part of the rest in our majestic mountain town.
Peter Hans, the driving force behind Discovery Map, will be calling in either from their headquarters in Waitsfield, Vermont or from his sailboat in Newport, Rhode Island. We’re similar in that we summered together up in the Adirondacks, both lived for a long time in Europe and then settled in quaint mountain towns in America where we continue to live out our passion for sharing travel and ski experiences with others.
Victoria at Her Paris Boutique
If the lines aren’t too busy, I hope to have a special phone call from Paris from my friend, Victoria Wolff. I met her during my Paris days and her boutique, Wolff et Descourtis, is still my all-time favorite address in the City of Light. Her family has been in the textile business since 1875 and at her Galerie Vivienne showcase (and online) you can buy the most magical shawls you’ve ever seen. La beauté française est extraordinaire!
Mountain Lodge Telluride
And yes, I have rounded up quite a few premiums–or gift certificates–from some of my favorite places within the region. The grand prize is a Mountain Lodge premium for a two-night stay in a one-bedroom residence, valued at approximately $1500, at this beautiful slopeside property.
Mountain Lodge: A Great Place to Party
And here’s the fabulous news:
ANYONE DONATING A MINIMUM OF $25. TO KOTO WITH THE TRAVEL FUN DESIGNATION WILL BE ENTERED INTO DRAWINGS to win my premiums. That means that if you make your donation at KOTO.org or call the station at 970-728-4334, you have a chance of winning either the grand prize of two nights at Mountain Lodge or one of the other great premiums I’ve also rounded up. The drawings will take place at the end of my Guest DJ segment, which is Friday, August 19 from noon to 1pm MST. Remember that you can tune in online at KOTO.org if you’re not local. Note that your chances of winning are quite strong, since I likely will not have a gazillion donors. You can enter as many times as you want as long as you make a $25. donation each time. Tell your friends and family! I will start out with the Mountain Lodge drawing at about 12:50pm MST and make my way down the gift certificates listed below with their corresponding values:
Aveda Telluride Spa, one of my favorite spas in T-ride has generously offered one custom facial valued at $170. and one custom massage valued at $150. Merci mes amies!
Mesa Rose Kitchen + Grocery
Mesa Rose Kitchen + Grocery in Norwood, the best address in Norwood for fresh foods and a real community vibe: two gift certificates, each worth $50.
Coffee from Telluride Coffee Roasters
Telluride Coffee Roasters, the premiere coffee purveyor in Telluride that also has an online boutique: $70.
Arena Hair Studio
Arena Hair Studio: Sandra Arena, my gal in town (Norwood,) who knows how to make me beuuuuuutiful: $60. gift certificate for any service.
Beaucoup de Breakfast at The View
The View restaurant at Mountain Lodge Telluride, excellent food and drink with spectacular views: $50.
Loving La Coçina
La Coçina de Luz, super fresh Mexican food restaurant: $50.
Cindybread: Pains aux Chocolat Just Like in Paree
Cindybread Artisan Bakery, an all-time délicieux bakery in Lawson Hill: $50.
Sawpit Mercantile
Sawpit Mercantile, a fabulous pitstop for barbecue, gas, liquor and other much-needed goods: $50.
Nails with Mandie
Nails with Mandie in Naturita: one of my new West End discoveries for having my nails done: $40. gift certificate for a pedicure.
The Friendly Folk at Counter Culture; photo credit: Michael Mowery Media
Counter Culture Kitchen and Catering, for great takeout sandwiches also in Lawson Hill: $25.
Thank you to all that have generously donated gift certificates that will be used for my KOTO fundraising campaign!!!
Remember that if you donate $100. you will also be entered into two separate KOTO drawings: one to win a brand-new SOL GalaXy paddle board and the other to land yourself a two-night stay at The Peaks Resort & Spa package.
Our Happy Place with Our SOL Paddle Boards
Steve Paddling at Sunset in Norwood
And if you donate $50., you will receive a KOTO sun shirt (in addition to being entered into my drawings). Super cool. The supply is limited, however, so act fast.
Note that all proceeds are tax deductible and all go to KOTO.
Once again, in order to be added to all of my drawings, donations must be paid in full by the end of my show by let’s say 12:50pm on Friday. So break out the plastic!
With added luck, I might even have some additional premiums come Friday.
The Superlative Setting at The Peaks Resort & Spa
In terms of music, I, of course, I will be playing some French and maybe some Chinese and Moroccan tunes as well. I’ll also have bluegrass, which I’ve come to love since I’ve been in Colorado. And since I’m originally from New York (upstate) and love Frank Sinatra, I’ll definitely be playing “New York, New York.” I’d also like to work in some Dooby Brothers and/or Eagles because they remind me of summers spent at Lake George, New York.
Had I not taken a hiatus from Travel Fun, my talk show on travel, I’d be up to almost nineteen years of doing radio at KOTO. Yet between the pandemic (when I only did a handful of shows remotely) and spending lots of time back east for family matters, I’ve had to take a break from doing my show. I look forward to being back on the air on a regular basis very soon. For Travel Fun, I’ve enjoyed interviewing all kinds of people about travel, beauty, fashion, food and wine and a variety of other subjects including one program entitled Sex, Travel and Fun. Travel, of course, can be very exciting. Guests on my show have included lots of locals, many second-home owners and a good amount of “outsiders” I contacted because I thought KOTO listeners would enjoy hearing what they had to say. One such example is Graham Watson, renowned photographer of the Tour de France bike race.
I’m most definitely an avid listener of KOTO. I love radio in general, so much so, in fact, that I don’t even own a TV.
In past years, I was very involved with volunteering at KOTO events, which was always fun and super interesting. I hope to get back to that soon as well. Some of my most memorable gigs included being in charge of the green rooms for KOTO Doo Dahs and other happenings. I did this for Jackson Browne, the Subdudes, Bob Dylan, Lyle Lovett, Michael Franti and some LIp Syncs. I was also in charge of KOTO merchandise for Bluegrass a number of years and yes, I had my stints working the KOTO beer booth at Bluegrass and doing endless hours of decorating for the fabulous KOTO Halloween parties. A lot of this I did with Jumpin’ Jan, which made it all the more meaningful.
KOTO is my family. I love being a part of the ski school family and my KOTO family. I started both in December 2003. That was when it was not very popular to be writing about France. (Remember Freedom Fries?) So I switched up my life and the rewards have been far better than I ever could have imagined. A very well known travel writer once told me that having a radio show is a great way to build your audience. Far more than that, however, it has made me feel very loved. I have truly enjoyed working with KOTO staff and DJs and it has been fun, too, when people recognize my voice and say things like “oh, you’re the travel lady.”
If you’ve made it to the end of this story, you deserve a glimpse at my kittens. They are the ultimate kure-all for all kinds of kookiness.
It’s a Star-Spangled Blue-Eyed Holiday Everyday with Our Kittens
Thank you to Amy Peters for her great coverage of this summer’s Guest DJ Day in the Telluride Daily Planet and the Norwood Post. Her piece, KOTO Radio Takes Over the Universe, will tell you even more about what’s happening at KOTO and what’s in store for all on Friday, August 19.
Travel Fun
I’d like to think I take people to many wondrous places on Travel Fun, my talk radio show on travel, which airs bimonthly in and around Telluride, Colorado on KOTO and on the Internet at the time of the broadcast. (Once at koto.org, click on Listen.)
My slot is Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. mountain time, so be sure to tune in then. I’ll try to pre-announce my guests as much as possible either on this page, on the air or in my Travel Fun announcements that are sent out just before t he show.
Go to my Contact/Subscriptions page to sign up to receive my Travel Fun announcement/newsletter.
If you’re not able to tune in, you’ll be able to read Travel Fun stories in my blog. I have some great guests since there are so many interesting people living in and passing through T-ride. I also conduct a number of interviews over the phone. Past guests have included Pico Iyer, Ken Burns, John McPherson, Tim Cahill, Graham Watson, Martha McPhee, Bobbi Brown, Kate Betts, Mariel Hemingway, Cheryl Strayed and many more fascinating people.
Due to a surge in COVID-19 cases throughout our country, Travel Fun is temporarily on hiatus. Take care and stay safe!
Many of my other Travel Fun interviews are also posted on my blog as podcasts.
KOTO is a local NPR station and one of the few entirely community supported radio stations in the country. Please consider making a contribution to KOTO so that we can keep community radio alive and well in America. That’s also a way of showing your support for Travel Fun! Please e-mail me from my Contacts Page with your donation.
It is still possible to enter into a drawing to win a super Telluride getaway as a part of KOTO’s recent fundraising drive. Anyone that donates a minimum of $40. to KOTO on behalf of Travel Fun will be put into my drawing to win a two-night stay in a one-bedroom condo at beautiful Mountain Lodge Telluride. Valued at approximately $1,600., know that some blackout dates apply. It’s a heck of a value and the chances of winning are big because I rarely have more than a small group of donors. If interested, contact me directly. Pledges must be paid before being entered into the drawing. Once again, all this must be done by Thursday, October 1st at 4pm mountain time. It’s easy, just call KOTO at 970-728-4334 and be sure to give me a heads up by sending me a note through my contact page.
Know that you can up your chances of winning by pledging and donating more than once!
Mountain Lodge Telluride
Cycling French Life: Cycling French Life
by maribeth
Comments Off on From Girly-Girl to Tour Aficionado
From Girly-Girl to Tour Aficionado
Frenchified Tour Follower in T-ride
It’s been just over a week now that the Tour de France rolled into Paris on its final stage. If you’re at all like me, you may be feeling a bit of Tour withdrawal. Fortunately I’m in the throes of writing a book, a romantic adventure set in France (mais oui!), that also highlights the Tour de France. This way I’m on my bike and thinking about the dazzling peloton crisscrossing France most days, at least in my mind. So my Tour continues.
If you’ve read some of the recent posts in this blog, you may be wondering how such a super feminine gal became so hooked on this major sporting event. Well here’s the backstory.
I grew up with five brothers and no sisters. This meant I was destined to be either a tomboy or a priss. I became the latter. I learned French, how to tie a scarf and how to fix myself up with little visible effort put forth very early on. Eleven years of living in Paris followed. The die was cast, I had become a femme du monde of sorts, a well-traveled woman who valued the elegance and refinement a life in France has to offer.
Sports had little to do with my Parisian world; like most French women, I stayed in shape from all the walking I did in the French capital and by minimizing my portion sizes. The idea of watching any kind of a sporting event in person or on T.V. was considered by my then French husband (of noble descent) something for the masses. (Tuning into Rolland Garros, or the French Open, was acceptable, but anything else was for the most part considered plouc or hillbilly-like.)
Then I moved back to the States, discovered the thrill of road riding and met a super cyclist. I traded out my airy summer skirts and tops for an array of slick cycling jerseys and shorts, the same “silly” outfits I had seen many a Frenchmen squeezed into on Sunday rides in the French countryside.
I brought my bicycle and my American boyfriend on a trip to France and together we pedaled through the rich farmlands, the verdant valleys, the historic hilltop villages and the lush vineyards of my beloved adopted country that I had come to know so well. Yet from the seat of a bicycle I was able to embrace this glorious land in a much different way. My senses felt totally imbued with wonder and satisfaction as I crossed France’s vast fields of sunflowers, its neat rows of lavender, its bunches of grapes hanging from the vine, its Monet-esque meadows dotted with red dabbles of poppies. I readily encountered people as I passed through their villages, towns and hamlets at the tranquil pace I maintained cruising along on my bike.
Tuning into the Tour de France on T.V. seemed like a logical next step. By now I had come to know a fair amount about cycling: I understood that the sport required as much of a team effort as an individual achievement, I realized there was a certain hierarchy to be respected on each team and within the peloton and that it took great talent and lots of experience for one of those “young bucks” to become a top racer.
My American guy coached me about the sport both on and off the bike and I came to consider cycling one of the most demanding athletic feats on the planet. To me, the Tour de France, the grueling three-week bike race that takes place every July in France, seems like Wimbledon, the World Cup of Soccer and the Olympics all combined. Its international flavor also rivals the worldwide appeal of these other renowned sporting events and in the case of the Tour, the organizers put on a show that’s moved to some twenty different locales both in France and in bordering countries every day of the competition.
Enough of this jock talk. I’m a girly-girl, albeit a fairly sophisticated one. You can bet it’s the Tour’s pageantry, the awe-inspiring scenery, the beauty of the cyclists in their vibrant jerseys on their shiny, candy-colored bikes that thrill me the most. Seeing the peloton blow across vast stretches of rural France like a bright swath of Pierre Frey fabric flapping in the wind leaves me breathless. Then on the last day when they descend on Paris like a swarm of bees searching for a hive, I feel my heart quicken, my excitement mount as though I was seeing the City of Light for the first time.
All the years I lived in France, I never attended the final stage of the Tour de France on the Champs-Elysées. Ça ne se fait pas, or that’s not done, was the message that was conveyed to me by my very proper Frenchman. I never sought to explore the event on my own.
It took a move back to the States and a different perspective for that to happen. Here it’s somehow easier for me to be a fan of the Tour de France. It doesn’t mean I have to give up my girly-girl side either.
As I sit here and weave my impressions of this extraordinary event into my story, I replay the Tour’s excitement and pageantry over and over in my head. If you’re a Tour fan, I’m sure you’re doing some of that, too.
Relive Past Tours
Graham Watson, renowned photographer of the Tour de France for over thirty years, chatted with me in a Travel Fun interview. Hope you’ll take some time to listen to our conversation and/or read the story (and see some of his stunning photos)!
Being Green Cycling Paris Tours: Being Green Cycling Paris Tours
by maribeth
1 comment
Tour Mania Versus Zee Segway
The Segway Peloton of Paris
I’ve been thinking about whizzing around Paris these days.
It’s July and I’m consumed with The Tour. I’m referring to the Tour de France, as I’m sure you might have guessed.
I love watching the undulating ribbon of the peloton weave its way through France, but it’s in Paris on the last day of this epic bike race that this colorful procession mystifies me the most. I think it’s because Paris is so familiar to me: I’ve walked the great length of the Champs-Elysées countless times, wended my way around the expansive place de la Concorde, strolled beneath the arcades of the rue de Rivoli from Concorde to Palais Royal. Seeing the Tour de France posse (caravan, cyclists, team cars, press and officials) dominate this familiar terrain mesmerizes me the most. How incredibly fitting it is to have some of the world’s finest athletes power over the same routes reserved for royalty and heads of state.
If you’re not able to be in the City of Light on the final day of this great race, I encourage you to at least catch part of the last stage on T.V. Even the lively commentary of the sportscasters can’t drone out the pack’s thunderous rumble over the cobbles, the resounding swoosh and whir as they travel along Paris’s centuries-old streets.
If you’re at all like me, you’ll also be envious of the racers having the streets of Paris to themselves. Quel bonheur! Can you imagine how great that feels, pedaling through these historic streets at lightening speed?
There’s nothing like experiencing a place from a bicycle or I suppose, even a Segway. I’m reminded of this every time I hop on a bike but it really hit home recently when a friend told me about how he breezed around Paris standing head and shoulders above the masses. He had taken a Segway tour and visited a good number of Paris’s best-loved sites and monuments in a flash, without the inconveniences of sore feet or having to get on and off a bus a ton of times.
Food & Wine Mountain Living Shopping Telluride: Food & Wine Mountain Living Shopping Telluride
by maribeth
Comments Off on Summer Sipping
Summer Sipping
Harvest Time at Sutcliffe Vineyards in Southwestern Colorado
I’m trying not to feel sad about summer’s end. As much as I love each season, it’s always hard to let them go—at least that’s the case for summer and winter here in Colorado. I’m already nostalgic about my summer. Yet I’m also determined to extend it, something that’s not so hard to do when the desert beckons just a short distance away. (I’m in the throes of planning a trip to Monument Valley, Grand Canyon and southern Utah for October, so I’m not putting my cotton T-shirts and flip flops away just yet.)
Almost more than anything else, I often identify my seasons with the food and wine I’ve savored during that time. (Indeed I am a gourmand.) And this summer more than before, I find myself associating certain wines with certain events. In some cases the wine was most memorable; in other cases it was the event. In all cases, both seemed to have a synergistic effect that has prompted me to remember both the event and the wine all the more intensely. My reminiscing of summer sipping goes as follows:
Sunset Concert Series
Encantado: A Mouthful of Summer All Year Long
Like many cities across America, almost every mountain town holds a weekly summer concert where locals and visitors alike can enjoy great music—from bluegrass to rock—against the backdrop of spectacular mountain scenery. In Telluride, our Sunset Concert Series takes place annually in Mountain Village all of July and August on Wednesday nights from six to eight p.m. People cart in their lawn chairs, spread out a picnic and enjoy the alpenglow, serenaded by all kinds of fun music. I wasn’t much on preparing a picnic this year and instead ordered up fine European pizzas from the nearby Italian restaurant. I did bring some delightful wines though including Concannon’s Righteously Rosé that I picked up at a local wine shop. What a way to kick off the first concert and what a find! Modestly priced at just over $10., this wine ranked as high as some of my most memorable rosés de Provence. This set me off on a Concannon spree which included most notably a creamy, buttery Chardonnay from Livermore Valley, just the sort of oaky California Chard that’s perfect year-round. At least for me anyway. Summer means rosé, so of course I celebrated the last Sunset Concert of the year with Encantado, a beautiful, salmon-colored nectar. This delicious rosé from California left me singing its praises while the sky also turned an exquisite peachy-pink as the sun set over the mountains.
Pine Ridge: A Sure Bet
The Tour de France
How I love to watch the Tour de France. And it’s sometimes more fun to take in the big mountain stages with friends. I brought a bottle of Pine Ridge Chenin Blanc-Viognier over to a friend’s place for one of the Pyrenées stages. We all marveled at this delicious wine that combines the honeyed fruit of Chenin Blanc with the light floral aromas and fruit notes of Viognier. It served as both an impressive gift and the perfect accompaniment to a mid-summer’s repast of cheese, salad and assorted hors d’oeuvres. My friend smiled approvingly at my choice of wine, reminding me that Pine Ridge, a Napa Valley Winery, is a much-appreciated sponsor of the Telluride Film Festival, a crowd that consistently shows good taste. Upon hearing this, I picked up two more bottles of Pine Ridge whites to enjoy throughout the rest of the Tour: a Chardonnay and a Sauvignon Blanc. What a Champs-Elysées finish!
Dinners at Home
I love enjoying a nice meal at home whether I’m sharing it with a friend (usually my hunny) or relishing one on my couch before I pull out my laptop to write. The French in me makes sure that I always serve up something tasty, a relatively easy feat in summer when fruits and vegetables delight the palate with full and luscious flavor. Monsoon season besieged us with a spate of chilly evenings, welcome relief nonetheless from some super hot days. And suddenly we had more good reasons to drink red wine! One remarkable dinner at home consisted of a plate of pasta buried beneath a thick mantle of homemade Bolognese sauce (made from ground buffalo). A Colorado wine, a superb Cabernet Sauvignon, from Sutcliffe Vineyards, accompanied it magnificently. Located in southwestern Colorado, this vineyard consistently produces memorable wines that embody all the sunshine and might of the Rocky Mountains. Good news: You can book a stay at the vineyard and make it your base for visiting renowned sites such as Mesa Verde in the region. Or, you can just kick back and gaze out over the vines.
A Picnic with Friends
Octavin Home Wine Bar
In Colorado, people are big on potlucks, a totally new concept to me up until I arrived here nearly nine years ago. In France, people take turns giving dinner parties. It’s rare that they join together to offer up the components of a meal—such a disorganized approach to assembling a feast is almost unthinkable to the French. When I don’t have time to cook, I’ll usually bring a couple of bottles of wine. I found a terrific “bottle” that ended up being the talk of the party. Have you ever heard of Octavin Home Wine Bar? Have you ever seen wine in a cardboard box? Well these eight-sided nifty cardboard packages stand out amongst the ranks of boxed wines. (I got thirsty, however, trying to pull out the spout. But then again, I never was very mechanical.) The Octavin I came across contained a crisp, Sauvignon Blanc from Silver Birch World Wines in Marlborough, New Zealand. Its attractive turquoise-blue box made an impression from the get-go. (Better yet, I learned afterward that Octavin’s innovative packaging prevents oxidation. This means that you can enjoy a glass, as fresh and flavorful as the first served, up to six weeks after opening it. Also, Octavin contains the equivalent of four bottles of wine yet you usually end up paying the price of just three. Wow!)
My Birthday
O.K., so now you know. I like my wine to have a little cache, especially when it comes to the packaging and label. It just makes it fun. I learned this summer—I think on a Today Show episode—that the oh-so fabulous Biltmore estate produces wine. With a facade of equal grandeur of the most renowned châteaux of the Loire, my curiosity piqued. Then I discovered that a Frenchman, a certain Bernard Delille, works at the Biltmore as winemaster. Mon dieu! Say no more. I procured a bottle of their bubbly (their Biltmore Estate Blanc de Blancs Méthode Champenoise – Brut, to be exact) and popped it on my b-day at the end of August. Délicieux, nice and dry and slightly floral with notes of lemon and apricot. Now I just have to find my way to this incomparable establishment in North Carolina sometime soon. Vive l’influence française en Amérique!
The Biltmore Winery
Summer Harvest
I had earmarked a bottle of Sutcliffe Chardonnay to accompany one of my best meals of the summer, composed of chanterelle fettucine, sweet Olathe corn, a tomato and mozzarella salad and a peach/raspberry combo. (We have some of the best mushrooms, corn and peaches in Colorado.) At the market I spotted a bunch of fresh clams in the fish case, a rarity in our remote mountain town. With a guarantee they were fresher than fresh, I snatched them up, steamed them and uncorked my bottle of Sutcliffe Chard the night before my summer harvest dinner. The rich, full-bodied taste of this wine perfectly accompanied my briny clams dipped in melted butter. I felt in heaven at more than 9,500 feet. Fortunately I’m not much of a lush, so there was enough left over to go with my last special meal of the summer. (Thankfully I shared it with just one other person and my leftover wine worked out since we served gin and tonics beforehand.) It’s hard not to finish off a good bottle of wine, but you always have to think about getting up in the morning.
So there’s my summer for you. I surely missed some special nectars and memories in the above account, but you get the gist of it. I certainly had fun. This weekend Telluride will be going off with the Blues & Brews Festival. I only plan to attend the last day and as the festival suggests, I’ll be happy with the hops at that event. It doesn’t look like I’ll be imbibing in any more memorable wines before the close of the summer.
Thank goodness I have fall and all those jammy reds, fruity Beaujolais and dry pinots to look forward to in my sipping program. One thing’s for sure though: I know I’ll carry on with some light and bright summer whites as well as some dry rosés because they’ll continue to go well with many of the foods I enjoy.
Plus I’m determined to keep that summer mode going, at least a good ways into autumn.
This just in: The 17th annual Telluride Blues & Brews Festival will be putting on a free Sunset Blues Concert, featuring Matt Schofield and Gold Kings, in Telluride Mountain Village tomorrow, Thursday, September 16 from 5 to 7 p.m. Dang! I better round up a nice bottle of wine.
