MONTRACHET, France--The Tour de France plays a pivotal role here, not just in Burgundy but throughout the country. Every year, it's a combination of Seafair, the Blue Angels, March Madness, the Super Bowl, the Stanley Cup, and whatever else you might want to dream up.
Doesn't matter who the winner is. For years, Belgian and even Swiss cyclists dominated. Italians and Spanish riders came and went. For a time, American cyclists kept winning (now we know why). None of it mattered. La Grand Boucle, the Big Loop, was first and foremost French. French to the core. There were flat stages, hilly stages, time trials where seconds mattered, mountain stages where riders could lost an hour or more. Riders would change flat tires in no time and be on their way again, thanks to a sophisticated system of support vans; riders would crash through no fault of their own, break an elbow, and be out of the running entirely.
And now, the ultimate indignity: a wine from Chile called Cono Sur has signed on as a sponsor. "Chile!" say the winemakers of Languedoc-Roussillon. Pfui! "We feel humiliated," says said Frédéric Rouanet, the president of the Aude department winemakers' union. "We make prestigious wines and the Tour is part of our cultural and sporting heritage, and therefore our wines should be associated with it," he writes in an appeal to the Minister of Agriculture (who had nothing to do with the deal).
Harrumph, says Cornichon.
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