Do you still like French wine? Tour de France Case 2026 🚴🍷

Intro

Apart from being stunningly beautiful to look at, exciting, inhumanly tough and like a three week sporting soap opera with the athletes as actors, the Tour is an incredible context in which to discover and enjoy the wines of France.  Yes, Il Giro d’Italia is beautiful and Italian wines are superb, (see this Year’s Giro case here) and naturally we love Spanish wine and the Vuelta (See the La Vuelta Case here) but the Tour is something extra special, the world’s biggest annual sporting event and always crown’s the best riders in the world.   France is also the spiritual homeland of Buon Vino.   We started out as an Italian specialist,  but the founder’s (my) love of wine started in France and my passion for Cycling started at Le Tour, specifically the 1989 edition won by the American Greg Lemond by only 8 seconds ahead of the late, great French cycling Icon, Laurent Fignon, my first Cycling hero.  Now the weather has turned well and truly into summer, we are super excited about settling down and watching the race and enjoying some delicious French natural wines.  

Do YOU still like French wine, if not, why not?

Sometimes, we have customers in our shop who confidently say they don’t like French wine or French wine isn’t very good anymore.  This always mystifies me.  My experience is that on the whole, the French still lead the way.  That is not to say that every bottle is great but the best is still the best, the value (when you know where to look) is still there and the scene is vibrant and dynamic.  There are plenty of young wine makers, natural production is on the rise everywhere and the hospitality side is following (or leading) growers in the direction of authentic wines, small production and at the very least organic viticulture with not too much messing around, if not full on natural wines.

It could be something to do with the wider rejection of our nearest neighbour politically and culturally.  Perhaps we holiday less there nowadays, favouring countries further a field with cheaper prices.  Perhaps, the anti-French rhetoric in the media has an impact on your average wine drinker but in terms of actual taste and quality, French wine is still absolutely top notch.

Maybe I am just so totally immersed in this world, it is all I see?  Of course, there is plenty of gut rot in France and you need to be a millionaire to enjoy some of the top wines in Bordeaux and Burgundy, but, if I want to get excited about wine, I tend to head to France and I would bet anybody that in a Pepsi challenge with most wines from other countries, the French wine would win.

Le Tour Route 2026

THE CASE

The race starts a week tomorrow in Barcelona and on Stage 3, they leave the town of Granollers a few Kilometres from the Allela wine region and head back to France.   So we had to include something from our fabulous yet a little obscure Catalonian producer Oriol Artigas.  His Rumbero made mainly from Sumol with no added sulphur, is light in colour but full of flavour, and excellent chilled when the weather is hot.  The race this year is set to be one of the hottest on record if the current weather conditions continue.  So we chose a lovely pale Rose from the Corbieres region which they cross on stage 4 from Carcassonne to Foix.  Stage 7 heads to the Iconic wine city of Bordeaux and we have a gorgeous claret from Biodynamic winery, Chateau Le Puy to enjoy.  Then across central France and into the Auvergne mountains on Stage 10 to Le Lorian.  The Pink Bulles 2025 is an absolutely stunning frothy pink Pet Nat from a well known grower near Clermont-Ferrand called Jean Maupertuis.    Then on stage 12, the peloton skirts the southern end of Beaujolais on their way to Chalon, so we slipped in a crisp, elegant Beaujolais Blanc from Dom Les Garcons, 100% unoaked Chardonnay, seamless and classy.  And finally, stage 14 in the Vosges mountains just above Alsace means we can include a new 2025 vintage from one of our favourite biodynamic wineries, Domaine Josmeyer.   Their Peau Rouge Sylvaner is a rare white wine made from a grape with a slightly pinky hue to the white skin making for an unusual appearance and a delicious, textured white wine.

6 Gorgeous wines, one amazing country, we hope you will enjoy whilst watching this incredible bike race, happy summer.

STAGE 3 Granollers>Les Angles

El Rumbero Oriol Artigas Do Allela 2023

STAGE 4 Carcassonne>Foix

Corbieres Rose Ollieux Romanis 2025

STAGE 7  Hagetmau>Bordeaux

Duc de Nauves Chateau le Puy 2021

STAGE 10 Aurillac>Le Lioran

Pink Bulles Pet Nat Domaine Jean Maupertuis 2025

STAGE 12  Circuit Nevers Magny-Cours>Chalon-sur-Saône

Beaujolais Blanc Dom. Les Garcons 2024 - Buon Vino

STAGE 14 Mulhouse>Le Markstein Fellering

Sylvaner Peau Rouge Josmeyer 2025 - Buon Vino

6 Bottles - £145 - save 10%

WE WILL BE TASTING THE WINES IN SHOP NEXT WEEKEND, 3RD-5TH JULY  FOR THE START OF THE RACE