I found an interesting interview with Hampsten. It's probably not completely kosher to post it, but it comes from a small publication put out by Rivendell and I don't think it's on the web. I think the members here would not have a chance to read it. Posted in multiple parts.
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How old are you? I'm fifty-two.
I'm forty-four.
How tall are you, and how much do you weigh, and how does that
compare to your racing weight? I'm 5' 10" and weigh 185, which
is 9 pounds more than what I raced at.
I'm 5'9" and weigh 145--about 10 more than emaciated race weight.
My arm warmers stay on now though, so that's a bonus.
It sounds like you've been lifting dumbbells. What's your normal
daily life like?
I get up and no longer think about what training regime I need
to do that day. Breakfast is first on my mind now. Then how
much work do I have to do before I am free to ride, snowboard,
ski, or work in the yard. My 10 year old Emma comes home from
school and we play hard, unless of course I rode more than
worked.
Here's what I've heard. After Andy retired from racing, he was
sort of a hero to the Italians for his snowy ride over the
Gavia Pass, the ride that won him the Tour of Italy in 1988.
And he liked Italy, too, so he retired there and became a
winemaker. End of story. How accurate and how thorough is that?
It's the myth I try to keep going. I did stay in Italy after I
was done racing in '96. I restored a farmhouse(I cleaned bricks
and asked dumb questions of the competent brothers who built it)
and started hobby farming with olives and grapes. I'm good at
tending plants, OK at making wine, pretty good at consuming and
giving it away. Now that I don't live here much, I need to sell
my house and land and find an apartment in town. That might put
me in the bad position of drinking store bought wine for the
years before I can get back here and stay long enough to make my
own.
When did you decide to become a winemaker and an olive oil maker,
and what led to that?
I just picked up the reins of the previous owner with the wine
and olives. I had no interest in agriculture before moving here,
just gardening. Wine is fun if you have the time to babysit the
vines all spring and summer then play house taking care of the
wine until prime drinking time--that's in March. Olive oil takes
a lot of time to prune the trees in winter and all day for weeks,
and harvest is in November. And there is nowhere I prefer to be
than in in trees in Tuscany in November. So one liquid is a lot
of work to harvest and needs to be consumed in a year or two, the
other is a lot of work all year and might need to wait a long time
before being put to use. It's a nice pairing.
How did you learn that stuff?
Craft is something that I can do. I asked the old timers, read
some basic books, talked to some of the best winemakers on earth.
Now I listen to my taste buds. Does this wine taste like an earthy
place I like? Is it store bought? Is it therefore trying to be
something that it wasn't growing on vines? How much did somebody
monkey with it?
I don't know anything about wine, but tell me: What makes one wine
good and another bad?
Bull. I bet you got it bad for the really nice wines. Most do.
A nice red wine has all the irresistible flavors of desirable flesh.
Anything you like is good. A lot of wines are treated like
beverages both in the vineyard, where somebody might irrigate and
fertilize the fruit, and in the cellar. Wine is one of the only
ways of conserving fruit without heating it or drying or really
changing it too much. It happens on its own, so it is divine in
its nature, but will also go to vinegar after it ferments, unless
you intervene. I like wines made from great fruit and a minimum
of interference from the wine maker.
Do you know who Robert Parker is?
Big time wine critic. Probably bigger than he might like to be.
Wine makers often make fools of themselves trying to make wines he
likes, so they sell more of it. He definitely knows what he likes.
Do you know what "making wine by the numbers" is?
Lord have mercy, I can only imagine.
What about aging wine in oak barrels versus aging it in stainless
steel vats with chunks of oak floating around in it? Any opinion
there?
I used an old barrel once--in 2000, with my sangiovese, mamma mia
what a year! I liked it. After eight months it no longer had
much tannin left in it. Sangiovese has a lot of tannin in it, so
why cut down oaks and leach that tannin into red wine? And if that
is what companies want to do then why not use chips instead of
thousand dollar oak barrels?
I don't know if I've ever had a wine made with chips, but I know
I've had a lot of wines that didn't need to sit in barrels. Word
is in the better cellars, it's in barrels. In Italy's best
Brunello winery, Soldera, they say barrels are for beverages.
Stainless steel fermentation techniques, and many new techniques
that started at UC Davis, have helped the wine world. All that
newness needs to be put into context of the 4000 year history of
wine making.
OK. Do you have to work?
Probably. I have a daughter, Emma, and bikes to support.
Sometimes people who answer "probably" don't have to work. OK,
talk about making olive oil.
It takes great fruit and a lot of care in picking it. Olice trees
are generous, and if you prune them firmly and harvest them gently
you will have great oil, and I mean straight from the olive mill
over garlic rubbed bruschetta and boiled savoy cabbage. The best
food you've had in your mouth. Don't store it, flavor it, filter
it or hoard it. When I don't produce my own I am happy to pay
good money for it because it saves me a month of work. It needs
to be picked by hand because machines can bruise the fruit. It's
cheap medicine and can cure most of our diet worries. Stop using
butter and try olive oil--I had bread with oil, salt and tomatoes
for breakfast. It is great for baking and all the calories in it
are loaded with flavor.