Honeymooners Check Out Stonehenge

Selfie at Stonehenge by Just-Married Caroline Tepper-Marlin and Francis
Peabody.

How cool is this!" said President Obama as he strolled for 20 minutes around Stonehenge last week on his way back from a NATO summit. "Knocked it off the bucket [list]!

This week, Caroline Tepper-Marlin and Francis Peabody celebrated their honeymoon by checking out the same rocks.

People have speculated for centuries why the big 4,500-year-old stones were erected here.

The many theories are not necessarily mutually contradictory. Lourdes today, for example, is both a place of healing and a shrine to Our Lady of Lourdes. The place could have been used for one purpose in 2500 BC and then another in, say, 1000 BC.

Hypotheses include:

• Stonehenge was an astronomical calendar.
• It was a place of healing.
• It was a marker for supposedly magical energy lines in the ground, perhaps built by the Druids.
• It was Celtic... or Roman... or Arthurian. 

Scientists have recently been using modern techniques to do a "virtual excavation" - the largest of this kind in the world. They have been rewarded by finding evidence of a mile-long "superhenge" at Durrington Walls nearby, with 17 ritual monuments, and a massive "house of the dead," hundreds of burial mounds, and a possible processional route around Stonehenge.

The Stonehenge Project at the University of Birmingham is a four-year effort to create a high-resolution, 3D underground map of the landscape surrounding Stonehenge. It has the cooperation of Austria's Ludwig Boltzmann Institute. The map goes down ten feet using ground-penetrating radar and high-resolution magnetometers. The project has covered nearly 3,000 acres already.

Many of the 17 newly discovered monuments appear to be shrine-like structures. The small circular constructions, built during Stonehenge's busiest period, are placed around the main stone ring and form a sort of Neolithic analogue to the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, which is venerated as the path Jesus walked to Mt. Golgotha and crucifixion. For centuries, the stone circle, on England's Salisbury Plain, has awed visitors. When John Aubrey and Inigo Jones came here in the 17th century, they started perhaps the world's first archaeological excavation.

In the Orkney islands in northern Scotland, a virtual excavation revealed a vast unknown Neolithic temple complex that was erected more than a half-century before Stonehenge, i.e., about 5,000 years ago or about 3000 BC, and may have influenced it.

WED | Caroline Tepper-Marlin and Francis Peabody (Comment)

(L to R) Judge Crotty, Alice Tepper Marlin, Francis D. Peabody,
Caroline Tepper-Marlin and John Tepper Marlin.

New York City, September 8, 2014 - Exclusive to the Time Travel blog - Caroline Tepper-Marlin was married to Francis Damien Peabody today on the evening of the Harvest Moon.

Federal Judge Paul Crotty officiated in his Chambers at 500 Pearl Street. Caroline's parents, John and Alice Tepper Marlin, served as witnesses.

After they exchanged vows in the Judge's Office, the bride and groom joined Caroline's parents for dinner at Bouley nearby on 163 Duane Street.

Mr. Peabody and Ms. Tepper-Marlin will leave for a honeymoon that will focus on European restaurants and vineyards, spending a month in England, France and Italy. They will then return to their home in Brooklyn and their Australian shepherd Rondo.

"We decided to get married," quipped Tepper-Marlin, "so that Rondo would no longer be a bastard."

Francis and Caroline at Bouley.

The  Bride and Groom

Mr. Peabody has recently served as executive chef and other roles in several Brooklyn and Manhattan restaurants. He grew up in Los Angeles, Calif. and Louisville, Kentucky. He is a fan of the Boston Celtics, which was the source of the name for Rondo.

Ms. Tepper-Marlin, a graduate of Trinity School in New York and of the University of Rochester, majoring in political science, is a wine professional/sommelier, consulting in hospitality management and wine selection for restaurants in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

She previously worked as a senior design development manager for Ralph Lauren, and had similar titles at Coach and Calvin Klein.

When asked by her parents why she wanted to go into the wine business, she asked them: "What business do you think Ralph Lauren is in?"

"The clothing business?",  said one of them.

"No," Caroline replied. "He is selling lifestyle. That is what high-end restaurants sell. They have the same challenges as the fashion industry, to create a mood, and provide a pleasure-giving product for a target market."

The bride and groom next Bouley,
under the Harvest Moon.

Wedded Under A Harvest Moon

The evening ended under the Harvest Moon, which is at its brightest in North America tonight. The Harvest Moon, the full moon closest to the autumn equinox (September 22), was especially important for farmers - they knew that around the date of that moon they would have enough moonlight to harvest crops after sundown.

During the evenings before and after the Harvest Moon, the moon rises earlier than usual. The Harvest Moon seems bigger and brighter because it is close to the horizon at sunset.

This year, the Harvest Moon really is bigger than usual because it's a "supermoon" - the moon turns full less than one day after reaching the moon’s closest point to Earth for the month.

Some think the supermoon is super-hype. But in the words (by Yip Harburg and Billy Rose) of Harold Arlen's song, "It wouldn't be make believe, If you believed in me."

All in all, a memorable backdrop for the marriage of Caroline and Francis. They are leaving now for London - appropriately sampling this year's harvest at vineyards and restaurants in Europe.

Comment

I was walking Caroline's dog Rondo, our grand puppy, and our neighbor Ira Hawkins asked about him. I explained he was on loan from my honeymooning daughter, the sommelier married to a chef. He said: "Good pairing."

WINE BIZ | French Vineyard Maps

A sketchy map of French wine-growing
regions.

Depending on how much wine we drink, we all have a general idea about the wine-making regions of France.

Starting at upper left (NW) is Calvados, the apple brandy (or apple-and-pear brandy) made in Normandy.

Alice and I were there in June during the week of the 70th anniversary of D-Day. A monument was erected to my bomber-pilot uncle Willem and crew. They were hit by flak and crash-landed on a pear farm that most likely contributed to bottles of Calvados.

We went around the area with Rex and Deborah Henderson of Perth, Australia. Rex's father was pilot of the other plane that crash-landed in the area that week (ten planes went out from Melbourne, UK and eight came back) - a monument to his crew was also erected.

Amazing detail on the wine regions in France.

The Loire vineyards are below the Calvados region, then Cognac, Bordeaux and Armagnac, with the plentiful Languedoc-Roussillon wines by the Riviera.

On the eastern side of France, Champagne at the top, then Alsace wines, Burgundy (Pinot Noir reds, Chardonnay whites, Chablis in the north), Beaujolais, Rhône and Provence.

When we were visiting in Honfleur, I ran across a map of the wine-growing regions in much greater detail than anything I had seen before.

Look at Valence, south of Lyon, and you can see with the new detail that it is right between two wine-growing areas on both sides of the Rhône – the Ardèche to the west and the Drôme to the east. Even more detailed maps are available here.

Valence is notable also for being on the first stop on the TGV after Lyon.

It is the location of the only three-star Michelin restaurant operated by a woman, the Maison Pic of Anne-Sophie Pic, the third-generation owner.

I thought I would share this map as a starting point for talking about terroir and future vineyard tours.