I want to shout out the latest addition to the modest but growing library of books dedicated to Swiss wine. Switzerland: The Smart Traveller’s Wine Guide—from the folks at Académie du Vin Library—is the sixth in a series of excellent wine related travel guides. Previous guides include Rioja, Bordeaux, Napa Valley, Tuscany, and the Rhône […]
Category: Wine
The Vulcan of Visp—An Appreciation
Each year the Fête de la Nature invites the public to reconnect with nature via an ambitious schedule of hikes, lectures, hands-on activities, and guided tours to parks and nature reserves that collectively celebrate the diversity of Switzerland’s natural wonders. This year I participated in the program Les Perles de Zeneggen organized by the Musée […]
Château de Glérolles: Castle on the Lake
Vaud has a lot to offer the wine-loving history buff with dozens of castles and miles of terraced vineyards to choose from. There are grand chateaux in strategic positions along the lake, hillside palaces with views of the Alps and beyond, and humble estates barely worthy of the “chateau” moniker. But it’s not the size […]
50 Years of Unfiltered Chasselas
A few things coalesced to make this year’s Célébration du Non-Filtré in canton Neuchâtel a must attend event. First, it was the 50th anniversary of the initial release in 1975. That’s an amazing run for a wine that was once considered a local oddity. Second, six years had passed since I first wrote about the […]
L’Esprit de Genève: The Spirit of a City
In my opinion, the canton of Geneva is the most complicated and frustrating wine region in Switzerland. To be sure, many great wines are made here by supremely skilled artisans, but there are still too many sub-standard wines born out of complacency and lack of inspiration. It seems that while the rest of Switzerland is […]
Swiss Natural Wine: Not So Fringe Anymore
My latest brush with the natural wine scene was at the end of August in Zürich at the 4th annual Association Suisse Vin Nature (ASVN) tasting. This year’s venue, Kantine, was bohemian enough to reawaken my love for Beat Poetry and aligned perfectly with the ethos of more than 100 zero-zero wines from all over […]
On the Dôle: Not Quite Down and Out in Valais
During the long French summer of 1937 the marriage of close relatives, Pinot Noir and Gamay, was officially consummated with a new AOC. Since then, Bourgogne Passetoutgrain has been the standard bearer and sole guardian of this sometimes uneasy union. I say “uneasy” because the original cahier des charges has changed very little in the […]
Foehn — The Alpine Wind
This article first appeared in TRINK Magazine, Issue 14, (09.30.2022). “The Foehn wind is a real affineur of grapes . . .” from the diary of Weingut Bründlmayer Evidence from wine regions everywhere suggests that if cool climate viticulture is to survive, then it must move north — or, in Switzerland’s case, up. Warming temperatures in formerly […]
2023: A Summer of Tasting—Episode One
Swiss Natural Wine Festival: Three Years Later As a seasoned taster, you might think the biggest downer to afflict a natural wine event would be the opinions of a few chip-on-the-shoulder wine critics who write for magazines nobody reads anymore. But you would be wrong. The biggest downer, as I recently discovered, is a climate […]
Swiss Grapes: Chasselas—International Grape of Mystery
Several months ago, I made the case there is too much Chasselas in Switzerland. My well-meaning rant was in response to a call from farmers for more government support for those with excess wine to sell—mostly, over-cropped Chasselas. Although I stand by my original thesis—that no one should subsidize inferior wine—I do want to make […]
artisanswiss 