When I slow down enough to glimpse the future of Swiss wine, it’s almost always with a next generation winemaker in tow, just returned from an apprenticeship abroad and flush with new ideas and important contacts. Some of them are excited for the opportunity to blaze a new path apart from the previous generation’s, and […]
Category: Profile
Profile: Cave Caloz (Miège, Valais)
A recent visit to Miège was my first trip to the vineyards since the devastating frosts of late April. From all reports I expected worse but was still struck by the sheer randomness of it all. Spring began optimistically with an early bud break, courtesy of a lengthy and uncharacteristic warm spell, followed by an […]
Profile: Domaine La Colombe (Féchy, La Côte, Vaud)
While Lavaux primps and preens for the camera, its sibling, La Côte, is quietly at work behind the scenes. With nearly three times the vines of Lavaux, La Côte receives only a fraction of the attention. It has no dramatic terraces to seduce camera-laden tourists and no Grand Cru AOC’s to offer them. Its languid vineyards flow gently […]
Profile: Weinbau Markus Ruch (Neunkirch, Schaffhausen)
There’s no easy way to shake things up in conservative rural Switzerland. Take the wine business, for example, and the plight of Markus Ruch. Some nonplussed locals have asked how a newcomer has the nerve to charge more for his wine than do legacy wineries. Other local skeptics want to know why he plumps for biodynamics when conventional agriculture works just fine. Still others wonder why he does women’s work by […]
Profile: La Maison du Moulin (Coinsins, La Côte, Vaud)
It’s three weeks into the new year and the weather is already historic—the coldest January in 30 years—and on this day it’s even colder with bone-numbing winds. Fortunately the family car is equipped with new snow tires, 4-wheel drive and GPS. All three are necessary with La Bise Noire in full fury and snow drifts obliterating […]
Profile: Cru de l’Hôpital (Môtier, Fribourg)
The angelic mien and soft-spoken pitch of Christian Vessaz, winemaker and director of Cru de l’Hôpital in the village of Môtier, does not fully assuage a gut feeling I have that beneath the reserve are two frantically paddling feet—a not inappropriate image in this lakes region of the Swiss plateau. It also happens to be […]
Profile: Weingut Familie Hansruedi Adank (Fläsch, Graubünden)
I don’t usually quibble with subjective “Best Of” lists but I’ve got to argue with this one. To omit the Adanks is something of a glaring oversight. If this was the 25 or 50 Best Vignerons in Switzerland list, then fine. But surely they are among the Top 100. Especially when some of the […]
Profile: Weingut Donatsch (Malans, Graubünden)
Back in the day when a young musician/vintner named Thomas Donatsch introduced oak barrels and chardonnay grapes to the cellars of Bündner Herrschaft he was considered a pariah. Nowadays, in the vernacular of the tech world, he would be celebrated as a disrupter. Such was the opprobrium he endured that fines and official censure followed. […]
Profile: Domaine de la Maison Carrée (Auvernier, Neuchâtel)
There is a special quiet to a traditional wine village at rest. No people, no sounds, no stress, and only meters from the past season’s slumbering wine behind the solid walls that line the street. For me, walking the streets is the perfect preparation for tasting. I call it calibrating the senses—listening carefully for the […]
Profile: Luc Massy (Epesses, Lavaux, Vaud)
Luc Massy is one of the leading lights in the Swiss wine community. He is revered both as an ambassador for chasselas and as the soft-spoken force behind one of its most iconic brands. His tireless efforts have positioned Luc Massy, the enterprise—and its medieval-inspired label Chemin de Fer—as one of the few recognizably […]
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