Little did I know the term “Heroic Viticulture” is a proprietary trademark of The Center for Research, Environmental Sustainability, and Advancement of Mountain Viticulture (CERVIM). As such, this august designation is reserved for vineyards which meet any of the criteria listed below: Vineyard sites at altitudes over 500 meters (1600 feet); Vines planted on slopes […]
Category: Tastings
Swiss Grapes: Completer — The Answer to a Prayer
This article first appeared in Trink Magazine — Issue 04-07-2021 By traditional measures, my first year of college was a waste. I spent a lot of it playing cards with a gang of liberal theologians at a Jesuit university in California. Towering above the group was our guru, the truest Renaissance man I’ve ever met […]
Swiss Grapes: Räuschling — The Acid Queen
Despite an encouraging trend toward greater grapevine diversity, two varieties continue to dominate the Swiss wine landscape: Pinot Noir is here to stay, because the Swiss, like their German counterparts, fancy themselves the new masters of this sensitive, climate-threatened variety; and the much-maligned Chasselas because it’s so emblematic of Swiss culture as the workhorse wine […]
Eglisau: Vines of the High Rhine
This article first appeared in Trink Magazine — Issue 2, 14/12/2020 Every guide to Swiss wine begins with the same simple premise: There are six wine regions in Switzerland. That means one of them, Deutschschweiz, is forever miscast as a single entity, even though it encompasses nineteen cantons and covers two-thirds of the nation’s surface area. Meanwhile, […]
Are the Swiss Ready for the Pét-Nat Invasion?
Of all the recent wine trends to arrive in Switzerland, the pét-nat vogue may be the first to fizzle out. It’s not because the Swiss don’t like bubbles — they do, Switzerland is an important market for Champagne — but fads and frivolities are never an easy sell here. To the high-roller banker-types — loyal […]
Swiss Grapes: Sauvignon Soyhières
There’s a slight claustrophobic ends-of-the-earth vibe to the Jurassian village of Soyhières (Pop. 433). It has the plain vanilla look of 1950’s Swiss functionality with a lingering undercurrent of separatism and a patois (Vâdais) all its own. The village itself offers none of the postcard images one expects from rural Switzerland but the seasonal pastures and […]
Tea and Cheese: A Tutored Tasting in Geneva
As any athlete knows cross-training is one of the most effective ways to improve overall conditioning and performance, boost weight loss, and re-energize a stale exercise routine. It’s such a specialized niche that there are shoes designed to enhance each work-out, machines to provide a seamless transition from one activity to the next, and individual […]
The Last Man Standing — Domaine de Mucelle
It’s not everyday that a two hundred year old international treaty is invoked to settle modern customs and cross-border taxation issues, but France and Switzerland, or more specifically the Republic of Geneva, can break out The Treaty of Paris every now and then as an example. Article One, Section Three of the 1815 Treaty — […]
A Wine of Note: Domaine des Faverges, St-Saphorin, Vaud
2017 Chasselas, L’Énigme, Domaine des Faverges (St-Saphorin, Vaud) One of my favorite pastimes when researching a wine region is digging into the side stories — the whys and hows. For example, after tasting this wine and knowing nothing of the winery’s history, I wondered how the canton of Fribourg came to own property in the […]
Swiss Grapes: Grosse Arvine — One Man’s Mission
If you’ve ever entertained thoughts of resuscitating a barely breathing grape variety you may want to give Olivier Pittet a call. He’s a fine young man and a terrific winemaker who, in his spare time, lays it all on the line for a little known cultivar that may never be commercially viable. He will no […]
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