It’s safe to say the 700 Years of Completer celebration in October was the first birthday party for a 700-something I’ve ever attended. Not so for the event organizer, Dr. José Vouillamoz, who’s an old hand at this kind of thing — yes, the 700 Years of Rèze and Humagne Blanche party in 2013 was […]
Tag: Completer
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 […]
Profile: Clos de Tsampéhro (Flanthey, Valais)
It’s not exactly a secret garden — situated as it is mid-slope, in the middle of Valais — but Tsampéhro isn’t obvious either. From a distance it looks like any other vineyard along the Coteaux de Sierre, but upon closer inspection you might notice the low stone wall that surrounds it or the vibrant green, […]
Profile: Weinbau Thomas Studach (Malans, Graubünden)
To many foreigners Switzerland is a land of carefully cultivated myths and legends punctuated by beautiful mountain landscapes. The would be traveler, without knowing it, is seduced by marketing—eagerly shared by travel writers and recycled by hyper-efficient feedback loops. Thus, the watch industry and train system feed—and are fed by—the aura of Swiss precision and […]
MDVS 2016: Part 1 – White Wine
Mémoire des Vins Suisse—Geneva 2016 After 40 years and more than a thousand wine tastings later—after countless wine dinners, winery visits, seminars, panels, junkets and bottles opened at home—I am finally ready to confess that two of my favorite wine events ever are the two most recent MDVS gatherings: Mémoire and Friends in Zürich and […]
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