When Michael Broger and I strolled through his vineyard garden in late August, it was bursting with life. In one corner was a flock of brown-coated Såne sheep quietly feasting on a selection of grasses and legumes. In another corner, an assortment of winged and jumping insects loitered around their rustic wooden residence. Underfoot were […]
Tag: Pinot Noir
The Clos du Mormont — A Spirit in the Vineyard
As a child of California who grew up during the New Age Movement, I’m familiar with talk of energy vortexes, power centers, and other metaphysical notions. I’m also familiar with the movement’s many intersections: Werner Erhard’s human potentiality seminars, for instance, or the eclectic offerings of the Esalen Institute. Back then, it was normal for […]
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, […]
The Wine Rivers of Switzerland: The Rhine
If the Alps are “The Water Tower of Europe”, as they’re sometimes known, then the Witenwasserenstock, a mountain peak in central Switzerland, is the spigot. Its pointy summit (header photo) is one of the few triple watersheds in Europe and a feeder for the alpine catchments of the Rhine, Rhône and Po basins. There’s more. […]
A New Pest in the Vineyard — What to Watch For
I’m one of those wine lovers who prefers a face-to-face at the local bottle shop to a blind purchase online. My other preference is to order directly from a few trusted Swiss producers. This allows me to avoid the middleman, gives me time to talk things over with the winemaker, and puts me first in […]
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 — […]
Pinot Noir from the Bielersee — It Runs In the Family
Standing in the vineyards between Ligerz and Twann I often feel a little dreamy as I stare at the Bierlersee below and its signature landmark, St. Peter’s Island. From this vantage point I can only begin to imagine the serene isolation of someone living there alone, as the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau did for a short […]
Clos des Gondettes (Satigny, Geneva)
Look at a current political map of Europe and you might notice the outline of a limp handshake (choose your own piece of anatomy) where western Switzerland meets France. It looks limp for a reason. As a one time exclave—entirely surrounded by France and the old Duchy of Savoy—Geneva existed as an on-again, off-again city-state […]
Profile: Litwan Wein (Oberhof, Aargau)
The first thing you notice about the wine country in Aargau is what you don’t notice: vineyards. That’s because Aargau, in contrast to the comparably-sized but contiguous vineyards of Bündner-Herrschaft and Klettgau, offers a different proposition—discrete micro-parcels scattered in hidden, often heavily wooded valleys. In other words, rather than monoculture, Aargau offers a diversity of […]
Vinea On Tour: A Few Stand-Out Wines
The Vinea road-show organizers took pity on me this year and finally staged one of its tastings in my back yard of Geneva. Vinea is a Swiss wine trade organization that sponsors tastings of its member’s wines in various locations throughout the year, culminating in the epic, two-day Grand Prix du Vin Suisse in Sierre. It […]
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