A wise winemaker/photographer friend given to platitudes offered up the following: Like a perfectly focused photograph, a flawless wine can only offer to tantalize the senses, it cannot promise to. Buried in there somewhere is the concession that an in-focus photograph and a flawless wine require some technical proficiency to execute but without more may […]
Tag: Swiss Wine
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 […]
Valais: The Lay of the Land
A recently published inventory of vines by the Office Cantonal de la Viticulture in Valais offers some perspective on where the canton stands in its effort to refocus on native varieties. The newest vine register provides a snapshot of the changes from 1991 to 2017. The first key takeaway is that the surface area dedicated to […]
Profile: Steiner Schernelz Village (Ligerz, Bern)
The public transport options in Switzerland are many and they’re famously efficient but is there another as quirky as the Vinifuni of Ligerz? Probably. A funicular is a thoroughly Swiss contraption that runs on rails in steep and difficult to access areas. It’s a mechanized version of the mule. When one is available it’s usually […]
Profile: Steve Bettschen — Living the Phusis Life
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 some […]
Book Review: Cépages Suisses: Histoires et Origines (2017)
Cépages Suisses—Histoires et Origines by José Vouillamoz Éditions Favre (2017) When you think about Switzerland and its wine you probably don’t think of the incredible diversity of its vineyards (252 cultivars) or the tiny area that contains them (just under 15,000 hectares—the same as in Alsace). It’s safe to say the sheer volume of diverse […]
An Homage to Chasselas (and Indirectly to Roast Chicken)
Hang around Switzerland long enough and you’ll eventually grapple with the Chasselas riddle: Why is this famously ordinary table grape—and the famously neutral wine that comes from it—given star billing in Swiss vineyards and held in such high regard by its proponents? After living with Chasselas for a while, I can offer some clues. Chasselas is […]
