Graubünden is Switzerland’s largest and easternmost canton and the only one that trades in three of the national languages—German, Italian and Romansch. Despite its size and eye-popping beauty it’s not a common destination for outsiders except when it’s luxury they seek. The three-star chef Andreas Caminada is ensconced at Schloss Schauenstein and the high-brow resort […]
Tag: Swiss Wine
A Day at the Cooperative–Provins Valais
It’s not sexy, in fact, it’s one of those boring statistics that puts most people to sleep, but it’s true nonetheless: more than half of all wine made in Italy, France and Spain combined is made in cooperatives. That’s a lot of wine but much of it is dreck destined for distillation, flex-tanks, or fancifully-branded […]
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—discreet micro-parcels scattered in hidden, often heavily wooded valleys. In other words, rather than monoculture, Aargau offers a diversity of […]
Domaine de la Ville de Morges: A Natural Pivot
A wise winemaker/photographer friend given to platitudes offered up the following: A perfectly focused photograph and a flawless wine are of no interest to me without more. 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 fail to excite. […]
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 […]
