Hoss Hauksson: Daring Aargau Pinot to Go Higher
Hoss Hauksson is transforming his Pinot Noir vineyards in the Swiss Aargau into havens of ecological diversity.
Hoss Hauksson is transforming his Pinot Noir vineyards in the Swiss Aargau into havens of ecological diversity.
Liliana Schönberger is a biologist/ornithologist by training holding a PhD in avian ecology. She is a seasoned polar scientist and guide and being out there in the elements is what makes her the happiest. What fascinates Liliana in viniculture most, is a certain type of alchemy - a relationship and communication between vintner and vines. Since she moved to Switzerland she helps in a small family vineyard and uses this opportunity to understand better the most fascinating plant on Earth, and maybe even to initiate her very own inter-species dialogue with it.
This article is adapted from Natural Trailblazers: 13 Ways to Climate-Friendly Wine, to be published on 21 October 2024 and currently available for pre-order. In the Swiss Alps, husband-and-wife Romaine and Hans-Peter Schmidt have created an island for humans and animals, insects and microbes to thrive in a sea of conventional vineyards. A combination of no-till, green manure, vitoforestry, and biochar makes their legendary winery Mythopia carbon neutral in the vineyard. I’m outside a bakery in Sion, with a view of the railway tracks and the snowy peaks on the horizon. It’s a surreal combination of nature and industry. A…...
Banned and beloved, feared and revered, one would assume the birth story of absinthe to be as spirited as its character. Yet its quite conventional beginnings can be clearly traced back to the mild-mannered region of Val-de-Travers, Switzerland, below the limestone-cliffed Jura mountains, where a greenish-gray perennial that gave the herbal elixir its name thrives on the lush borders of the region’s forests and roadsides. And so it is that neither the what nor the where, but rather the who of absinthe’s beginnings that has been called into question, becoming only the first in a long twisted tale of controversy…...
The Alto Adige winemaker orchestrating a symphony of terroir-driven wines that transcend borders and time.
Räuschling isn’t just wonderfully umlauted, it’s also one of the most exciting autochthonous white wine varieties in German-speaking Switzerland. This became clear to me on a March afternoon in 2015. I had accepted an invitation from Mémoire des Vins Suisses to come to Zürich and take part in a Räuschling vertical tasting — featuring vintages that stretched back to 1935 — at Weingut Schwarzenbach in Meilen on Lake Zürich. Since then, I taste every Räuschling I can get my hands on. The lively acidity, fine citrus aromatics, and aging potential of this rare variety fascinate me over and over. Native…...
Every guide to Swiss wine begins with the same emphatic but overly 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 19 cantons and covers two-thirds of the nation’s surface area. Meanwhile, four of the other official regions are single cantons — Geneva, Vaud, Valais, and Ticino — each with its own story to tell; a sixth — the Three Lakes region — is geographically contiguous, linguistically mixed and, while quite small, celebrated for its diversity. Why, I ask, is there so little…...
Kremstal grower Markus Lang is recalculating the balance of precision and harmony in Riesling and Grüner Veltliner.
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