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.
Miau! from Martin Gojer and Marion Untersulzner of Weingut Pranzegg in Bozen, South Tyrol could not be more “critter,” but is it also more? By Daniel and Liliana Schönberger
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…...
There’s no “yak crossing” sign in front of Caves du Paradis. Nevertheless, in September cars and trucks on the busy industrial road at the edge of Sierre, Switzerland were forced to cede to sturdy yaks trekking from the vines across to the Paradis cellar, their broad backs loaded with ripe Gamay grapes. The yaks appeared to enjoy their new temporary jobs, unusual work for a yak, who normally tills or treks. The pickers in the vineyard quickly made friends with the quiet, gentle creatures, recalls winery owner Olivier Roten, once they realized that the long horns would not get in…...
In a country that consumes 99 percent of its own wine, finding a restaurant that has an extensive Swiss selection is easy, but finding a restaurant that exclusively features all the wineries and wines of a single appellation is rare. Alter Torkel in Jenins, a village in Graubünden, in eastern Switzerland, somehow miraculously fits the bill. It may not be the first restaurant to put wine before food, but I have yet to come across one that takes this philosophy to such extremes. As a balmy foehn and radiant late-winter sun warm the crisp mountain air, the terrace at Alter…...
Trained mason Tom Litwan began crafting elegant yet edgy, biodynamic, low-intervention Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays in Switzerland’s Aargau back in 2006. Today his wines play in the same league as top French and German producers. Normally, the Aargau is better known for its notoriously jammed locations along the A1 highway connecting Zürich with Bern and French-speaking Switzerland. The canton’s sole claim to gustatory fame is a carrot cake, Aargauer Rüeblitorte. Litwan’s decision to make wine here may initially surprise, but looking a bit closer, it actually makes a lot of sense. Before phylloxera bedeviled the old world at the end of…...
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…...
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