What’s Driving Swiss Wine?

By

Britta Wiegelmann

•

•

Volume 04, Roots & Reach •
© Weingut Donatsch

The Donatschs were never conformists. Starting in the 1970s, Thomas Donatsch of Graubünden turned the Swiss wine landscape on its head with his illegal Chardonnay plantings and barrique experiments. In 2019, his son Martin broke the price record for Swiss wine with his Réserve Privée. Yet it hasn’t always been easy. A conversation with Martin reveals a few of the reasons why Swiss wines remain an insider secret. When it comes to wine, what makes Switzerland so unique? Switzerland is an extremely multifaceted country. Two radically different regions can exist within mere kilometers of each other. Ticino for example embodies…

Membership Required

You must be a member to access this content.

View Membership Levels

Already a member? Log in here
Avatar photo

Journalist and wine expert Britta Wiegelmann reenvisioned the editorial departments of wine magazines "Vinum" and the Gault&Millau "Weinguide Deutschland." Today, the native Rhinelander divides her time between Zurich and Bordeaux. She writes for "Marmite" and the "Coopzeitung," and is a regular lecturer at the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University, as well as a moderator, wine taster, and consultant.

Similar Posts

Swiss Wine Ski Season Dispatch
· ·

Swiss Wine Ski Season Dispatch

ByAlexandra McInnis

In most wine regions, it’s common to think of harvest as the season’s grand finale, giving way to a quieter period spent in the winery and cellar. For Switzerland’s premier winemaking cantons of Wallis and Graubünden, however, the wine is barely in barrels before these regions face an even busier time: ski season.  In Switzerland, skiing and tourism are intertwined, notwithstanding a strong domestic affinity for the sport. The practice in its modern form was imported from Norway in the 1890s. It was initially embraced by members of the British upper class taking winter holidays in resort areas such as…...

Membership Required

You must be a member to access this content.

View Membership Levels

Already a member? Log in here
Impressionist painting of woman sitting in a yellow dress and hat with her back to the viewer and a large glass canister marked Absinthe with two glasses to her right on a brown table with a pale green background.

The Swisstory of Absinthe

ByMatt Keller

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…...

Membership Required

You must be a member to access this content.

View Membership Levels

Already a member? Log in here
Steffensberg Pinot vineyard in the Mosel encased in fog
·

Modern Mosel Pinot Noir: Riesling Dressed in Red

ByChristoph Raffelt

Winemakers in the Mosel are tending an old tradition that is budding anew. These modern Pinots reach for elegance and complexity, edginess and vitality. and the world is finally taking notice.

Membership Required

You must be a member to access this content.

View Membership Levels

Already a member? Log in here
Photograph of a gold cluster of grapes hanging on a thin vine with yellow leaves in the background

Completer: The Answer to a Prayer

ByDennis Lapuyade

By traditional measures, my first year of college was a waste. I spent a lot of it playing cards with a gang of liberal theologians at a Jesuit university in California. Towering above the group was our guru, the truest Renaissance man I’ve ever met — priest, medieval scholar, professional clown, and director of his own traveling circus. He spent most of each year wandering from one Catholic university to another, plying his gift for persuasion. But he always made time for cards when he was in town. When not lobbying for Christ, he was partial to Texas Hold ’em,…...

Membership Required

You must be a member to access this content.

View Membership Levels

Already a member? Log in here
Photograph of Dr. Jose Vouillamoz dressed in a black blazer, white shirt and white hat stands in front of massive terraced vineyards with trees and cliffs in the far distance

José Vouillamoz on Swiss Wine Grapes

ByValerie Kathawala

I’ve read about as widely on Swiss wines as an Anglophone can: the relevant chapters of Jason Wilson’s delicious Godforsaken Grapes. The late Sue Style’s charming, informative Landscape of Swiss Wine. Ellen Wallace’s colorful Vineglorious. Dennis Lapuyade’s expert blog ArtisanSwiss. Stephan Reinhardt’s candid, convincing coverage in the Wine Advocate. But it is Dr. José Vouillamoz’s Swiss Grapes: History and Origin that has done the most to help me wrap my head around the marvelously confounding world of Swiss wines. The English edition, published in 2019 (two years after the original French), is a startlingly accessible and appealingly personal exploration of the trove…...

Membership Required

You must be a member to access this content.

View Membership Levels

Already a member? Log in here
Photograph of black and white biodynamic wine bottles to symbolize the racist legacy of the man, Rudolf Steiner, behind the wines.
· · ·

Opinion: Reconciling the Racism of Rudolf Steiner

ByLauren Johnson-Wünscher

It was biodynamic wine that helped me to find my footing in Europe. Yet, as a Black American woman living in Europe, Rudolf Steiner's interests and views present a complicated and troubling legacy.

Membership Required

You must be a member to access this content.

View Membership Levels

Already a member? Log in here