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…
Ellen Wallace is the author of Wine Hiking Switzerland, a selection of 50 hikes and 50 wines, to be published 1 September 2022 by Helvetiq, in English, German and French. Ellen is an American-raised Swiss who lives high in the Alps. She is the author of the introductory book Vineglorious! Switzerland’s Wondrous World of Wines and she publishes an independent blog and newsletter in English whose main focus is journeying through the landscape (wines, vineyards, people, history, culture) of Swiss wines, to make these more accessible to wine-lovers in Switzerland and outside the country. Ellen is also a regular presenter of Swiss wines to groups and clubs, in English. She has judged at the Mondial de Bruxelles, Mondial des Pinots, Mondial des Merlots and the national Grand Prix des Vins Suisses.
Skin-contact white wines may have their revolutionary roots in Georgia, Slovenia, and Friuli, but the umlaut zone also stakes a strong claim for orange expressions. Austria was an early and highly successful adopter (think Tschida and Tscheppe, Muster and Meinklang). For this, thank geographic proximity, shared traditions, a former empire’s worth of fascinating white varieties, and the remarkable open-mindedness of producers, especially in Styria and Burgenland. Germany came later to the game. The country has been slower to embrace natural and experimental styles generally and its signature variety, Riesling, requires an exceptionally deft hand to succeed in skin-fermented form. However, German…...
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…...
Archetype, a Portland, Oregon-based import start-up, is focused on Alpine wines. They are refining consumer's understanding of the category and building community near and far.
My socials fill up with harvest photos at this time of year. It’s joyful and a bit primal. Nature controls the parameters of how and when, no matter how hard we try to predict and plan. The act of picking grapes initiates an even more fundamental process. Fermentation is to wine what oxygen is to humans. It’s both essential and deadly at the same time. There is no wine without it, yet fermentation’s transformative effects can destroy as readily as they create. It’s a kind of magic. Smoke, Stinks and Magic It’s magic because you start with fresh fruit, then…...
Editors’ Note: Data open tantalizing invitations to speculation. Wine economist Dr. Karl Storchmann of the American Association of Wine Economists is a master at collecting information, presenting it in clear, compelling graphics, and stepping away to allow each of us to draw our own conclusions. When he looked at wine, beer, and spirits consumption in three of TRINK’s coverage zones over the past century, he found striking disparities and a surprising convergence. What story do they tell you? Per capita wine consumption in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland has fluctuated significantly since the late 19th century (see Figure 1). Switzerland has…...
It would be easy to dismiss what happens in the tiny winegrowing country of Switzerland as an inconsequential alpine eddy, an iridescent surge in the great river of wine. After all, the nation boasts a mere 15,000 hectares of vines, ranking it only 132nd worldwide in terms of area. But do so at your own peril. After all, the Rhine itself begins in this country, high in the hills of Graubünden some 120 km due south of Switzerland’s capital city. In that spot, it is little more than a spring-fed stream off Lake Toma. “To me, the Rhine looks very…...
