BERN, SWITZERLAND – Swiss supermarket chain Migros will undoubtedly have chocolate Santas and trees for the holiday season, but this year it’s come up with an unusual Christmas treat: a milk chocolate foil-wrapped camel fit for the Three Kings of Christmas lore. The supermarket will stock them in 100 of its shops. It notes that […]
Archives for November 2011
Beaujolais Nouveau, still young and blushing deeply at 60!
Beaujolais Nouveau, a marketing ploy that worked, turns 60 today GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Sixty years ago you had to be in France to get a glass of Beaujolais Nouveau, the light Gamay with notes of strawberries and raspberries that hits the streets of France every year in November. It was sold, in those good old […]
Tasting notes: a sampler of Côtes du Rhône wines, the whites and rosés
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – For background, see my article, “Switzerland’s splendid neighbour: Côtes du Rhône”. In October I tasted and discussed at length with winesellers and sommeliers and other journalists a sampling of wines from the Côtes du Rhône region. Here are my notes on the whites and rosés (reds to follow). The first three wines are […]
Swiss wines’ splendid neighbour: Côtes du Rhône
2011 vintage: warm, deep cherry and plum notes await us after unusual year LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Good news arrived from France Monday, that 2011 wines from the Rhone Valley, after initial tastings, show wonderful promise. Grapes harvested at optimal ripeness are giving wines marked by fruitiness and warmth, with plum and deep cherry notes, verging […]
Geneva rail groundbreaking marks “historic” day for regional ties
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The politicians, and there were many of them, at the groundbreaking ceremony for Ceva, the new French-Swiss regional rail system, made much of the historic importance of the moment. The ceremony Tuesday morning 15 November comes 100 years after Switzerland and Geneva signed an agreement to undertake the financing of a rail […]