An introduction to wines from the cradle of civilization The Valais Wine Museum in Sierre held a very special conference with wine-tasting 27 May, “L’Orient des vins”, that focused on Armenian and Turkish wines. José Vouillamoz, co-author of Wine Grapes, talked about grape domestication – where, how, why, and Jean-Luc Etievent of the Wine Mosaic […]
Archives for May 2018
The beautiful past redux
Learning to love wines from ancient lands Fine wines from Armenia and Turkey are not what you might imagine Sunday afternoon I went to a high mountainside in Armenia and drank a magnificent red wine that was deep and rich in fruit and fresh and silky. I wish I had done all of that physically, but […]
Swiss Bruxelles competition winners
Nearly one-third of the Swiss wines entered in the Bruxelles wine competition, 49 out of 166 entered, have come home with gold or silver medals; the results were announced Friday 25 May. Two won top honours with great gold medals: Viognier Blanc from Philippe Varone Vins in Sion, Valais and Yvorne Petit Vignoble Blanc vintage […]
Germanier, one winery’s quest for the best
Looking beyond formulas for great wines The Guardian’s article about natural, organic and biodynamic wines with its slew of missionary purists reminded me of a series of photos I took in March at the Jean-René Germanier winery in Vetroz. The best Swiss wineries are trying ancient, older and new methods and combinations of all of […]
Ruminations on recent wine news
Sunday wine news perusings and musings for you. An article in Forbes about Swiss wine that will please the country’s wine promotion body, an interesting article about natural wine in The Guardian that is too focused on France, a provocative story in Le Temps about Bern’s efforts to centralize agricultural (including wine) research, a promising […]