A remarkable tasting session Monday 12 November, of older wines from Valais, made by a group of small independent vignerons-encaveurs, members of the Charte de qualité St Théodule. The oldest wine was 1964, just two years before a handful of pioneers, intent on making quality wine, created the charter. They were firm in the belief […]
Archives for November 2018
The backbone of Swiss wines: vignerons-encaveurs
A glass wine jar for a drum, women on stilts to welcome us, and a man with a long unwieldy Alpine horn that he suddenly picks up and starts to hurl jazzy notes into a bright blue Alpine sky – what a way to start a celebration! Above us a glass dome by contemporary Swiss […]
Tsampéhro finds its stride
A lingering autumn day of sunshine and the option to dine outside will put anyone in a good mood, but I don’t think this is the reason that the newly released Tsampéhro wines I tasted Monday were good – it was the best of the tastings I’ve done of these wines, which came onto the […]
Verona: relearning Valpolicella
Welcome to the 21st century! Valpolicella was one of my first wines, along with Chianti, drunk with pizzas as a student in Milwaukee – the cheaper the better. You can’t really blame the Verona area, home to these wines, for my youthful folly in drinking some of the worst of its products. This was 40 […]
Treat yourself to Verona
Plan ahead for springtime in Verona Here’s the perfect April treat: Verona, Italy. The medieval city, in the province of the same name, sits in the region of Veneto and is an easy train trip away from Switzerland. The food and wine are wonderful, there’s a wealth of art and architecture and history and the […]