Swiss-wide calendar, for public and professionals

If you haven’t yet discovered the Swiss Wine calendar on the official wine promotion board’s web site, it is now the easiest place to see listings for upcoming events. You’ll find that Divinum in Morges runs through Monday 16 April and the older and somewhat larger wine fair, Arvinis, opens Wednesday 25 April in Montreux.

Worth noting: the listing here is rarely in English but the web site of the organizer often has an English version or page, so do select the link. The event organizer is responsible for posting the pages, and translations are often done after the original posting (and they forget to add it here).

All the official cantonal open house days are listed here. These are a wonderful way to meet people from wineries near you, or in areas you want to visit, and sample their goods.

Wine education: events at the Valais Wine Museum

The Valais Wine Museum in Sierre offers a regular series of events on a wide variety of topics, and for all levels (generally in French). The upcoming “Cépages résistants et réduction des traitements: une solution d’avenir?” looks at the very hot subject of efforts being made to reduce chemical treatments in vineyards. Jean-Laurent Spring, researcher at the national Centre Agroscope, brings us up to date on disease-resistant grape varieties that is one focus of the centre. Swiss vineyards are still heavily planted (98%) with European grape stocks (Vitis vinifera), which require 6 to 10 treatments a year. The move to create new varieties that allow growers to dispense with or greatly reduce treatments dates back some years. Several of these are already producing good wines, making it clear that wines from disease-resistant grapes have a real future. 17 April, 19:00

Mega-event! Fête des Vignerons in Vevey

This is a must for your calendar, whether you’re in Switzerland or elsewhere: 18 July to 11 August 2019 is the once-per-generation Fêtes des Vignerons (also called the Winegrowers Festival in English). Some 700,000 people are expected for the three week extravaganza that takes place only every 22-25 years. You can expect hotels and restaurants in the area to be booked well in advance, so plan ahead.