The weather has been clement, holidays are over, and out in the vineyards, the steady snip-snip of electric pruning clippers fills the air, now emptied of migratory birds gone south. I will go home to a fine oaked Syrah tonight, ready after four years maturing and bottle-cellared. First, though, a walk through the vines. The […]
Garden & nature
Changing of the guard in vineyards
Autumn shifting to winter is always a visually charged season, with dramatic color changes. This is particularly true in a country like Switzerland: the Swiss wine landscape holds mountains and rivers and lakes and gentle hillsides all in close proximity. Altitude adds another element. We veer from winter to autumn and back to winter in […]
New treasure in old Sion vineyard
I would never have discovered one particularly beautiful perch on an Alpine slope if it weren’t for Dr Henry Wuilloud. The exhibit “Les 1001 vies [the 1001 lives] du Docteur Wuilloud” at the Valais Wine Museum in Sierre/Salgesch runs for another month, until 30 November. It opened in March with a remarkable conference and tasting […]
The October garden
To brighten your day and remind you that the aromas and flavours we find in wines often become familiar to us first through our gardens: here are a few photos from my Swiss Alpine garden, at 1100 metres altitude, in late October. You might think I have enough squash, but when I stopped by the […]
Book reviews: gardens, wines
Bergli, an English language publisher in Basel, has two new books out that are relevant here: Gardens Switzerland and The Landscape of Swiss Wine. The first, about large public and private gardens, is a gem. The wine book has good points but is significantly flawed.[…]