MONTREUX, SWITZERLAND – Catheters and needles were not things I expected to hear about at a wine conference, but the inventor of Coravin, Greg Lambrecht, comes from the medical industry.”I wanted a way to drink wine from a bottle without pulling the cork. Luckily I was very good at needles.” His first medical invention, while a […]
Wineries
Wine language: amphores, eggs, biodynamic (update)
Demeter and Swiss biodynamic vines Update: just after I posted this, Jacques Perrin’s latest blog post arrived, about the course I followed last week. It’s in French, but for anyone who reads French, it’s a good review of some of the current thinking about the use of cement eggs, amphores, etc. Correction: Writer Wink Lorch […]
Sake novice
I am a sake novice: I may know a lot about wine, but sake is mostly outside my experience. Reading about it without having done any comparative tastings makes little sense, so last week when Le Verre en Cave in Geneva offered an evening class and tasting session, I decided to go. Here, in a […]
Harvesting grapes by machine
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The debate goes on: to harvest by hand or by machine. Some top-quality wine producers argue that machines just don’t cut it, that they are not as good at harvesting grapes as humans. Hand-crafted is undoubtedly always a good marketing line. But are consumers being bamboozled by it? Story continues below The […]
Droning their way to great grapes
Swiss vineyards take drones to new level GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Vineyards have been using drones regularly for aerial photography for some years, mainly in the US and Australia, but a Swiss pilot project is taking drones to new heights – not literally, but in terms of their technological prowess. This week a surprising Swiss trio […]