Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Geneva’s winemakers, playing host this week to some of Switzerland’s top wine producers, Thursday evening presented a series of wines that show off the good aging potential of the canton’s wines. The annual meeting of the Memoire des Vins Suisse (MDVS), being held in Geneva Friday 27 March, was accompanied the evening before by the first-ever vertical tasting session open to the public of top Swiss wines: the 30 producers who are members of the MDVS offered three versions of their best wines, from the newest to  older to their oldest bottles of the same wines so people could see how the wines behave as they age.

Geneva producers then hosted a dinner for the group of Swiss winemakers that showcased some of their most interesting wines, at different ages.

The Memoire des Vins Suisse was created in 2002 when a small group of wine writers familiar with Swiss wines invited 20 of the country’s best producers to set up a wine bank with bottles that have good aging potential. The group, which has now grown to 30 members, adds bottles to the stock each year and samples, then comments on a selection of wines. Until this year, the tasting sessions have been private.

Swiss wines have traditionally been drunk young, but the conditions are excellent in many parts of the country for wines that age well.

Geneva’s wines, which went through a difficult period from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, have in the past decade been widely acknowledged for making huge progress in terms of quality, but consumers remain largely unaware of their aging potential.

One of the newest members of the group, Domaine les Hutins from Dardagny, presented Le Bertholier 2007 at dinner, a blended wine that won the 2007 Grand Prix du Vin Suisse as the best overall Swiss wine  (majority grape: Gamaret, with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot). Winemakers Gerard Pillon and Jean-Daniel Schaepfer, noted in the wine community for their creative biodynamic approach to winemaking, served the group a 1998 Comte de Peney, a blend (two-thirds Cabernet Sauvignon and one-third Cabernet Franc) that has a startling and beautiful nose (animal, violets, pepperoni), and excellent harmony, highly praised by the other Swiss producers.