GENEVA / LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The weather forecast for the weekend in the Lake Geneva area is better than you might think if you’re currently sitting in a downpour (your editor is watching a snow shower at 2,400 metres, above me). Showers will clear by morning, with just a few clouds left along mountain ridges.
Expect lows of 7 to 8C and highs of 21-23C Saturday, rising to 24C Sunday, with sunshine throughout Switzerland.
Geneva toasts its 2010 wines Saturday
The sunny spell is almost guaranteed, with Geneva holding its traditional and hugely popular wine open day Saturday: it’s hard to remember one when the sun wasn’t shining.
The Caves Ouvertes, as the day is called in French, sends thousands to Geneva’s wineries, almost of which are participating in the event, one of Geneva’s most popular. It was started in 1987, the first one in Switzerland.
The idea has spread and Valais will hold its cantonal open days the weekend of 2, 3 and 4 June (the Ascension long weekend), with canton Vaud having its – with several new surprise features – 11 and 12 June.
How to visit Geneva’s wine open day
The open days are designed to bring in the public to sample the new vintage, with white wines from 2010 recently bottled and the 2009 reds ready to drink.
Geneva’s cantonal wine office, Opage, has published its Terrific Terroir 2011 (pdf), with pages 19-20 giving you details about how it works, public transportation options, and a list of the wineries.
It is also available in printed form from Geneva Tourism, the Pont-de-la-Machine Information Arcade, the Geneva Welcome Centre, the UN kiosk and OffTheShelf English Bookshop, as well as hotels and eateries, clubs and associations, and several multinational companies and international organizations.
If you’re looking for a guide to some of Geneva’s top wineries, and what to expect from them, you can start by reviewing the August 2010 winners of the cantonal wine competition (pdf).
The GenevaLunch wine blog, Among the Vines, offered tips for how best to visit the wineries in 2010, and it’s still valid, the advice of GL editor and Swiss wine expert Ellen Wallace.
[…] organized by the Vaud Wine Office with the wineries, retailers and several other partners, follows Geneva’s hugely popular wine Open day two weeks ago and canton Valais’s long weekend of wine tasting that ended last Sunday. Vaud […]