Photo, top: an unusal feature at the Mondial du Pinot Noir this year was a truly blind tasting, with small groups of judges led into a darkened room where they tasted wines without the benefit of seeing them. Photo, below: much is learned about a wine simply by looking at it in the glass, watching […]
Switzerland
Geneva wine course coming up
The wine season is starting soon, with summer tasting sessions in villages giving way to fairs like Vinea in Sierre, several competitions, culminating in the Swiss Wine Grand Prix in Bern in October. The Swiss wine harvest, with the smell of ripe grapes hanging over villages, starts in September and runs to November in some […]
Aigle autumn hike and wine
By Ellen Wallace – The vines are great any time of year, but it’s hard to do better than autumn, when the vine leaves are turning the hillsides into golden mazes, fermentation is in the cool air and skies are blue. One of my own favourite areas is beyond the famous Lavaux terraced vineyards and […]
Wood chips mostly moot point for Swiss winemakers
Bottling the rosé, Domaine La Colombe, Féchy, March 2007 Swissinfo carries a useful roundup article on the use of wood chips in wine in Switzerland. Writer Adam Beaumont notes that cantons are overriding federal legislation that has, since January 2007, allowed Swiss winemakers to use oak chips. The chips, whose use does not have to […]
Arvinis
Arvinis is Switzerland’s largest wine fair, a great idea that has been refined over the years. I went to the first one in 1996 and, having learned about wines in Paris, where I lived for several years, I was taken aback at the complete lack of snobbery. Switzerland may well be one of the best […]