GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / AMONG THE VINES – David Kind is a small wine producer with a prodigious talent for good wines and he’s just been amply rewarded for his work at the annual 7 Ceps wine competition in Bourg-en-Bresse, France. The competition brings together producers from seven wine regions around Mont Blanc, Europe’s highest peak: Jura, Bugey, and Savoie in France, Val d’Aosta in Italy and cantons Vaud, Valais, Geneva and Neuchatel in Switzerland.
Kind, owner of Domaine de Terre-Neuve in Saint Prex, canton Vaud, was awarded one of two special “excellence” prizes offered for the first time to producers who enter the competition regularly and whose wines perform well consistently. His winning wine, which also won gold in the red wine category: AOC La Côte Merlot 2012.
The winery is part of a 200-year-old estate near Morges with cedars, linden and ancient oaks near wooded land that slopes down to Lake Geneva.
Kind’s feat was to not just win one of the top two prizes, but to take a gold medal for the same wine, another gold in the sweet white wines category for his AOC La Côte Chardonnay 2012 and a bronze medal in the dry white wines category for his AOC La Côte Pinot Gris 2012
Kind in 1996 took over the cellar that belonged to his grandmother and promptly set about replanting to diversify the vineyard. Today his collection of Chasselas, Gamay, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Garanoir, Garamet and Pinot Gris grapes is paying off. He has a growing collection of awards showing that he is not only a skilled wine grape producer but a talented winemaker.
His Chasselas won a gold medal at the Grand Prix du Vin Suisse, and his Pinot Gris and rosé wines won silver medals at that competition.
Two of Vaud’s larger wineries, Henri Badoux in Aigle and Uvavins in Morges, also won several medals at the 7 Ceps.
Complete list of winning wines