Wines have been produced in Switzerland since Roman times, probably before. What is new is an awareness among the Swiss that their winemakers are producing more than just pleasant local tipples. New to international wine lovers and travelers is that Switzerland is an exciting country to visit for its wine scene alone.
The country’s wine regions are divided by how much wine they produce. The Big Four are cantons Valais, Vaud, Geneva and Ticino. All the German-speaking cantons including Graubünden constitute the fifth region. Finally, there is the Three Lakes area incorporating parts of Bern, Fribourg, Vaud and Jura but basically centered around canton Neuchâtel.
Together, that adds up to just over 14,500 hectares of vineyards of which some 6,000 are planted with white grape varieties, and the remaining 8,500 with red, according to Swiss federal department of agriculture 2008 figures.
Top Varieties And Some Typical Styles
The country’s best known varieties are Chasselas, a white grape that is vinified in many other countries besides Switzerland although popular wisdom states loudly, clearly and inaccurately that only the Swiss make wine from this grape. What is true is that they are the most heavily identified with it. The word Perlan is no longer used in Geneva to denote Chasselas, but in canton Valais Chasselas is referred to as Fendant.
The red grapes most associated with Switzerland are Gamay (the grape in Beaujolais reds) and Pinot Noir (the grape in Burgundy reds). They are widely available as varietals or in blends. Two well-known blends are Dôle and Goron, both from Valais. Another widely seen Pinot Noir wine is called Oeil de Perdrix, which originated in the Neuchâtel area. This is a rosé wine which literally means ‘’eye of the partridge’’ because the wine is the same shade of pink as the bird’s eye. The red grapes are vinified like white wine, which is to say they are not macerated in their skins and thus take on only a pink blush color instead of a full red.
You will also encounter Perdrix Blanche in the Neuchâtel area as well vin flétri - the latter, a liqueurish wine made from late harvest grapes is, along with fully botrytized Grain Noble wines, also a specialty of Valais.
Wineries
Most Swiss wineries are family-owned businesses with small plots of vineyards. Grand premises and marketing staffs are rare. The best way to visit wineries for tasting is to find out when their weekly opening hours are – on the site of the Swiss Wine Exporters’ Association, click through to area wine promotion offices featuring lists of wineries.
When traveling through Switzerland, other ways to wine taste are to stop if you see a local wine bar or (in the French-speaking part) caveau, and to ask the waitstaff at eateries to recommend local vintages. The best way to get an overview of top wines is to eat at Michelin-starred restaurants and ask the sommelier to pair your food with local wines – some exquisite discoveries are to be made that way, and while the overall dining experience will not be cheap, as compared to imported wines you will get a big bang for your buck by ordering local vintages.
There are wine museums, wine trails galore, and unusual experiences like "Schlafen im Fass" – sleeping in a huge wine barrel in Trasadingen, Schaffhausen: bring your sleeping bag, they provide pillow and blanket. Regional wine sites are a mine of information on these and other opportunities.
Regional Characteristics
Each wine region in Switzerland has individual characteristics. To take but the two largest: Valais is particularly mountainous (in fact, one of Europe’s highest-altitude vineyards is here) and harvests are sometimes conducted by helicopter. To shore up terraced vineyards, an ancient dry stone wall technique is used, as is a unique system of irrigation called bisses that channels water from mountain streams through the vineyards. Another feature of Valais wines: different varieties than are found elsewhere, or different grape names than are used elsewhere. Examples: Amigne, Arvine, Cornalin, Ermitage (Marsanne), Humagne, Malvoisie (Pinot Gris), and Heida/Païen (Savagnin). A solera-type Vin du Glacier is also produced in Valais.
Vaud is King of Whites, particularly Chasselas, and a fabulous way to get a proper introduction to the variety is the spectacular Lavaux area (a UNESCO world heritage site) where vineyards terrace down dramatically to the blue waters of Lake Geneva. Many agree that the Chasselas experience can’t be much improved on than in Aigle, home of the famous Les Murailles brand (H. Badoux), where there are wine and wine label museums in the château. But Vaud itself is subdivided into several wine areas, each of which has particularities well worth investigating, and tens of different grape varieties besides Chasselas are grown there. Distinct landscapes and varieties, even different languages (French, Italian, German, Romansh), make the contrasts between the Swiss wine regions extremely vivid.
Not Generally Exported
Swiss wines are not produced in large enough quantity to be exported in any significant way. Because of high production costs, there is concern that with shipping and duties they might be too expensive in export markets, although this does not deter niche marketers in the US, UK and elsewhere from importing them. A systematic national marketing strategy driving a sustained export policy is lacking, however, and individual wineries tend still to favor their traditional private customers including hotels and restaurants over an export strategy, so by current figures only about 2% of Swiss wines make their way onto foreign markets.
That said, individual wineries and regional wine promotion offices are increasingly entering wines in the best European competitions such as Chardonnay du Monde (Burgundy), Vinalies (Paris), and other French events in Bordeaux and Dijon, as well as Vinitaly (Verona) and the International Wine Contest (Brussels), where the wines perform outstandingly well, taking home a disproportionately large number of top awards in relation to the modest quantities of wines submitted.
Other articles on Swiss wines: The Many Faces of Chasselas and The Real Vin Du Glacier. Also see: Swiss Wine Museums.
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