Hey, what’s happening with this newsletter!
This is the first issue of my revised newsletter, which will offer you a collection of links to recently published work and other information I’ve curated for you. It will normally be shorter than what subscribers previously received because I, like you, find I have places to go and things to do! Art Paris is coming up and a trip to London, not to mention Beaujolais.
I have started publishing most longer articles and essays on Medium at ellenwallace.medium.com, and the links here will lead you to them. An exception: most Swiss “Wine picks” will be published here, as well as a short “News & events” section.
The down side of this revised newsletter approach is that Medium allows you to open only three posts a month before you hit the paywall. Medium membership is $5 a month or $50 a year. It is one of the best homes on the web for professional writers so membership gives you access to a very large number of top writers in many, many fields and scores of online publications. Take a minute to explore it, searching for example for your favourite topics. For writers like me, there is potential to earn money through Medium Partners, which distributes posts to a larger audience than just our subscribers. Membership has a basic fee, but subscriptions, which mean you’ll receive an email when I publish an article, are free.
Why bother to subscribe?
I’m not an influencer nor do I get paid to promote wines. I am sometimes invited on press trips where my expenses are covered, and in these cases I mention it. I publish this work, at some time and expense, largely to ensure that people have access to accurate, well-written reports on Swiss wine and other topics I find important and where I have expertise to share. I also want to ensure that publishers remain aware of my work.
You can help financially support the writing here by either making a paid subscription to Substack ($30/year - and my thanks to those of you already subscribed) and/or subscribing to my work on Medium, where you can rate articles and comment. Clap for my articles and I’m more likely to earn a few pence, always appreciated, and they add up.
That said, I’m very happy to have you keep reading for free, where you can. And after a fairly rough three years, for various reasons, I am glad and excited to be back at work. Please enjoy the articles.
Alpha-Gal and tick trouble
It’s a hot July day and the climb from 400 metres, up through the woods to 1200 metres is a sweaty one on a sunny stretch of trail next to vineyards. I pause in light shade with tall grasses, next to an alpine meadow where horses and a few cows are quietly grazing, part of the Swiss caretakers of the land eco-system.
Read more on Medium (3 free articles a month): Tick trouble: No cheese, no meat, just wine please. A nasty tick bite in 2022 gave me a no-cures allergy to most meat and all dairy, called Alpha-Gal. Never heard of it? You’re not alone, but you’ll soon be hearing more, because it is spreading. Climate change is giving ticks more territory and sending them to higher altitudes, with longer seasons.
Bottles: the return of reusables
A group of wineries in canton Vaud has created Bottle Back, an innovative project to gradually shift from recycled glass bottles to reusable ones - just in time as Switzerland’s only bottle glassmaker with the country’s main glass recycling plant announces it might have to close.
Read more on Medium (3 free articles a month): The return of reusable wine bottles
Wine Pick: Litwan, Pinot Noir Chalofe 2020
Tom Litwan’s Pinot Noirs from canton Aargau in north-central Switzerland borrow a good deal from Burgundy, but they have their own character, very successfully so. These are truly handcrafted wines, for Litwan works his 5.5 hectares and cellar virtually alone, with just a couple who share a job. His garage winery doesn’t have the space, nor does the winemaker have the time, to receive customers, so he outsources sales work. The wines, of which there are 11 in a normal year, are available in a small number of shops and restaurants - which clamour to carry them. To make just 15,000 bottles of wine a year and find them so in demand is the more remarkable because he does not come from a winemaking family and he discovered his dream job in Burgundy while training as a mason - and learning to drink good wine on the side.
He started making wine in 2006 and has been making biodynamic wines since 2010. Litwan is an artist when it comes to understanding the soil but also listening to the vintage. The result is younger wines that are not always easily accessible, older wines that can be exquisite. They sometimes have a nose that is initially stinky from the wild yeasts he uses, although this fades as they age. And when there is some reduction they can be fizzy on the tongue until the wine has been aerated. Carafing helps. When I bought a 2017 in 2022 he cautioned me that it was too young. “Best to wait.” I’m waiting.
My first encounter with his wines came at the Landhotel Hirschen restaurant and wine bar in nearby Erlinsbach, a slow food haven. I included the Thalheim Chalofe wine and a hike to the hotel in my book Wine Hiking Switzerland (Helvetiq, 2022). So I was excited when Cave SA in Gland offered a vertical tasting of 16 vintages of his Pinot Noir Chalofe, with the affable winemaker present to talk about each vintage. The group did not agree on favourites for each flight of three, so distinctively different are the wines, with fans of each. One of my own preferred wines was this 2020, still quite young. I also loved the reddish-brown 2007 and 2009, the lovely balance of the lightish-in-colour 2013 with its leather nose, the beautifully complex 2015 which reminded me most of fine burgundies. The name Chalofe comes from the eponymous vine parcel, a place with limestone and clay soil where there might once have been a lime kiln.
The 2020 is less complex at the moment than some vintages but with fine balance and freshness. Fortunately it is a beauty because 2021 “was a mess” says the winemaker - he lost 80% of his harvest to weather problems. But 2022 was a “magic huge harvest”, a sunny year for his vines, and 2023 was “exceptional” and he’s back to focusing on making wines that are concentrated and rich, to be shared someday in the future.
Here & there
A compendium published on Medium. Ugly, lifespans, germs, circle-slash.
News, events
Divinum wine fair opens at the Sports Park in Morges Wednesday 20 March and runs through Sunday 25 March. Consider taking the train, with CFF/SBB special offers. The guest of honour this year is the 1855 Grand Cru Classé Medoc wines, with 18 of these Bordeaux wineries taking part. With 1,350 wines to sample, allow plenty of time!
Open cellar days take place in all six Swiss wine-producing regions in Spring. German-speaking Switzerland, Vaud and Geneva now provide details on the Swiss Wine Promotion page. Valais has theirs 9-11 May (a new English version of the web site will be launched before then). Ticino: 11-12 and 18-19 May for its two sub-regions. Neuchatel: 3-4 May. Santé!