Hiking with wine, wolves, cows, guard dogs
October: the perfect time of year to hike trails in the mid to higher Swiss Alps, wild areas above the tree line before the risk of snow is too great. (What better wine is there than a bottle briefly chilled in an Alpine stream above 2000 m, preferably with alpine cheese and air-dried slivered alpine meat, after a few hours of hiking?) Do check local weather forecasts with MeteoSwiss. It’s crucial to know your skills level before setting off on the red and white marked mountain trails. BFU/BPA, the safety and prevention council, has an online quiz that lets you determine if you’re ready for these hikes. Keep in mind that more than 33,000 people are injured annually while hiking in Switzerland.
Critically important, please adopt good behaviour - the kind that is about safety, not manners. Bears, wolves and lynx are returning to Switzerland. They are important to the balance of nature in the Alps, yet their numbers remain small and it’s crucial that we play our part to ensure that cohabitation works. Tips and MORE; article continues on Medium.
Wine pick: Chasselas Tout nu, baby
When you’re in the mood for in the nude, no matter what the season, this is your wine - and to be honest, you’ll probably also love it dressed (you). I drink Switzerland’s famed Chasselas, including Fendant in Valais, on a regular basis and I love the subtle variations in these wines, which are so sensitive to terroir. This one is from the Château Rochefort in Allaman, owned by the Ville de Lausanne which has a fine collection of wines from different vine parcels in canton Vaud, so I was pretty sure I would like it. In fact it’s a rave-about Chasselas, with outstanding character - lively with notes of herbs that weave in and out of the fruit notes. I’m not alone in thinking it’s great: it won the Best Swiss Natural Wine award for 2023, with a score of 90.5/100.
The award in May was well-deserved recognition for Lausanne’s efforts to move to sustainable winemaking practices. The city has 33 hectares of vines on five domains from La Côte to Lavaux, of which more than 15 ha are certified Demeter biodynamic vineyards. Château Rochefort has been biodynamic since 2016. Chasselas Tout Nu, AOC La Côte Allaman Grand Cru, is Lausanne’s first natural wine and one of the finest white natural wines I’ve tasted. It comes from vines near the lake, grown on humus-rich limestone soil. Small crates are used for the harvest, to keep the grapes healthy and they are then pressed as whole bunches. The grape must is put in oak vats where it turns to wine and rests on its lies for 12 months. It is bottled without added sulfites, by hand and using gravity to reduce the risk of oxidation.
A Chasselas bonus, for those who like adult comic books: you can take a learning shortcut with Sur la piste du Chasselas, published in late 2022, which was awarded the 2023 prize for best wine comic book in August by the Jury international des Prix de l’OIV (Organisation Internationale de la Vigne et du Vin). Available in bookstores.
Wine pick from Australia: Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon
An Australian Cab surprise landed in my mailbox recently and made a very positive impression, a lusciously deep and dusky purple-red wine that was perfect for a late summer night on the balcony, mountains in the distance, a good book to hand. Notes: berries (black currant, blackberry), stone fruits (plums) and herbs, notably bay leaf. The mouth was elegant, rich and yet not too heavy, a plus for this newly minted semi-vegan (an allergy picked up from a tick means I can’t eat meat or dairy).
Coop and Mövenpick now carry it in Switzerland, along with other shops. The 2020 vintage was introduced at France’s Place de Bordeaux in September. In 2016 this was the first Australian wine to be given such recognition. If you’re new to Bordeaux wine distribution, take a minute to understand the Place’s complex system and the small number of top name foreign wines that are allowed in. This wine is made in very small quantities from 1% of the best Cabernet Sauvignon grapes grown on the red soil of Wynn’s Coonawarra very large Estate, but only in years where the quality of the grapes permit it. The wine has been made since 1982 as the John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon, designed to be a top wine for the estate. Hats off, it’s a beauty.
Here and there online
Wine
Pink, as in rosé wines, has been all the rage this year but when the high-minded Economist (paywall) wrote about the rise of this once snubbed wine I finally decided to see if it’s true there is no longer a French stink to pink. “In the second half of 2018 supermarket sales of red in France fell by 5% on the same period the previous year, and white was flat. Yet rosé sales were up by 6%.” Learn why, but also check out this Economist special issue on wine, 8 April 2023, a very good collection of articles.
Wine Hiking Switzerland and an interview with me leads off an article in National Geographic Travel, “Visiting Switzerland? Here’s what the locals love”. No surprise, wine tops the list!
Coffee
Clearly, I’m not the only person who has always wondered how a moka pot makes my coffee.
Travel
If you’re heading off on autumn travels, Swisscom has useful travel tips, including reminders about how to use less data (F, G, I).
On ice
Ötzi the 5,300-year-old man found in a Tyrolian Alpine glacier in 1991 has been a celebrity in Bolzano, Italy, where his body lies in a museum cold room for visitors to observe through a window. He’s been back in the news, with new DNA results in August showing we didn’t know everything about him. He was predisposed to diabetes and balding, although the active, fit - and murdered - iceman may not have had a chance to develop these.
Out and about
The Swiss wine awards, le Grand Prix du Vin Suisse, will be announced October 6 in Bern: stay tuned for the new best Vinea/Vinum wines list. Judges in July selected gold and silver medal winners from among 2,740 wines entered, as well as the six best wines in 15 categories and now we’ll learn which ones are the winners.
The harvest is well advanced and it’s clear that throughout Switzerland the fine weather during most of September made it possible to bring in beautiful grapes, and the 2023 vintage looks very promising. The next few weeks will let us know if the promise in the vineyards will hold up in the cellar.
Good news for this author and for fans of Wine Hiking Switzerland, is that all three language versions of the book, published by Helvetiq, have just gone into a second print run. Thank you for making the book a bestseller! And no, I haven’t quit drinking wine or hiking: I’m finally back at work, after taking a long break following several very complicated months. I’ve just been hiking in Montana and sipping wine in Canada and tomorrow I head off to Valladolid in Spain. Expect to see trail notes and wine picks here soon, from these places and more. Next newsletter, how Grand Cru wines in one quiet Swiss village are measured to see if they are up to the mark, and where to hike to find these gems at the end of your trail.
Santé! To your health!