Which Swiss wines do you love? Hands? Anybody? Nobody?
Know why? Only 2% of Switzerland’s wine production is exported. All the rest, 98%,
is consumed domestically. The best way -- actually, the only way -- to sample
Swiss wines is to visit Switzerland. That’s what I did.
The Valais’ Microclimate
Having grown up with images of Switzerland as a land of
snow-covered mountains, when I visited the Valais, a wine-growing,
French-speaking canton east of Geneva, I expected cold weather. But the climate
was better suited to shorts and T-shirts than to parkas.
Neatly trellised vineyards climb up steep hills taking
advantage of a hot, dry microclimate. With 300 days of sun a year, the Valais feels
like Napa and Sonoma
except for the Matterhorn looming in the distance.
In Switzerland, family-owned vineyards and wineries (called vignerons-encaveurs) are the rule. Even
if unprofitable, they stay in the family. During a hosted trip we met one wine
maker whose family was regarded as a newcomer. They had only worked the
vineyard for three generations, while the neighboring farm had been owned by
one family for seven generations. Neither winery was self-sustaining. Everyone
had a day job.
We tasted dozens of varietals from local
vineyards, some with such a small output, customers who lived in the
neighborhood consumed their entire production.
The wine most closely associated with the Valais is
Fendant a white wine made with the Chasselas grape. But
it is a red wine not a white that is making news these days.
Cornalin, the new kid on the block
Twenty-five years ago the Swiss government encouraged farmers
to plant improved strains of grapes that were indigenous to Switzerland and to
pursue new blends with distinctive qualities. The goal was to expand the export
market for Swiss wines.
In the Valais, that led to the improvement of Cornalin, a
grape that has been cultivated since the time of the Roman Empire. Used
primarily in blends to make inexpensive table reds, the wine was often bottled without
appellation or date of production.
Rouge du Pays
Frequently confused with an Italian grape with a similar
name, the Swiss variety (Rouge du Pays
or Cornalin du Valais) is genetically
distinct. In the 1990s the Agroscope Changins-Wädenswi, a federal
agricultural agency, funded research to cultivate promising local strains to
improve the quality of the grapes and the survivability of the vines. A group
of young vintners adopting the appellation Le
Coteaux de Sierre planted the new
vines. Over time, the acreage in the Valais devoted to Cornalin has expanded.
The wines have a low-tannin, fruity flavor and a dark
cherry red color. Helping market wines made with 100% Cornalin grapes, the
wineries of the area have enlisted an unlikely champion.
Antoine
Bailly is an internationally respected academic and a Nobel
Peace Prize winner (Geography, 2012). A native of Switzerland, Bailly travels the world as a lecturer. These
days his passion project is Cornalin.
A Cornalin Museum: Château de Vaas, La Maison des
Cornalins
When I toured the under-renovation Château de Vaas, La
Maison des Cornalins in the village of Flanthey (Chemin du Tsaretton 46, 3978
Flanthey), Bailly pointed out details of the building,
parts of which were built in the 13th and 16th centuries. Restored at great
expense, the building is unique in the area for its history and architectural
details. Opened to the public in late August 2014, a photographic tour of the
museum is available on a French language web site.
In the tasting room, products from the local
wineries can be sampled, along with cheeses
and charcuterie from local purveyors. To visualize where the grape is grown, Bailly created an interactive map with the
locations of the Cornalin vineyards in the Valais. Another interactive display
with video screens illustrates the cultivation of the grape.
A Temperamental Grape
In the tasting room, with Bailly leading an animated discussion accompanied
with appetizers of local cheeses and slices of beef sausage from Boucherie La
Lienne in the village of Lens, we sampled several of the 100% Cornalin wines. Each
of us had our favorite. Mine was the Bagnoud Cornalin, Coteaux de Sierra (2012)
Rouge du Valais.
Bailly described the grape as difficult to grow and
unstable. Slight variations in heat or rainfall can ruin the harvest. Through
trial and error, the local vintners have learned how to get the best out of the
grape.
So why bother with such a temperamental grape? The
answer was pretty direct. The vintners like the wine they’re making with
Cornalin. For them, the extra effort and increased risk are worth the result.
Cornalin needs three years in the bottle to mature. With
the vintages currently offered for sale, these wines will be at their best just
about the time the museum opens. Bailly
invited us all to come back then. In the meantime, we bought bottles of our
favorites to bring home. We had become little agents of export for Swiss wines.
