These rarely exported wines are a delight.
The terraced vineyards in the Valais region in Switzerland. By Jason Wilson March 15 at 12:00 PM Switzerland is well known for many things: Swiss chocolate, Swiss watches, Swiss cheese, secret Swiss bank accounts. But Swiss wine? Most people don’t even realize there is such a thing. The Swiss certainly don’t make a whole lot of wine, only about a million hectoliters — a drop in the bucket compared with France’s 42 million or Italy’s 48 million hectoliters.
Switzerland’s most planted and most important grape is chasselas, which some say is the perfect wine for 10 a.m.. Others say chasselas is the perfect wine to drink when you are very thirsty, a classic vin de soif. I’ve found both notions to be true, ordering a glass at a sunny morning cafe table in Zurich or Geneva. I can report that chasselas is the perfect wine to follow an espresso and croissant around 10 a.m., and it goes down dangerously easy. By 10:15, I’d ordered a second glass.
Before that, Swiss wines seen in the U.S. were often prohibitively expensive, something that the Swiss acknowledge. “Swiss wine is not cheap,” Kurt said. It’s all grown in the mountains and handpicked. We don’t really have a low end.” It’s true, you will not see a $9.99 Swiss wine, but there are plenty in the $25 range that offer excellent value.
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