Switzerland’s wine industry is a secret well kept from the rest of the world. Nestled amongst some of the most famous wine producing regions in the world, Switzerland has the right climate for many famous grape varieties and a history of wine making dating back to Roman times. Despite the rich oenological tradition here, it remains relatively unknown to the rest of the world as the Swiss guzzle down so much that only 1-2% of the wine remains for export. Yesterday Melissa and I traveled to the neighboring canton of Valais for a wine tasting event called “Caves Ouvertes” to learn about the small, family own vineyards which line the steep sides of the alps, and taste the many, many varieties.
For the Caves Ouvertes event this last weekend, over 200 wine producers spread throughout the canton opened their doors for tastings. The name of this event is self explanatory, if you know French: Cave means cellar, and ouverte means open. Wine aficionados could find their way from one wine cellar to the next, or visit one of the big group tasting events spread out among the canton’s various towns. To maximize the variety and amount we could try, we decided to visit one of these group tastings, in a town called Conthey.
Our journey to Conthey took about two hours from our apartment and required a transfer from train to bus in Valais’s capital Sion. We briefly considered changing our plan and going to Sion’s tasting instead when we saw a bus with the marquee “Wine Garden” pull up, but a huge crowd of people loaded onto the bus, so we decided to stick with our original plan in the hopes that Conthey would be less hectic. Our bus dropped us off at the bottom of a hill about a quarter mile from the wine tasting. Walking to the tasting first took us through a small city festival, with arts and crafts for sale, live music, and food booths. Then we walked/climbed up a steep hill and easily found the wine tents in a small park.
As we expected, the wine tasting was a small and laid back event with just six wine producers present. Most of the booths had at most a couple people in line, and some were completely empty. For 15 francs we could taste as much as we wanted, and at the end if we didn’t lose our wine glass we could return it for 5 francs. We stumbled through speaking in French at the first four booths we visited (it’s surprisingly difficult to come up with pretentious adjectives to describe wine in a foreign language), then came to a booth with a man who wanted to practice his English.
As we tasted our way through his vineyard’s offerings, he filled us in on the wine-making process, and life in Valais. It was interesting to learn that the Swiss are experimenting with drones to deliver pesticides to grapevines, the recent trend in Switzerland has been to produce less wine per square meter to focus on quality, and that the canton of Valais is going to vote on whether cows can have horns. We talked so long, that we ended up trying all the wines he had for tasting, and were starting to feel the effects. So we said goodbye, and went to the food tent for a sausage and to rest for a while.
As luck would have it our new English speaking friend took a break as we were eating, and brought a bottle of wine with to fill our glasses. Melissa and I had a nice time continuing our conversation, and afterward felt like we had tasted enough wine. For all his hospitality we bought two bottles of wine from him, and then he threw in a third bottle for free.
Caves Ouvertes was a fun Saturday excursion and good practice for next Saturday, when our canton of Vaud holds the same event, and Melissa’s aunts and grandparents will be here to join us.
