In spite of sharing borders with such viticultural heavyweights as France, Italy, Germany, and Austria, and boasting an equally storied white wine culture, Switzerland’s credibility as a purveyor of cheese, chocolate, and complicated monetary instruments has actually always eclipsed its standing as a manufacturer of great white wine. A
tiny Alpine nation whose wine industry is made up of countless little, independent growers who earn their incomes tending the perilously steep, low-yielding slopes of its six special growing regions, Switzerland ekes out barely over one million hectoliters of red wine each year. Compared to Italy’s 50 million hectoliters, or even Germany’s 8 million, that amounts to a minuscule quantity– less than half the quantity essential to please domestic need. As an outcome, the Swiss maintain a time-honored tradition of consuming the bulk of their white wine within their own borders, with less than two percent of the nation’s output allocated for export.
It must therefore come as not a surprise that Swiss wine has never commanded more than a minimal presence in the U.S. market. According to Neal Rosenthal, the creator of Rosenthal Wine Merchant, one of the first U.S. importers to present estate-grown, small-production Swiss white wines to American audiences, several related aspects have conspired to perpetuate this persistent absence of presence– not least of all, the wines’ scale of production, strangeness, and cost.
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“Our Swiss white wines are genuinely spectacular, however no one ever really paid constant attention to them,” says Rosenthal. “For one, thanks to the strength of the Swiss franc, Swiss red wine tends to be costly. Second, the majority of the vineyards are planted on such high balconies that you require to work them by hand, and the yields are incredibly low. Lastly, you have all these unknown regional varieties that nobody has ever become aware of, so there’s a lot of education involved.”
The vineyard at Cave Caloz is collected by hand. Photo thanks to Rosenthal Red wine Merchant.
There’s a factor, nevertheless, why he never gave up on Switzerland. Whether the nuanced intricacy of a timeless Chasselas or the chiseled pureness of a brambly Cornalin or Humagne Rouge, the nation’s biggest wines absolutely stand toe-to-toe with the world’s finest, including those of its illustrious neighbors. As Rosenthal puts it, “It’s an uphill struggle, however we stay with it because our company believe in the red wines.”
Increasingly, he’s not alone in that judgment. Within the period of simply a few years, it has actually been possible to find, if not a full-blown boom, then at least an obvious uptick of market interest in Switzerland. As a new crop of boutique importers searches the nation searching for the next generation of wine making skill– a group that consists of Polaner Selections, Schatzi Red wines, Convivium Imports, and European Cellars, among others– the bottles that have actually emerged from this mission have finally begun to declare their put on wine lists and retail shelves across the U.S. This development is assisting to expand a greater understanding of Switzerland’s historic importance as a wine making nation, using stateside drinkers a taste of the country’s complete depth and diversity for the very first time.
The New Class of Swiss Red Wine
This process of discovery comes at an important inflection point in the trajectory of the Swiss white wine market. With little financial reward to offer their white wines abroad, the nation’s manufacturers never required to look beyond their own backyards to look for service. While that remains as real today as it was for generations past, a little however growing variety of wine makers have come to see that insularity not as an advantage but a liability.
“We have actually been spoiled by the truth that we do not require to export,” says Chandra Kurt, one of Switzerland’s leading red wine authors, who also produces a dynamic range of Swiss wines under her own name. “Since the competition has actually been missing, we’ve been a bit too content to rest in our convenience zone, but over the past 5 to 7 years that has been quickly changing.”
Chandra Kur, among Switzerland’s leading white wine writers and the winemaker for her eponymous winery. Image courtesy of Chandra Kur.
Braking with tradition, Kurt signs up with a broadening lineup of producers who have actually made it their objective to demonstrate Switzerland’s possible to the remainder of the world. That list includes legends such as Marie-Thérèse Chappaz and Domaine de Beudon— Switzerland’s excellent leaders of biodynamic farming– Domaine de la Colombe’s Raymond Paccot, Domaine Jean-René Germanier, and the Vaud’s Louis Bovard, along with rising stars like Martin Donatsch(based in the small valleyof Bündner Herrschaft ), the Argau ‘s Tom Litwan, and Hans Peter-Schmidt of the increasingly biologist Mythopia project, to name just a few. In many cases, such as that of Catherine Cruchon of the Vaud’s Domaine Henri Cruchon, they’re taking the reins of their household estates with the objective of transforming to organic or biodynamic farming and accepting a more minimalistic approach in the cellar. Fortunately, their work has begun attracting the attention of people like Daniel Hess, the Swiss-born, Los Angeles-based owner of Convivium Imports. Founded in 2020, the company has made Switzerland’s budding natural wine scene a huge part of its focus.”There is this generational shift taking place today, and it’s difficult to overlook, “says Hess.” However just if you’re hanging out in Switzerland, driving around and learning more about the scene, will you get pointed to where it’s all occurring. Whenever I return, I discover brand-new producers and labels turning up all over the country.”A lot of the examples he’s introducing to West Coast drinkers display an intimate awareness of the trends presently driving the wine world’s progressive program. Consider, for instance, winemaker Markus Ruch’s Amphore
Klettgau, a tasty, skin-fermented, handle the Müller-Thurgau grape, grown in the gravelly, limestone soils of Klettgau, just across the German border. Organically farmed, spontaneously fermented , and bottledsans sulfur, it’s the precise sort of”lo-fi” fare one would expect to encounter in the natural white wine bars of Paris or Copenhagen– all without sacrificing the classical sophistication and openness that represent Switzerland’s calling card. That Alpine Feeling To anybody knowledgeable about the newest advancements in customer taste, Switzerland’s growing recognition will appear long past due. With a diverse grab bag of almost 200 native grapes– from Chasselas
, Cornalin, Humagne Rouge,
and Petive Arvine to Gamaret, Completer, Müller-Thurgau, Heida, and more– its heroic, high-altitude viticulture, and its increasing accept of natural farming, Switzerland ticks off all the right boxes to resonate with the present in-crowd of sommeliers and industry tastemakers. It doesn’t harm that this extremely exact same set of professionals has actually currently gravitated towards the fashionably cool-climate mountain red wines of areas such as France’s Jura and Savoie regions, Germany’s Swabia (aka Baden and Württemberg), and Italy’s Valle d’Aosta and Trentino-Alto Adige. Sheep graze in the vines of Cave Caloz. Photo courtesy of Rosenthal White wine Merchant. All of these viticultural hot zones share something in common: a limit with Switzerland. Exhibiting the exact same high-altitude stress in between fruit, acid, and vibrant minerality, Swiss white wine representsa natural next step for purchasers who have actually currently jumped
on this Alpine bandwagon. However at the very same time, Switzerland’s importance transcends simple style. A point of
convergence for numerous of the world’s excellent red wine cultures– French, Teutonic, and Italian– the nation’s own heritage runs simply as deep. This significance isn’t lost on Kevin Pike, the owner of Schatzi Wines, who now includes 3 Swiss manufacturers in his portfolio. More than a fringe footnote or interest, he has actually come to see the nation as one of Europe’s a lot of important destinations for white wine. “What drew me to Switzerland is the reality that it represents the headwaters of the white wine regions that I really like,” he describes.”The Rhine River begins there, and sodoes the Rhône. So if you’re working your method back to the origins of these enormously foundational white wine cultures, Switzerland is the endpoint at which you’re going to arrive.” From this perspective, among the most significant historical obstacles to Switzerland’s viability in the U.S. market no longer appears quite so difficult: the concern of expense. While no one would characterize Swiss wine as inexpensive, few countries provide such a consistently high level of quality for the cash. Victoria James, the wine director and partner at Cote Korean Steakhouse in New York City and Miami, aptly summarize the relevant calculus.”
Maybe Swiss white wines are expensive if you’re searching for a$ 10 bottle, but not when you’re buying for Michelin-starred dining establishments here in New York,”she says.”Honestly, we’re talking about this amazing nation squeezed in between France, Italy, and Germany. If you’re a sommelier and you’re not taking notice of Switzerland, then what the hell are you doing?” Dispatch Sign up for our acclaimed newsletter Don’t miss out on the most recent beverages industry news and insights– delivered to your inbox weekly. Zachary Sussman is a Brooklyn-based wine writer whose work has actually appeared in Saveur, Wine & Spirits, The World of Fine Wine, Food & White wine, and The Wall Street Journal Magazine, amongst lots of others. A regular contributor to Punch, he was formerly picked as the Champagne Louis Roederer Emerging Red Wine Author of the Year. He is the author of The Vital White Wine Book( 2020)and Sparkling Wine for Modern Times( November, 2021)