Another year has passed! I have grown a year older, and so have my wines in the cellar. For some this is good, for others not so much. It is also time once again to take stock. To settle accounts with what a year has brought or not, debit and credit. In a wine column, of course, this refers to wine. Just then the bells ring, for two minutes, early chimes, it is six in the morning. Some are annoyed, sleep disturbed, others are pleased: tradition in a former farming village that has become an agglomeration municipality. The bells may - the church authorities write - "call for reflection and a brief pause in our hectic way of life, and not be enjoyed primarily asleep." No, I am not asleep, I am sitting in front of the screen trying to reflect - memories of the past year.
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| At the end of the year, we take stock. What wine memories have remained? (Photo: Peter Züllig) |
There is also a lot of wine that has remained in my memory. For example, the first serious encounter with Australian wines on site, exactly one year ago, in the Barossa Valley. Or a last encounter with Thomas Mattmann, the still young winemaking talent who passed away. Joys and sorrows, also in the field of tension between man and wine. And what is that? Computer shows: "Hard disk soon full!" Slightly annoyed, I open the directory - what can I delete, what do I have to keep? There I come across a rather bulging folder: "660 items, 2.92 gigabytes, author: unknown, title: add; comments: empty". Only the name of the folder provides the clue: "Birthday Trip". The author is me. In fact, there are 660 photos from a trip through Swiss wine regions, unanalysed, filed just as they were taken. Slightly taken aback, I open the pictures, one after the other, 660 in number. Many motifs repeat themselves, others are not quite sharp, blurred or tilted, often with disturbing elements such as construction cranes or power lines. But the memory returns.
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| Memory of a wine trip. It begins in a little-known wine region% in the canton of Aargau. (Photo: Peter Züllig) |
It begins with a relatively small wine region. So many times I have rushed past it on the motorway or by train on the way to Basel or Bern. The Aargau, 150 years ago still a large wine region, has long since shrunk to about ten percent of its former area, barely 300 hectares in size. There are still some beautiful wine villages, such as Elfingen, Eldingen, Tegerfelden, also historically important places like the ancestral home of the Habsburgs, which once shaped European history. In the Wiss-Trotte in Tegerfelden, a small wine museum beckons, which is (of course) closed. After all, it didn't wait for my birthday. So next time: observe opening hours, book in advance. There hasn't been a next time yet, Aargau has remained on the debit side of my balance sheet today. Now there's no time to lose, our birthday destination is far to the west, on Lake Geneva. Lavaux is the jewel among the Swiss vineyards. On the way there, however, something unforgettable entered the credit account.
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| The best fish dinner of the year in the restaurant "Au trois Amis" (Three Friends) - high above Lake Biel. (Photo: Peter Züllig) |
A fish dinner on a terrace high above Lake Biel, unplanned, simply the result of hunger. High above Ligerz - actually quite hidden - I probably enjoyed the most beautiful and best and happiest meal of the past year. In an inn called "Au trois Amis", which already has a secret in its coat of arms: "O√9Ami[mi as a musical note]24494" - and which beckons with the most appropriate of all advertisements: "The eyes wander from the nearby vines to St. Peter's Island to the Alps, back to the glittering lake. The view of the sky shows what the soul has long known: the winds blow favourably, the sun caresses the skin - the world means well with us."
What does Goethe make Faust exclaim: "Will I say to the moment: Stay! You are so beautiful." I don't want to quote any further, we have to go on, Lake Neuchâtel is still ahead of us, the next larger wine region.
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| Ligerz - a wine region on Lake Biel. St. Peter's Island (also called Rousseau Island) is offshore. (Photo: Peter Züllig) |
And here we are again in an area steeped in wine history, a good thousand years old or even older. At the time of the Thirty Years' War, even the Swedes are said to have discovered the palatable wines, "which they obtained in such large quantities that new vines were planted everywhere". At least that is how the chronicler writes it. Today Boudry - like so many other former wine communities - is an industrial town. As if lost, the "Tour de Pierre" towers over the lake and invites you to taste and get to know the saucisson, one of the most famous Neuchâtel specialities: a smoked raw sausage to be cooked, poked into a straight beef intestine. Of course, they didn't wait for my birthday here either. The tower is closed. It remains for me to marvel at the monument, built in 1876 in neo-Gothic style, and to be reminded that the building blocks come from medieval towers and churches, so they are much, much older... Another entry on the debit side of my balance sheet.
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| Not a defence tower% but a 19th century wine cellar% of the "Tour de Pierre" on Lake Neuchâtel. (Photo: Peter Züllig) |
The real experience, quasi the "magic moment" of a trip to the wine region of Lavaux is the view from the heights near Pouidoux over the vineyards and Lake Geneva, all the way to the Savoy Alps, which are often covered in fog. We just manage to really enjoy the moment before night falls. A quote by Charles Ferdinand Ramuz, the poet of this region, spontaneously comes to mind: "You only feel at home where you want to be buried. I don't want to be buried yet, but I do want to be at home here. An entry under Have is done, the thunderstorm that announces itself may come. The balance is even. Still to come is the next day. It's off to the influence of the Rhône in the lake. Famous names flit by: Epesses, Yvorne, Dézalay, Aigle... and famous vineyards. The new Vinorama in Riva, in the smallest municipality in the canton of Vaud (0.32 km2), is open, but we don't have the time, we think... on... another note in the debit balance.
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| The panorama of Lavaux on Lake Geneva towards the Valais. (Photo: Peter Züllig) |
We are in the Chablais, the easternmost wine region of Vaud. The vineyards, often laid out in scree slopes, are chalky, stony, even gypsum. In Bex we reach the border with Valais, Switzerland's largest wine canton. A paradise for wine lovers, especially for those (like me) who also love the exotic. There is hardly a wine region where so many autochthonous grape varieties can be found (and are also cultivated) in such a small area. We are at the gateway to the Valais, in Martigny. High above the town (population 6,000) are not only mountains, but also vineyards. They look down almost a little defiantly.
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| Vineyards in the mountains. Vines near Martigny in the Valais. (Photo: Peter Züllig) |
They stretch up along the valley and valleys to Visperterminen, the highest vineyard in Europe. Here I have to close the wine balance: other sensory pleasures beckon, paintings by Monet in the Fondation Pierre Gianadda, one of the most beautiful art museums in Switzerland. There the balance has closed completely, clearly in the have. Memories in pictures! A few years ago, a question was asked in the forum of Wein-Plus, which wine goes well with "La Pie" by Claude Monet, a winter landscape with a magpie. The answer came from an active forum member at the time: "I think a not too heavy Pinot Blanc would go well with it." My answer today: "A Chasselas, for example the elegant yet distinctively powerful Maison Blanche from Yvorne or La Fosse from St. Saphorin." Pictures - not words - have shaped this record. Purely by chance, because the hard drive was "almost full". Even the debit has dissolved - has become a credit. A credit - fixed in the soul.
Cordially
Yours sincerely