Mondial du Pinot Noir 2011 in Sierre

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – I’m just about recovered from the three days of intensive work 19-21 August as a judge at the international wine competition in Sierre, the Mondial du Pinot Noir.

We tasted and noted 1,314 wines from 21 countries around the world; we were 50 judges from 30 countries who worked for three mornings judging about 45 wines each day, during three hours.

One of 12 top world competitions

The competition is organized by the Vinea Association, which either runs or handles the technical side of a number of international competitions, and I can only say the team behind it deserves a big cheer for impeccable organization. This is one of 12 international Vinofed world competitions that have the double patronage of the OIV (international vines and wine organization, based in Paris) and the UIOE, the international oenologists union.

We worked at tables of five, with each of us noting the wines using computers; when the clock time is up the table president announces the average note and if we have very different notes or a wine is close to, but not quite at the score for a medal, we have a brief discussion to try to come to an agreement.

The system works remarkably well, and most of the time the judges’ notes are surprisingly close.

When they are not, the discussions can be lively, are always interesting, and the wine benefits from a closer, second tasting.

All the Pinot family members show up

Most of the wines are Pinot Noirs, but for the past three years the competition has included other Pinots, with Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc: Pinot Noir 65% and a special category “Pinot Noir world champion” 10.5%, still rosé wines 7.8%, Pinot Gris 7.2%, Pinot Blanc 3.8% and under 1% for the categories of sparkling white, sparkling rosé, and sweet/dessert wines.

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A resident of Stofland Township fixes the roof of his home (photo, ©2011 Marcus Bleasdale/VII for Human Rights Watch)

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – South African vineyards and fruit farms are accused in a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) of abusing their workers who, it says, are some of the worst-paid workers in the country.

Ripe with Abuse: Human Rights Conditions in South Africa’s Fruit and Wine Industries,” was published Tuesday 23 August by HRW.

The head of Wines of South Africa (Wosa), Su Birch, reacted to the report, saying in a Wosa statement that it is biased: “She said the 96-page report, purporting to accurately document conditions on farms, had used a questionable basis for the selection of many of the respondents interviewed in the study, while interviews with workers had not been independently verified and nor had employer reaction to allegations been sought. As a result, it was extremely difficult to respond to specific allegations highlighted by the study.”

The report, she added, “disingeneously plays down the significance of the wine industry`s substantial direct and indirect contribution to improving working conditions through organisations such as the Wine Industry Ethical Trade Association (WIETA), and Fairtrade. It also makes scant mention of empowerment initiatives. With positive examples of the progress made in redressing past wrongs rendered virtually inaccessible to all but the most serious readers, the report negates the work of those who should be allowed to stand out as role models to their peers.”

The report, HRW says in its press release, “documents conditions that include on-site housing that is unfit for living, exposure to pesticides without proper safety equipment, lack of access to toilets or drinking water while working” and they are often prevented from forming unions.

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Barbara Meier during a break in the judging at Cervim, mountain and "heroic" wines competition in Courmayeur Italy, in July 2011

Update Monday 22 August  ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – It’s with a very heavy heart that I write of the death of Barbara Meier-Dittus, age 47, the former editor of Vinum, European wine magazine based in Zurich. She was murdered Thursday night by her former companion Rui A, 43, a Portuguese chef and owner of the Pagoda Restaurant in Baden Zurzach, who then killed himself.

The deaths took place at her apartment in Baden, canton Aargau. Her three daughters, under age 20, were asleep in the apartment but were awakened by the shots, and they found the bodies.

Aargau police say they had been phoned in the past for domestic violence; the pair had been a couple for several years, but had recently split up.

We all imagine that such “crimes of passion” happen only to people we don’t know, to people who are not in charge of their lives. We don’t think domestic violence will take the lives of women who are smart and savvy, with successful careers. Barbara was very much in charge of her life, or so it appeared to those (and we are many) of us who knew and admired her professionally.

I’ve just spent three days as a judge at the Mondial du Pinot Noir wine competition in Sierre, Valais, to which Barbara had been invited, as a wine taster par excellence. She had declined, saying she wanted to spend more time with her children this summer.

Sunday morning the 50-plus wine experts stood for a minute of silence, for our lost colleague, but she was never far from the minds of the many who knew her, throughout the weekend.

The three girls, in their teens and early twenties, were awakened by the gunshots after midnight and discovered their mother’s body on the veranda of their apartment, according to Blick, which mentions that Barbara was recently known as a writer of a Coop wine column. The daughters are being provided with counseling and care by Aargau police.

Barbara Meier doing what she loved best, talking with an up-and-coming Val d'Aosta winemaker, Didier Gerbelle, in July: Barbara, always keen to know more, asked about his family's history

Barbara was far more than just a wine writer and editor: her knowledge of wine was rich and deep, she had a real passion for sharing her knowledge and she was excited about a number of upcoming projects.

I for one saw her as a fine example of what women can contribute to the wine industry. In addition to her very good understanding of wines, she was chic and elegant at all times, well spoken and she spoke several languages. She trained as a sommelier in France and she frequently served as a judge at international wine competitions.

About a month ago I spent a day with Barbara exploring a couple vineyards in Italy on the fringes of the Cervim European mountain wines) competition in Val d’Aosta, where we were both judges. We had ample opportunity driving around in her car to discuss wine, her resignation from Vinum, her future projects and the balance between motherhood and a professional life. I was particularly struck by her enthusiasm for teaching women more about wine, and for courses she was planning to organize. She talked about working as a wine magazine editor, but also about leaving in order to have time and energy to do more creative work.

We visited a beautiful vineyard in Val d’Aosta and talked at length with the energetic young winemaker whose products we both admired enormously. Her comments on his wines were so astute that I appreciated the day as time spent with a master.

What a great loss she is, to more people than she could ever have realized. My heart goes out to her daughters: may they know all their lives that she would never have chosen to leave them.

Yves Paquier, wine taster par excellence, and Wine Tourist of the Year 2011

LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Yves Paquier is a name well known in Switzerland to students of wine at hotel schools, the university at Changins near Nyon and sommeliers or others expanding their knowledge to include Swiss wines, many of whom he has taught over the years. Paquier has just been acknowledged for his significant contribution to a rapidly growing field, wine tourism in Europe.

Winetourisminfrance, France’s magazine devoted to the field, created the award in 2009 to recognize those who have contributed significantly to the development of wine and tourism, in particular who has ” drawn attention to the rich vine and wine cultural heritage: the landscapes, geology, historical sites and cultural events, wines and their cultures, the men and women who work the vines.”

Paquier was cited for his numerous recent activities:

• creating AEFO, the European Association for Wine Tourism Training, in 2009, to provide more training and consulting help in the field of wine tourism
• involvement in creating La Voie des Sens BAM (Bière-Apples–Morges train), a tourist train to discover the region’s products, in the area between the Jura mountains and Lake Geneva
• developing, in 2010, La Route des Vins du Mont Blanc, a wine and culture project designed to put a spotlight on the historical, cultural and heritage value of the vineyards of Bugey, Savoie, Jura, Valais, Vaud, Geneva and Neuchatel, and the Val d’Aosta.

The award was given in July at the Balma Venitia winery in Beaumes de Venitia, between the Dentelles de Montmirail and Mount Ventoux in France.

Winetourisminfrance says of Paquier that he “is an exceptional wine taster. In 1994 he won the prestigious Chapeau Noir, given to the winning wine taster at the celebrated Concours des Millésimes du Jean-Louis, and his services are much in demand by major wine competitions. He is also the driving force and the technical director behind the Concours des Sept Ceps, a wine competition that brings together wines from the seven regions around Europe’s highest mountain, the Mont Blanc: Bugey, Savoie, Jura, Valais, Vaud, Geneva and Neuchatel, and the Val d’Aosta.”

Yves Paquier lives in Saint Prex, in the heart of the La Côte wine region in canton Vaud.

Note: Yves was my first white wine tasting professor, at Changins, and he has proved since to be a wonderful source of information about the wider world of wine as well as a rich teacher of how to appreciate the more narrowly focused but rich world to be found in a fine glass of wine.

Sexual hormone (pheromones) diffuser in a Swiss vineyard

BERN, SWITZERLAND – The headline from Bern, “25 years of sexual confusion in Switzerland” is a clear winner for waking up editors, but those in the world of wine will be less surprised than others: sexual confusion aimed at grapevine pests has significantly reduced the use of chemical insecticides.

The sexual confusion method used by wine grape and other fruit growers to fight their main ravagers was put into use in 1986 and today it’s used by nearly 60 percent of grape growers and more than 50 percent of other growers, in particular berry and orchard farmers, to good effect.

Switzerland has become the world leader for using this method to fight fruit pests, in terms of the percentage of planted surface area that employs it.

The principle behind it is simple: large quantities of pheromone, the female sexual hormone of the pests, is diffused throughout the fruit-growing area, and the males, overwhelmed by the presence everywhere of this naturally produced hormone, fail to find and fertilize the females. The number of ravagers is, as a result, greatly reduced.

The method is precisely targeted at specific pests so remains completely inoffensive to other creatures and plants.

The efficacity of nematode pheromones diffusion, bottom, has been greater than that of insecticides, top, at keeping down the grapevine pest population

The federal research station, Agroscope Changins-Wädenswil ACW, reports that the method has proved efficient after 25 years, with vineyards that diffuse nematode (a grapevine worm) pheromones having a far smaller number of the pests than vineyards that use chemical insecticides. Nematodes have become increasingly resistant to insecticides.

The hormonal pest-fighting approach initially ran into some difficulties because the system was relatively expensive and there were problems installing it, but over time the cost has gone down and the system has been simplified. Today, walking through grapevines in Vaud and Valais in particular, you can quickly spot the small containers at the ends of vines. The federal research station says it is now working on biodegradable products that will be yet cheaper and easy to set up.

French-speaking Switzerland’s vineyards, the largest wine grape growing area in the country, has virtually entirely converted to the sexual confusion method.

Sula Wineries Raza Shiraz won silver at the 2010 Mondial du Syrah

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The Geneva Festival, which runs until 14 August, is giving Lake Geneva residents and visitors a rare opportunity to sample Indian wines.

The Indian Tourism and Development Corporation’s campaign, “Great Mélange-the Incredible India Journey”  includes the Maharashtra and Karnataka wine regions, with wines from 9 Indian wineries available at the Wines of India stand erected by the Indian Grape Processing Board.

The red, white, rosé and sparkling wines available are from Sula, Four Seasons, York, Mercury, Vintage Wines, Fratelli Vallone, Zampa and Grover cellars.

India’s wines are likely to gain more attention on the world stage with the country recently becoming the 45th member nation in the OIV, the international wine organization whose members are countries, reports the Indian Wine Academy.

Clos de Chillon: the wine from one of Switzerland's most visited tourist attractions has more than souvenir value: it's a fine example of a Vaud Chasselas

MONTREUX, SWITZERLAND – A bit of news tucked away in the list of interesting summer events at the Chateau de Chillon near Montreux: the Clos de Chillon, an excellent Chasselas, will be aged and bottled at the castle starting this year. The wine has been made for the chateau foundation by the Badoux winery, famous for its Aigle les Murailles Chasselas, among others on its large wine list.

Some 40 barrels have just been deposited in the first room of the underground cellars, the chateau’s newsletter tells us. These will hold the 2011 vintage.

The wine is made from the chateau’s own vineyard, 300 metres from the castle. Daniel Dufaux, Badaud’s head oenologist and president of the Swiss Oenologist’s Association, will make the wine on the site.

Clos de Chillon sells at the castle shop for CHF19 a bottle. It is dry, elegant and shares features of the two regions it straddles, the excellent growing areas of Chablais and Lavaux. It’s the perfect crisp aperitif wine and in a classic pairing, it’s excellent with grilled fish.

More than 330,000 people visited the castle in 2010, making it one of Switzerland’s top tourist attractions, with over 70 percent of the visitors from abroad.

Bern publishes a Guide to Tests for Buying Alcohol, part of training efforts for staff in hotels, restaurants, shops

BERN, SWITZERLAND – Switzerland’s experience with regular tests in the market to see if customers are asked to show that they are old enough to buy alcohol is paying off, says the government.

Ten years of regular checks in 23 cantons has refined the system so that more tests are carried out in the areas that pose the biggest risk, and yet the results for 2010 show an improvement: under-age buyers succeed in getting alcohol in one out of four cases where they try, an improvement over the previous rate of one in three. Seven cantons show a rate of one in five.

Beer and wine cannot be sold to anyone under 16 in Switzerland and hard liquor sales are prohibited to anyone under age 18. Bern has been working closely with the restaurant and hotel business as well as alcohol distributors and retailers to develop four training modules to help staff deal with young people trying to buy alcohol illegally.

Tests carried out in 2010 show that ID cards are now asked for in 75 percent of cases. Since 2000, more than 15,000 tests have been carried out and they show that the success rate for buying illegally has fallen from 83.5 to 26.8 percent, on average.

The government says the results show the value of checking IDs, but more needs to be done in the area of education and prevention to make it harder for young people to get hold of alcohol.

Source: European School Survey Project on Alcohol (click on image to view larger)

New study reinforces earlier data, scoring substances based on harm they cause

London, England (GenevaLunch) - UK media headlines Monday 1 November are mainly about bombs and another potentially explosive subject: which substance is the most damaging, among drugs and alcohol. Alcohol comes out tops, followed by heroin, but before wine lovers panic that this will lead to another French-style effort by some health authorities to ban the beverage or at least ban advertising, the story deserves a closer look.

In particular, the headlines don’t make it clear right away that alcohol’s dubious winning title is part of a strong case made for the British government to reclassify abused substances. The UK classification system serves as a basis for public policy but a respected group of scientists has been arguing that the current classification system is woefully out of date.

Alcohol has a double-whammy impact under their proposed classification, with its record for harm to both users/abusers and people around them. The widespread availability of alcohol, compared to drugs, is a factor. The study measures nine categories of harm to oneself and seven categories of harm to others. They scored each of 20 drugs, including drink, for several forms of harm: addiction, death, mental functioning, loss of relationships, costs to the economy and community.

“Our findings lend support to previous work in the UK and the Netherlands, confirming that the present drug classification systems have little relation to the evidence of harm. They also accord with the conclusions of previous expert reports that aggressively targeting alcohol harm is a valid and necessary public health strategy,” the authors state.

Professor David Nutt of Bristol University co-authored the study, published 1 November in The Lancet, which confirms earlier findings by Nutt, published in 2007 in The Lancet, that alcohol and tobacco are among the most harmful of abused substances, based on the risks they carry for society. The new study, more complex, responds to criticisms in 2007 of measurement tools.

Nutt was then the chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) in Britain and he argued for a government reclassification of drugs. He was fired by then Home Secretary Alan Johnson in late 2009, an action that created an uproar in British health and science circles. He and colleagues then formed the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, the group behind today’s paper. The Lancet published a scathing editorial in February 2010, suggesting that the British government had some serious work to do to repair “the damaged relationship that exists between the government and its scientific advisers”.

The new Lancet paper, notes the Guardian, argues that “Alcohol is the most dangerous drug in the UK by a considerable margin, beating heroin and crack cocaine into second and third place, according to an authoritative study published today which will reopen calls for the drugs classification system to be scrapped and a concerted campaign launched against drink.” The newspaper notes at the end that the political debate over how to handle legal and illegal drugs and drink “proved politically damaging to Labour”, which lost the 2010 elections in Britain.

The most harmful drugs to individuals, according to the report: heroin, crack and methylamphetamine. The most harmful to others: alcohol, heroin and crack cocaine.

Most harmful when the two are combined: alcohol, followed by heroin and crack.

An upswing in teenage excess drinking in recent years in the UK has become a hot political issue. The UK ranked third in a 2009 European survey of the top five binge-drinking countries: