Bigger harvest, good quality, lower consumption – stocks rise

Geneva wineries open day, 2011: a crowd-pleaser

BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss drank slightly less wine in 2011, with consumption down by 2.3 percent to 2.72 billion hectolitres, a reverse after 2010′s increase of 3.2 percent.

Consumption has remained relatively stable overall, fluctuating between 2.07 and 2.86 for the past 10 years. But the population has been growing, which explains a gradual fall in per capita consumption.

Foreign wines continue to dominate the market, with Swiss wines representing 37 percent of wine consumed. Italy is the biggest supplier, followed by France and Spain, with 37, 23 and 21 percent respectively of imported wine.

Italian, French and US wine sales were all lower than the previous year.

French, Italian and US wine sales down

Consumers drank less Swiss, but also less foreign wine, and imports of red wine were down, although there was a very small increase in imports of white wines, figures published 19 April by the Federal Office of Agriculture (Ofag) show.

The Swiss in 2011 drank a total of 2.72 billion hectolitres of wine. (1 hectolitre = 100 litres and is the standard international wine sales measurement)

Swiss drink about 40 bottles of wine a year per inhabitant

The most recent per capita figures are from a 2009 Ofag report that showed overall Swiss alcohol consumption gradually falling, from about 11 to just under 8.5 litres of pure alcohol a year between 1989 and 2008.

Figures for wine per inhabitant fell during those 19 years, from just under 6 litres of pure alcohol to just over 4 litres. This is equal to about 400 units of alcohol, per year. A bottle of wine has anywhere from about 8 to 12 units of alcohol so the figures represent very roughly 40 bottles of wine a year per inhabitant.

Stocks rising: less wine drunk, harvest up

New plantings of Merlot were up 20 percent in 2011; Merlot shown here was part of a testing session at Vinea in Sierre, 2011

Stocks rose by the end of last year, thanks to a combination of lower sales and a good year, with a harvest 8.6 percent higher than in 2010.

“Favorable meteorological conditions, in particular the warm and dry spring and an exceptional autumn, had a positive impact on the quality and the volume of Swiss wines, in the end,” the Ofag report states.

Red grape varieties accounted for 58 percent of vines in 2011, white 42 percent. The three main grape varieties were Pinot Noir, Chasselas and Gamay.

They lost ground, however, to Merlot, up 20 percent, the Swiss grape Gamaret, up 9 percent and Chardonnay, up 4 percent.

A meal I enjoyed in China in 1985, as guest of village "cadres" in Hunan province, began with sugared tomatoes served with freshly roasted peanuts (that's me on the right)

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Yesterday a friend and I recalled frog’s legs and snails. She has become a vegetarian but says she’s always loved meat and stopped because she was eating too much of it. She waxed poetic over the remembered delicacy of frog’s legs. I recalled that my father, a true blue American, was horrified when he visited me in Paris, where I was living several years ago. They really do eat snails and frog’s legs, he said with a shudder as we read the menu.

And then I remembered serving buckwheat pancakes with maple syrup for Sunday brunch to some Chinese journalists who had just arrived in Geneva in 1988. They were polite about the meal but must have suffered.

Now a friend, a Canadian of Chinese extraction who has struggled with but enjoyed multicultural eating for all her life, sends me this from Fuchsia Dunlop, one of my favourite food writers because she turns Chinese cuisine into something both extraordinary and understandable: “Culture Shock” from the 2005 archives of Gourmet magazine. Dunlop takes some of her Chinese chef pals out for a top of the top French dining experience in California.

Here’s a sample, and there is plenty more food for thought and vice versa in this delightful, long article:

“There are strong taboos I haven’t anticipated. The most striking is the visceral dislike of rawness. In China, the consumption of raw foods was historically viewed as a barbarian habit, and most everything is still eaten cooked. The chefs are horrified by the rare, bloody meat they are offered in America. And after two days of buffet lunches at the school, they are even tiring of salads…”

Vin Jaune, a master’s palette for the palate

1774 Vin Jaune from Arbois, est. price at 15 May auction: CHF40-50,000

BERN, SWITZERLAND – Eight generations of the Vercel family in Arbois, France, across the Jura mountains, have held onto a 1774 bottle of the region’s famed Vin Jaune, storing it in the family’s vaulted underground cellar.

Now the 87-centilitre bottle, with its typical Burgundian rounded belly and long neck, goes up for auction in Geneva 15 May.

The official site for Jura wines notes that the oldest Vin Jaune tasted in recent memory was a 1774.

It also points out that only a few older bottles are the exception to the Clavelin rule: Vin Jaune bottles hold 62cl because this is the amount of wine left after the unusual winemaking process reaches the bottling stage. The special bottle which holds this today is called the Clavelin.

Vin Jaune is famous for the extraordinarily complex range of aromas it develops as it ages.

There is nothing subtle about it and newcomers to wine generally find it hard-going, although for connoisseurs this is one of the heights of the art of making wine.

Its unusual maturing process is responsible for giving it such a deep, rich set of notes.

Once the wine’s slow fermentation is finished, it must be kept a minimum of six years and three months in oak barrels that are not topped up, as most wines are.

The wine is mostly protected from oxidization and contact with the air by a thin veil (the voile) of yeasts that forms on the surface.

What the buyer can expect from his 1774 Vin Jaune

Christie’s, which is hosting the auction at the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues, enthuses about its truly well-aged wine:

“One of the bottles from the same batch was tasted in 1994 by 24 professionals at Château Pécauld in Arbois, and was declared as ‘excellent’. The golden-amber coloured nectar, with flavours of nuts, spices, curry, cinnamon, vanilla and dried fruits, was awarded 9.4/10 points. Made to last centuries when of good quality, and nicknamed ‘the wine of kings and the king of wines’, this extraordinary bottle of Vin Jaune is probably the oldest unfortified example of what is to be still an astounding wine.”

It is the most expensive single bottle at the auction, with an estimated price of CHF40-50,000. But wine buffs with deep pockets will have other options at the sale, expected to bring in CHF2 million, including: a batch of Mouton-Rothschild from 1945 (estimate CHF65,000-85,000), a 12-bottle lot of La Tâche 1959 (estimate: CHF40,000-60,000), and an “incredible collection comprised of 338 bottles and 43 Magnums of vintage Château Latour wines”.

If you're cooking your own Easter eggs to colour, use an egg cooker to save 75% on energy (bonus: they cook better)

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Environmental group WWF would like to see us stop wasting 75 percent of the electricity we use to hard-boil some 900 million eggs every year. The group doesn’t comment on our consumption of 100 hard-boiled eggs each, but it does says we could prepare them more efficiently.

The group asked Salt (Swiss Alpine Laboratories for Testing Energy Efficiency) to test and compare several methods. Their results (left to right in the graph):

1) egg cookers, which use little water and turn off once the eggs are cooked;

2) eggs cooked in two-fingers depth of water, lid on and heat turned off as soon as the eggs come to a boil; eggs are left for 20 minutes

3) same as number 2 but on a vitroceramic stove

4) vitroceramic stove using a lot of water and no lid

5) non-votroceramic, a lot of water, no lid

6) induction heat, a lot of water, no lid.

WWF says that unfortunately, most cookbooks still advice people to do it the old-fashioned and energy-inefficient way.

WWF's test for boiling eggs shows small egg cookers are the most efficient and best way to prepare your Easter eggs

Video review now posted on Ellen’s Wine World on Facebook

Leman Noir 2010, winery Philippe Bovet, Givrins, Vaud, Switzerland

BLIND TASTING SERIES WITH ROMANDUVIN on YouTube (search Among the vines, “blind tasting notes”, to see all reviews posted to date)
Léman Noir 2010
Red wine, full-bodied
Grape varieties: Gamaret, Merlot, Cabernet Franc
Winery: Philippe Bovet
Location: Givrins, canton Vaud
Price at the winery: CHF26
Wine reviewed independently in French by Laurent Probst and in German by Gabriel Tinguely

LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Video first posted on Ellen’s Wine World on Facebook. Photos of new Pinot Noir planting were taken 2 April 2012, with Raymond Paccot of Domaine La Colombe and his vineyard team.

One row of new vines replaces two older ones which were planted too closely together to allow mowing by machine.

These are organically grown grapes (“bio” or “bio-dynamique” in French) and correct treatment calls for green plants between the rows, but the height must be strictly controlled for proper aeration and humidity control in the vineyard. Paccot explains (English).

Les Curzilles, Domaine La Colombe, Fechy: dry white blend

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – I’m now posting my tasting notes mainly on a new Facebook page, Ellen’s Wine World. Blind tastings as well as my notes on wines that I’ve tasted at wineries or drinking at home will appear there.

Today’s wine, for example, is a beauty, a new wine that Raymond Paccot from La Colombe will be introducing at Arvinis in Morges in two weeks. It’s a very special white blend, with fewer than 4,000 bottles produced.

Do visit the new Facebook page and “like” it; wine news will still appear here and I will post brief alerts to the wine tasting notes as I post them on Ellen’s Wine World.

Late harvest Castillo cherry coffee beans from Colombia, used to make Naora Nespresso capsules

LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Those beautiful late-harvest wines for which Switzerland is gaining such a world reputation is part of the influence behind a new Swiss-based product, Nestlé’s limited edition Naora Grand Cru coffee capsules.

Nespresso spent two years working with the National Federation of Colombian Coffee Growers “to perfect the technique which was heavily influenced by oenology”, the company notes.

The coffee, with blackcurrant and blueberry notes, comes from Colombia’s northern Andean regions of Santander and Tolima, known for mild, sweet coffees, delicate in the cup due to high growing altitudes.

The following, from Nespresso’s press release, will sound familiar to fans and growers of late harvest wines:

“selected Colombian Castillo coffee bean ‘cherries’ are left to mature on the plant until the last possible moment, giving them a distinct taste.

“The ‘late harvest’ technique requires tight control of growing conditions to ensure the beans are picked when they have reached optimum maturity.

“Even a few days delay past that point can affect the taste and mean the whole harvest is wasted.”

Alexis Rodriguez working with Colombian farmers

Alexis Rodriguez, the company’s green coffee expert in Colombia, says “Our goal was to expand the boundaries of taste to create a totally new flavour. With Naora, we have succeeded in translating a process used in viniculture for the world of coffee.”

Castillo cherries were chosen for the new coffee capsules because, according to Nespresso, “It is one of the rare Arabica coffee varieties that can overripe while staying attached to the branch, thus acquiring a maximum of nutrients and allowing aromas to better develop. Rigorous controls were implemented to guarantee that the coffee cherries could mature until the last possible minute before being picked, while avoiding the high risk of fermentation or mould.”

Timing is crucial and the 1,100 coffee growers who joined the project were obliged to adopt new harvesting practices.

“Initially it was a challenge for them to work so radically differently than they have for generations – picking cherries that are violet instead of red,” says Rodriguez.

San Gil, Santander, Colombia, home to Castillo cherry coffee beans used in the new Nespresso Naora capsules: high enough for late harvests to give good beans

The name Naora combines the English word now with its Spanish translation, ahora.

The coffee capsule’s launch is accompanied by two white porcelain tactile espresso cups and saucers for CHF40, illustrated by French artist Laurence Bost at creative studio Onze Dixieme in Paris.

For those who like their coffee in food form, the company offers a couple of appealing recipes. I confess I haven’t tried this one; I plan to wait for the garden fruit to ripen and we don’t yet have flowers on the branches, so it will be a while.

Recipe: Forest Treat

Ingredients
40 cl fresh raspberry coulis
2.5g d’alginate or 3 gelatine sheets
1 scoop of yoghourt ice cream
1 Naora espresso
2 ice cubes
Equipment
2 Ritual water glasses
1 siphon for the whipped cream or the espuma
Instructions
Mix the raspberry coulis with the alginate or with the gelatine sheets (previously
dissolved in hot water).
Put the mix in a siphon and leave the preparation in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Put 40ml of Naora espresso and 2 ice cubes in a shaker. Shake until the ice cubes
melt.
Serve in one of the glasses.
Put a scoop of yoghourt ice cream in the other glass and make sure that it covers the
bottom and that the surface is flat.
Add the raspberry espuma on top and serve.

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Ellen’s Wine World has just kicked off on Facebook, home to tasting notes, shared wisdom from other Swiss wine fans, videos, photos of Swiss vineyards throughout the year, events on the wine calendar and special daily or near-daily nuggets from Ellen’s Wine Almanac.

That Ellen and this one are the same person, so here is what it happening with Among the vines: I will continue to post wine news and longer features here, and these will be shared on Facebook.

The format on FB works better for a mix of information about wine, but it’s also a far better way to be part of the conversation about what’s happening with wine. A big part of the decision was due to videos working better on Facebook, and you’ll be seeing more of these in coming weeks.

Join the fun!

Mites go for the young, fresh, juicy green bits on the vines, destroying our next fine vintages before the grapes can even get started

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Mites are back, thanks to global warming, and that’s not good news for winelovers. Cheer on those growers out among the vines in coming weeks, as they go after the cheeky little pests who party in hordes and destroy young growth on vines.

The problem is that mites love dry, hot summers, and that’s what we’ve been having. Their enemies, acariens typhlodromes, don’t thrive in that kind of weather.

The ACW (Agroscope Changins-Wädenswil) federal research station says there is a solution. It’s complicated, however, because Mediterranean and other warmer climate pests are also arriving on the scene as temperatures rise, but using insecticides on them could spark a major population explosion of hungry mites.

The good news is that global warming is also bringing new predators of the pests into Switzerland, so researchers are scurrying to find organic rather than chemical solutions, a kind of bug eat bug approach.

Grape growers will have to be flexible enough to keep adapting and to use new spring treatments, says ACW. Its own research aims to find ways to simplify growers’ work in the vineyards, to encourage them to use these natural methods.

Pesticide use in the 50s and 60s in Switzerland, as elsewhere, killed mites’ predators and sparked a population explosion. Switzerland then became a pioneer in integrated production methods for growing wine grapes, an approach that in the past 30 years has dramatically rebalanced pests and their natural predators in Swiss vineyards. The second group has been given the upper hand.

A mite-free world requires continual fine-tuning, it now appears

This ladybug, hiding in a drywall in a Valais vineyard, goes after pests, but even an army of her friends won't be enough to ward off heat-loving mites.

The turnaround has been so dramatic that many younger growers have never seen a mite, according to ACW.

But now, says the federal agricultural research station, mites are on the march and heading for vineyards again, particularly in canton Valais.

Integrated production is the next best thing to organic, known as bio in Switzerland, with its emphasis on ecological balance but without some of the constraints imposed by organic growing regulations.

One organic rule in particular, about not growing grapes too close to vine parcels where pesticides and herbicides are used,  makes it difficult for many Swiss growers to go this route, since they have small parcels in the midst of several others owned by a number of growers.

Swiss growers’ integrated production charter  puts the accent on using organic methods as much as possible; creating a growing environment that encourages bio-diversity; soil preservation over the long term and minimal impact on water, soil and air; protecting the health of vineyard workers while producing top-quality, healthy grapes.

It has been nearly unanimously adopted in Switzerland, with excellent results. A group of Australian researchers studying Switzerland’s use of IP in vineyards in 2007 noted that “adoption by the Swiss wine industry of the Integrated Production (IP) approach to wine grape growing has shown a large increase in biodiversity and a reduction in pesticide and … fertilizer use.”

It turns out that there isn’t one simple solution to maintain this admirable situation, which has also helped growers develop good quality wines, but rather a process of continual fine-tuning in the vineyard.