The 23rd annual fair takes place in Annecy, neighbouring France.
Location: place Annapurna, Annecy, France
Link out: http://www.annecy.fr/index.php?idtf=367&TP…
Date: 6 Nov 2010
Tens of imported beers – in bottles and tab, children’s activities, music and more in this Swiss festival. (No wonder the Swiss imported 90 million liters of beer in 2009!).
Location: Le Landeron, Switzerland
Link out: http://www.fdlb.ch/Fete_de_la_Biere/Bienvenue.html
Start date: 12 Aug 2010
End date: 14 Aug 2010
Title: Rive folies in Nyon
Location: Nyon, Vaud
Link out: Click here
Description: Music, food and lots of enterteainment in Nyon.
Start Date: 2010-06-17
End Date: 2010-06-19
Title: Food fair
Location: Morges
Link out: Click here
Description: Different stands for food from all over the world.
Date: 2010-06-13
Title: Vegetarian picnics by the kitchen garden
Location: Coppet
Link out: Click here
Description: Vegeterian gourmet buffets on Sundays, at the Chateau de Coppet. Registration required: +41 22 776 1028.
Start Date: 2010-06-13
End Date: 2010-09-26
Location: Coppet
Link out: http://dimanchesdupotagercoppet.over-blog.com/p…
Start date: 13 Jun 2010
End date: 27 Jun 2010
Title: Wine and art
Location: Morges
Link out: Click here
Description: See original works by regional artists exhibited in wine cellars, and drink some wine. An interesting concept in Morges.
Date: 2010-05-31
Title: Open wine cellars and wine festival
Location: Lake Geneva region
Link out: Click here
Description: Enjoy the wine festival and meet wine growers in the Lake Geneva region.
Start Date: 2010-05-21
End Date: 2010-05-24
Title: Vegetable oil fest
Location: Severy, Vaud
Link out: Click here
Description: For information: +41 21 800 3333.
Start Date: 2010-05-21
End Date: 2010-05-25
Title: Wine barrel making & open wine cellars
Location: Mont-sur-Rolle
Link out: Click here
Description: Taste wine and see some serious wine barrel making à la Suisse!
Date: 2010-05-22
Title: Open wine cellars and wine festival
Location: Canton Vaud
Link out: Click here
Description: More than 300 wine cellars open to the public in more than 8 wine domains around Canton Vaud.
Start Date: 2010-05-21
End Date: 2010-05-22
Title: Wine tasting and open caves
Location: Mont-sur-Rolle
Link out: Click here
Description: Open caves, wine galore and more!
For info: Caveau@vins-mont-sur-rolle.ch
Start Date: 2010-05-21
End Date: 2010-05-23
Title: Swiss White wine tasting
Location: Morges
Link out: Click here
Description: ‘Tis the season for whites to be tasted.
Start Date: 2010-05-06
End Date: 2010-05-08
Title: Colza oil festival – Flower power
Location: Severy, Vaud
Link out: Click here
Description: A weekend to find out all about a Swiss favorite: Colza oil. For more information call: +41 21 800 3333.
Start Time: 18:30
Date: 2010-05-07
Title: Arvinis wine fair, California wines
Location: Morges
Link out: Click here
Description: This year the Arvinis wine festival is showcasing California wines. Wine tasting, courses and more are planned for this 5-day festival.
Start Date: 2010-04-14
End Date: 2010-04-19
Title: Wine fair and sale
Location: Annemasse, neighboring France
Description: This is the annual fair of wines from Bourgogne and Jura. In front of the Annemasse train station, SNCF, Martin Luther King Hall.
Saturday 20 March from 10:00 to 20:00
Sunday 21 March from 10:00 to 18:00
Start Date: 2010-03-19
End Date: 2010-04-21
Producing Swiss Emmental cheese (image, Swiss Cheese Marketing)
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss are the world leaders in eating cheese and for 2009 the country set a new record for per person consumption, 21.4 kg. New 2009 figures from the Swissmilk show that in economically tight times the Swiss ate more, not less cheese, with consumption rising by 240g per person. The preference is for fresh, medium-hard cheeses.
Swiss cheese consumption 2009 (table, Swissmilk - click on image to view larger)
Those numbers are not as reassuring as the Swissmilk, the national milk farmers’ federation would like because foreign cheeses accounted for the increase, with Switzerland consuming 310g more of imported cheese, per person, and 70g less of Swiss cheese.
Appenzeller was the big loser, with consumption falling 10.5 percent, and Emmental was the big winner, up 7.5 percent. Switzerland Cheese Marketing will lead a country-wide publicity campaign to push the quality of Swiss cheese to consumers, starting in May 2010.
Title: Wine tasting classes
Location: Near Rolle, Vaud
Link out: Click here
Description: White wine tasting and comparison taught by wine expert Claude Jaccard.
Date: 2010-03-23
Title: Fanfare (food, drinks and party)
Location: St-Livres
Link out: Click here
Description: Friday 12 March in Lavigny – cocktail, dinner and music from 19h (tickets available)
Saturday 13 March in Lavigny – sold out
Sunday 14 March in St-Livres – brunch 10h-14h (tickets available)
For information: +41 21 809 5756
Start Date: 2010-03-12
End Date: 2010-03-13
Title: Wine tasting
Location: Morges
Link out: Click here
Description: Roussillon tasting, take the train and enjoy!
Start Date: 2010-03-03
End Date: 2010-03-06
Title: Schlaraffia, wine and gourmet fair
Location: Schlaraffia
Link out: Click here
Description: The wine and gourmet fair of Eastern Switzerland.
Start Date: 2010-03-11
End Date: 2010-03-14
Elisabeth Pasquier, Francois Murisier, Vinea's director and president, 2010
Sierre, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Vinea, a Valais-based association that was created 15 years ago to showcase the wines of Switzerland’s largest wine-producing canton, has grown into a major player in the wine world, far beyond its original Valais borders. Tuesday evening the group gave itself a new structure to better place it to educate the world about Swiss wines.
The wine business accounts for 15 percent of agricultural products, about half that of Swiss dairy products, including cheese. Agriculture is 1 percent of Swiss GDP (gross domestic product) overall, well behind industry and the service sector, which includes banking. But wine remains an important part of Swiss society, especially in French-speaking areas where vineyards often dominate the landscape.
New statutes were approved for Vinea to reflect the growing number of activities and work it does outside canton Valais. One of the country’s best-known wine experts, François Murisier, was named president of the revised association, with Elisabeth Pasquier, the former managing director, named to the new post of director.
Murisier is the former head of wine grape growing and oenology at the Swiss federal centre, Agroscope Changins-Waedenswil. He is an expert with the OIV (International Organization of Vin and Wine) and president of the scientific committee of Cervim, a mountain wines organization.
New barcode reader with speech introduced by Swiss store Migros for visually impaired customers
Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Supermarket chain Migros is offering visually-impaired and blind customers a world first: vocal readings of food labels, using a special scanner for food labels. “This will help make us more autonomous,” says Martin Mischler of the Union suisse des aveugles, Migros’s partner in the project.
The new reader will help customers identify a can of fruit versus a can of vegetables, for example, in the store but also once the goods are on the shelf at home.
Migros and the l’Union suisse des aveugles, a non-profit group for sight-impaired people, are using a tool created by Bones SA, a Swiss engineering firm that develops and sells products and projects to make life easier for the visually impaired.
The new label-reading system will be available in Migros shops in March 2010, with the readers distributed by the Union suisse des aveugles. A number of the readers will later be made available to shoppers in some Migros stores, on a test basis.
Title: Cake and pastries buffet
Location: La Chaux, Vaud
Link out: Click here
Description: Imagine eating lots of pastries on a lazy Sunday afternoon. That is what the Auberge Communale in La Chaux offers each Sunday until May.
Start Date: 2010-02-07
End Date: 2010-05-02
Valais grapes nearly ready for harvest, September 2009
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The first analyses of the 2009 Swiss wine vintage, in November, showed them to be very promising, but the federal agriculture department’s end of the year gift to the wine business 31 December was its confirmation that 2009 was not just very good, but excellent: one for the records in terms of both quality and quantity.
The quality of 2009 Swiss wines deemed “excellent”
The growing season came close to perfection for most producers. A long, cold, snowy winter was followed by an April that brought the vines to life quickly. The summer was hot and dry, starting in June, which led to quick flowering in most wine regions. July was humid, followed by a dry spell that allowed the grapes to mature well. And it remained warm and dry throughout the harvest period, to growers’ delight.
Switzerland produces more red than white wine, including some of the world's top Pinot Noirs. Here, one at the Mondial du Pinot Noir competition.
The only problem was a patch of golf-ball size hail that hit some areas in July, notably around Bougy and Aubonne. But Raymond Paccot, one of that area’s top growers, told GenevaLunch today that even for those hit by hail it was an exceptional year. About 50 percent of his grapes in the Bougy-Villars hillside were lost and 20-30 percent around Féchy, but “it didn’t matter in the end because the rest of the season was so good that we were able to make up for it.”
Grape-growing regions harvested 1.1 million hectolitres (1,000 litres, a common unit of wine production measure) of wine grapes, some 35,000 more than in 2008. The growing area remained stable, with 14,841 hectares of vines.
Switzerland’s four largest wine-producing regions in 2009, with over 100,000 hectares of vines:
Canton, growing area in hectares / wine produced (hectolitres)
- Valais, 509,234.38ha / 449,733.54hl
- Vaud, 381,861.48ha / 290,500.91hl
- Geneva, 129,213.00ha / 94,098.53hl
- Ticino, 103,982.90ha / 58,987.09hl
Hot weather grape harvest 2009, La Colombe, Fechy
Golf-ball-sized hail 23 July, outside Ikea in Allaman, Vaud
Nyon, Switzerland (Geneva, Switzerland) – Swiss wines, vintage 2009, will be among those loved and remembered by consumers, thanks in large part to a warm, sunny and dry August that was enjoyed equally by humans and grapes. The 2009 official wine results are in, from the federal agricultural station Changins, near Nyon, and the news is good. The harvest, which began in September and for the most part ended in mid-October, was “very good”, with “exceptional” ripening conditions in August and early September. The one exception is some areas in canton Vaud’s La Côte region, hit hard by 15 minutes of hail 23 July, which wiped out some vine parcels’ (growing areas) grapes.
Grapes developed fully, with little rot occurring, thanks to dry weather in most parts of Switzerland: an “exemplary” situation where all climactic conditions came together to keep the grapes healthy.
Barry Callebaut supplies chocolate-makers: Salon du Chocolat, Paris, October 2009
Barry Callebaut's chocolate supply samples, Paris Salon du Chocolat, 2009
Zurich / Vevey, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The global economic crisis may have served up stress and more stress to many people, but the Swiss chocolate industry appears to be sailing happily through it: Barry Callebaut sales in 2008-2009 rose 4.1 percent in a world market that contracted by 2 percent last year. The Zurich-based company is the world’s largest supplier of top-quality cocoa and chocolate products. Profits also rose, 18.5 percent for net profits in local currencies, but the strong Swiss franc had a negative impact.The company reported 11 November on its fiscal year, which closed 31 August 2009.
Nestle at the same time has offered chocolate lovers good news from its research laboratory near Vevey: 40 grams of dark chocolate a day, one small square, has been shown in tests to reduce stress levels. The research is published in the Journal of Proteome Research.
Robert Taramarcaz, left, in a theatre production in August 2009 at his winery: top Chasselas producer
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Stefan Gysel from Hallau, canton Schaffhausen, age 32, has been named the Swiss Winemaker of the Year as part of the Grand Prix du Vin Suisse. A record 2,117 wines were entered, a 15 percent increase over 2008 for Switzerland’s main and only independent national wine competition. This is the third year of the competition, which evolved from an earlier national awards programme.
Two other top awards were given, the Vinissimo prize, which went to Alain Gerber of Hauteville, canton Neuchatel, for his Prélude 2007 in the category “wine with residual sugar” and the Swiss Bio prize to Reynald Permelin from Domaine de la Capitaine in Begnins, canton Vaud, for his Johanniter 2008 in the category “other single-grape white wines.”
Gold winners in the 11 categories of wines are:
Pinot Noir grapes, basking in the sun in early September, Valais
Two weeks of sunshine will make all the difference: Valais grapes 5 September
Geneva/Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The grape harvest of 2009 has wine producers in Switzerland smiling, even though grape picking begins in earnest in Valais, the early starter and the largest wine-producing canton, only this weekend. It has been an excellent year for growers, comparable to 2005, one of the best years on record, say growers: adequate rain at just the right times and generally dry conditions in most of the country’s grapegrowing regions, with the harvest size comparable to last year’s.
Title: Local wine and produce fair
Location: Delémont-Courtemelon
Link out: Click here
Description: The third annual contest of local wines and produce of the region.
Start Date: 26 Sep 2009
End Date: 27 Sep 2009
Ghana: local chief holds out cocoa used in Cadbury chocolate (photo: Cadbury)
Geneva/Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – US-based Kraft Foods went public with an offer for Cadbury, UK confectioner, after the British company refused its proposal. Kraft is offering £10.2 billion for Cadbury, which formally turned down the proposal Monday 7 September, noting in a statement that “the board is confident in Cadbury’s standalone strategy and growth prospects as a result of its strong brands, unique category and geographic scope and the continued successful delivery of its ‘Vision into Action’ plan. The board believes that the proposal fundamentally undervalues the group and its prospects.” Shares in the company rose strongly Monday.
