Beyond Neutrality
Beyond Neutrality
The Many Terroirs of Switzerland’s Chasselas
I signed up for the 2023 vendange in the village of Yvorne in the Swiss canton of Vaud, where grape-picking is an extreme sport. As the peaks of the Alps above caught the first sun, our team of Polish, Italian, and Ukrainian workers braced against the steep slope, backs and knees bent, and cut the Chasselas grapes and dropped them into bright yellow crates. The clicks of sécateurs and the different languages wove through the leaves. The Foehn wind streaming up the Rhône valley from the south warmed our hands. When we lifted our heads, we could see the tiny village of Yvorne and the surrounding Chablais wine region, which runs on either side of the Rhone River as it flows toward Lake Geneva. Under the crags of the Vaud Alps, vines dominated steep slopes; the air smelled of fermenting grapes.By Daniella Blake
Photographs by Daniella Blake
Jacques-Henri Perret, our employer, grew up in Yvorne, where his family has been farming since the 17th century. He is a passionate, hard-working farmer who embodies the features of Swiss wine production: small vineyards, very little mechanization, and a fierce attention to ecology. Jacques’s 2.7 hectares produce enough grapes for 25,000 bottles of Chasselas per year. He sells the grapes mainly to Yvorne’s co-op.
Jacques-Henri Perret among his vines in Yvorne.
In the 1990s, production quotas were introduced to improve quality and avoid having too much wine on the market. For each grape variety, the canton sets the maximum yield using an unusually zoomed-in measure. In 2023, Jacques has the right to produce up to 1.10 kilograms per square meter. Jacques and the government research institute Agroscope consider that for Chasselas the optimal yield for quality and tasting the terroir is, using a more common measure, 90 to 96 hectoliters per hectare.
The high yields may surprise. In France, for example, high-quality wines are produced at yields below, often well below, 60 hectoliters per hectare. In Switzerland, most of the Chasselas wine is still produced from the Fendant Roux subtype, chosen in the 1950s for its productivity and organoleptic qualities. Chasselas by nature has a very low acidity and decreasing the yield could make the acidity collapse. However, producers are showing growing interest in older types of Chasselas to combat the effects of climate change. Jacques and other growers cultivate heritage mass selections from the 1930s and 40s, which have a lower but more regular level of production and higher acidity but are not drought-resistant. So they are also testing other clones as well as drought-resistant rootstocks.
“In the 1980s, Chasselas was denigrated and considered a tasteless, neutral wine,” Jacques said, as we drank morning coffee among the vines. “But it has grown in popularity with the rise in quality. What’s special about Chasselas is that it’s a great revealer of terroirs. It’s known as a vin de terroir rather than a vin de cépage” — known for tasting of the place rather than the variety.
“With thousands of winemakers on small acreages, the possibility of tracking down a unique terroir and an exquisite wine is huge.” Jacques gestured toward the landscape around us. “The taste of Chasselas is all about mountains and glaciers. All of the Chablais vineyards are on lateral glacier moraine. A huge landslide in 1584 means a part of our vines grow on a very young soil of limestone scree. Other vines, down toward the plain, grow on alluvium.
“Much of the wine production, particularly the harvest, is done as it has been since Roman times,” Jacques told us. “Thirty to fifty percent slopes and small plots make mechanized grape-picking impossible. When mechanization is used, it’s gardening machinery and small carriers. Because of this, the Lavaux wine region, just up the road, has earned the unesco label for a landscape that has maintained cultural practices over almost a millennium.”
Chasselas is mainly produced in the region of Vaud; within it six districts have their own Appellations d’Origine Contrôlées (Chablais, La Côte, and Lavaux near Lake Geneva, and Bonvillars, Côtes-de-l’Orbe, and Vully near Lake Neuchâtel), and there are two AOC Grands Crus by Lake Geneva, Calamin and Dézaley.
It was surprising to learn that the name Chasselas doesn’t appear on the bottles. “That’s because we consider that if it’s a white wine, it’s going to be a Chasselas, and if it is another variety then it’s mentioned on the bottle. We consider that we are drinking the terroir not the cépage, so we use the village or vignoble names. This is especially the case in Vaud, whereas in Valais they do put the name Fendant — short for Chasselas Fendant Roux, which refers to how the grapes split when touched — on the labels.”
In the evening, when our daily quota of 3,000 metric tonnes was picked, Jacques called, “Time for the apéro and then fondue! And you’ll see how well the Chasselas goes down!” The dining table was in the garage of Jacques’s parents’ house, surrounded by tools and crates. Jacques held up what looked like shot glasses.
“These 0.55-deciliter glasses are how we serve wine in Switzerland. This is one of the rare places in Europe where we drink white wine for the apéro, the way some people would drink beer. At 12 percent it’s light in alcohol. It’s fun and easy to drink — you don’t have to be a connoisseur. It’s a conversation wine that you can drink for hours, perfect for solving the world’s problems.
“Unlike most white wines, it goes through a malolactic fermentation, so that the strong malic acidity goes to the milder-tasting lactic,” Jacques said. “Hot years due to climate change, however, force us to do only partial malolactic fermentations.”
He took a bottle of Yvorne “Tradition” Sélection Terravin Chablais AOC 2021, made by the cooperative Artisans Vignerons d’Yvorne, which won the Grand Prix du Vin Suisse. “Drink it with this slice of Etivaz cheese, made only in summer of mountain milk and cooked over wood.”
The harvesting team loads grapes during the 2022 harvest.
As we looked out over the red mountains, we took sips of the Chasselas. In color, the wine was a delicate yellow-green; it smelled like sweet limes and hawthorn flowers. The taste was lively: fizzing slightly on the tongue and filling the mouth with a sense of sweetness without actually being sweet. The wine was balanced and crisp and felt like a thirst quencher. It matched well with the raucous jokes of the Polish women and the talk of cultural differences and future dreams of both young and old. (On later days, it also went down well at the midmorning break among the vines, the wine held in one hand and a pair of sécateurs in the other.)
As we sipped, Jacques prepared the fondue with half Gruyère and half Vacherin Fribourgeois cheese. He first rubbed the bottom of the pan with garlic, then splashed in a good dash of kirsch and a generous dash of Chasselas. The garage gradually filled with the smell of melted cheese, and Jacques handed us each a metal skewer and squares of bread.
“To go with the fondue, I’ve got a special treat for you!” He disappeared into the cellar hidden under his parents’ house and came back with a dust-covered bottle. “In Switzerland, people don’t see Chasselas as a wine to keep, but I think they age really well.”
This was a 2011 Saint-Saphorin Vieilles Vignes from Domaine Bovy, deep yellow-gold and more viscous. It smelled of candied fruits and honeysuckle, but the taste was honeylike, of pears and prunes, deep and round. It set off the rich, slightly sour taste of the fondue.
“In general, Chasselas also goes well with our famous Papet Vaudois — leeks and whole potatoes cooked together covered by a layer of double cream topped with our famous cabbage pork sausage.” Jacques smiled slyly. “I recently tried a Yvorne Tradition 2021 with sushi, and it matched very well. Personally, I also think an aged Yvorne goes extremely well with a tiramisù.”
To the north along the lake, Christin Rütsche is a 40-year-old woman who grew up in German-speaking Switzerland, trained as a winemaker at the Changins wine school, and then spent eight years as an enologist and cellar master in Tuscany. Since 2018, she has managed the 1.75-hectare Domaine Montimbert; she was named “Rookie of the Year 2022” by the Gault Millau wine jury. She’s part of the new trend, younger wine professionals who received good training in Switzerland and overseas and aim for a higher quality.
Christin Rütsche of Domaine Montimbert.
Christin spoke with a strange mixture of humility and authority as she gave a tour of the vines above the village of Chardonne. The land fell away toward the lake over stone terraces, with a difference in elevation of 200 meters. A pulley system, like a mine trolley on metal rails, ran up the hill to transport the grapes to her cellar. Some of Christin’s vines were planted at the end of the 1970s; she wants to keep them because their roots go deep. She farms using as few chemicals as possible and thinks the vitality of the soil adds something to her wine. On average, her Chasselas yield is 60 hectoliters per hectare due to very little use of fertilizer, the pruning, and the rocky soil.
She works 70 hours a week in summer, when she has two paid workers; at harvest, her family and friends help. She produces 6,000 bottles of Chasselas a year, selling most of it to private individuals and two restaurants in Chardonne. Just on her small farm alone, she has three terroirs of Chasselas. (She also has other varieties.)
We sat overlooking the lake at a table under a tree laden with quinces. Christin said, “I like acidic wines, and I push toward producing wine as I want to, so that brings variability to the Chasselas taste in the region.”
Lake Geneva seen from Domaine Montimbert.
The first wine was light in color like the air around us. “This one, the Chasselas Chardonne ‘Sud,’ grows on a soil of moraine. Because it hasn’t undergone malolactic fermentation, it’s very lively. It’s quite a delicate flavor and pairs very well with Gruyère and pastry appetizers like flûtes or feuilletées.” It had a delicate citrus taste, more acidic than the wines I’d tasted in Yvorne. Its liveliness mirrored the light spinning off the lake.
“Now, the Chasselas Chardonne ‘Montimbert,’ my favorite. You can’t get tired of it.” She pointed down to the east. “It grows down there on poudingue, a very hard limestone conglomerate with lots of rocks, which drains well.” The “Montimbert” felt less like an easy “conversation wine” and more like something to savor with a meal. She said, “I’d recommend you drink this with lake fish or a quiche, risotto, or asparagus.”
Christin pointed toward the west. “Finally, if you look out there, the land starts to flatten out at the bottom of the slope. The soil there is deeper because it’s caught the soil that has eroded from higher up. That’s where I grow the Chasselas Chardonne ‘Bleu.’ There’s very little distance between the plots, but this wine is different from the others. It’s a more structured wine. It ages in three-to-four-year-old oak barrels, so it is less carbonic than the other two.” The taste was buttery and honeylike with a deep fruit flavor and a long finish. “The taste of Swiss wine is inseparable from the romance produced by the word ‘terroir’ and the sublime scenery,” Christin said.
We sipped our Chasselas while we sat bathed in the white light from the lake. Within 15 minutes, I’d traveled through three different terroirs, geologies, by way of three different wines, all from a small area. It was a shock when a helicopter flew over with a load of grapes, saving time and backs. But it pressed home that this was a unique wine-growing territory, which was unlikely to start exporting in quantity anytime soon, and that the best thing was to be there in person to appreciate the dozens of terroirs and wines possible in the beautiful and complex landscape, which was anything but neutral.●
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