Grape variety
Heida
Heida, Païen in the Lower Valais: the Savagnin Blanc of Europe’s highest vineyards at Visperterminen. Origin, character, where it grows and pairings.
- Colour
- White
- Origin
- Identical to Savagnin Blanc of the Traminer family; recorded in Valais since the 16th century
- Grown in Switzerland
- About 230 hectares, nearly all in Valais; Visperterminen up to about 1,150 metres
- Typical aromas
- Citrus, exotic fruit, dried apricot, walnut, rye bread
- Classic pairing
- Raclette, Valais dried meat, Cholera, mature Alpine cheese
- Synonyms
- Païen (Lower Valais), Savagnin Blanc (Jura), Traminer
Heida is the Upper Valais name, Païen the Lower Valais name, and the grape behind both is Savagnin Blanc, the old variety of the Traminer family that makes the Jura’s Vin Jaune and whose aromatic mutation is Gewürztraminer. Both Valais names mean roughly the same thing, heathen or pagan, a nod to the age of the vine: it was already growing in the canton before the vineyards were Christianised, says the legend, and it is certainly recorded in the Visp district in the 16th century.
Its home is Visperterminen, a village above Visp whose terraced vineyards climb to about 1,150 metres and are regarded as the highest contiguous vineyard in Europe. The slope faces south-west, the air is dry and the Föhn warms the autumn, so the grape ripens where almost nothing else would. For a long time a large share of Valais Heida came from this one village; since the 1990s the variety has spread through the canton, to Sion, Sierre and the Lower Valais, and Switzerland now grows about 230 hectares, almost all of it in Valais.
Savagnin is a small-berried, thick-skinned grape that keeps its acidity at altitude and builds sugar slowly. The wine is dry, full and firm, with citrus and exotic fruit when young, then dried apricot, walnut, honey and a note that tasters often describe as rye bread or hay as it ages. It is one of the few Swiss whites that genuinely improves for ten years or more. Visperterminen’s version is usually tense and mineral; wines from the warmer central Valais are broader and softer. A few producers make sweet, late-harvested Heida, and some experiment with the Jura method of ageing under a veil of yeast.
Heida is the white to drink with the hearty food of the Upper Valais: raclette, Cholera, the vegetable and cheese pie of the Goms, Valais dried meat with rye bread, mature Alpine cheese, or a roast chicken with herbs. Serve it at 10 to 12 degrees, a little warmer than a Fendant, so the aromas open.