Wine region
Vaud
Vaud is Chasselas country: about 3,750 hectares from La Côte through Lavaux, a UNESCO site, to the Chablais, with the Grands Crus Dézaley and Calamin.
- Vineyard area
- about 3,750 hectares, Switzerland’s second-largest region
- Main grapes
- Chasselas (about 60 per cent), Pinot Noir, Gamay, Gamaret, Garanoir
- Soils and climate
- limestone and moraine, temperate; Lake Geneva stores warmth, the Föhn blows in the Chablais
- Signature wines
- Chasselas from Dézaley, Calamin, Féchy and Yvorne
- Landmark
- the Lavaux terraces, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2007
With about 3,750 hectares of vines, Vaud is Switzerland’s second-largest wine region and the only one where white grapes clearly dominate: nearly two thirds of the area is white, and Chasselas alone covers about 60 per cent. Vaud wines traditionally carry the name of their village rather than the grape; order an Yvorne, a Féchy or a Dézaley and you will almost always get a Chasselas. The vineyard falls into six areas: La Côte between Geneva and Lausanne is the largest with about 2,000 hectares, Lavaux east of Lausanne has about 800 hectares, the Chablais in the Rhône valley around Aigle and Yvorne about 590, plus Bonvillars and the Côtes de l’Orbe in the north and the Vully on Lake Murten, shared with Fribourg.
Lavaux is the heart of it. Between Lausanne and Montreux, terraces held up by hundreds of kilometres of dry-stone walls rise steeply from Lake Geneva; the growers speak of three suns, the one in the sky, its reflection on the lake and the warmth the walls give back at night. The vines go back to Cistercian monks: in 1141 and 1142 the Bishop of Lausanne gave the abbeys of Hautcrêt and Montheron the slopes of the Dézaley, which they cleared and planted. After the Reformation, in 1536, they passed to Bern and to the City of Lausanne, which still farms the Clos des Abbayes and the Clos des Moines today. Lavaux has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2007.
Dézaley and Calamin are the two Grands Crus of Lavaux and the most famous sites in the country; Dézaley gives a Chasselas with smoke, honey and a minerality that lets it age for years. The Chablais, with its limestone soils and the Föhn, yields fuller wines at Aigle and Yvorne, La Côte lighter, more floral ones. Among the reds, Pinot Noir and Gamay dominate, often blended as Salvagnin, together with Gamaret and Garanoir, bred in 1970 at the federal research station in Pully from Gamay and Reichensteiner. At the top of the hierarchy stand the Grands Crus and the Premiers Grands Crus.
In Vevey, the Confrérie des Vignerons holds the Fête des Vignerons roughly once a generation, most recently in 2019; the first crowning of the best growers took place in 1797, and since 2016 the festival has been on UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage.
What to drink: a young Chasselas from La Côte with fillets of perch, a mature Dézaley with fondue or an aged Gruyère, an Yvorne with smoked trout, a Gamay or Salvagnin with papet vaudois and its saucisson.