Iconic Swiss Varietals Tasting with Paolo Basso: Jean-René Germanier Vétroz Cayas Syrah du Valais Réserve 2009

In this post I continue the tale of the DWCC14 Iconic Swiss Varietals tasting led by Paolo Basso, the World's Best Sommelier. The wines reported on previously are listed at the bottom of the post. The wine treated herein is the 2009 Jean-René Germanier Vétroz Cayas Syrah du Valais Réserve AOC Valais. This was not the third wine tasted at the event. I have diverged from the tasting order so that the AOC Valais wines can be presented sequentially. As I have done in the previous posts, I will provide background on the region, winery, and wine prior to providing the tasting notes.

The Valois AOC has been described previously. Vétroz is a commune within Valais with vineyards on the lower hillside, below the commune of Conthey, and on the alluvial cone of the Lizeme in Balavaud. The south-facing hillside vineyard covers an area of 144 ha and is sited on black shale (formed from marine sediments deposited between 160 and 170 million years ago) and glacial moraines. The Balavaud portion is 67 ha in size and its soil is comprised primarily of large pebbles.

The primary varieties grown in the commune are:

• Reds
• Gamay (21%)
• Pinot Noir (18%)
• Syrah
• Gamaret
• Whites
• Fendant (Local name for Chasselas -- 23%)
• Amigne (16%)
• Petite Arvine
• Johanisberg
• Muscat
• Malvoisie

Wines with the following characteristics are allowed to refer to themselves on the label as Grand Cru de Vétroz:

• White varieties: Chasselas or Amigne grown in the 1st zone
• Red varieties: Pinot Noir or Gamay grown in the 1st or 2nd zones
• Vine age: > 7 years
• Vine density: 7000 vines/ha.

Location of Vétroz wineries (Source:www.grands-crus.ch)

Jean-René Germanier was founded in 1896 by Urban Germanier and until the 1940s, wine was the hallmark of the enterprise. The establishment switched its focus to liqueurs in the 1940s but re-oriented to the grape beginning in the 1980s. It is currently helmed by third-generation enologist Jean-René Germanier and his nephew Gilles Besse. The average age of the vines is 35 years and the estate is working towards organic certification. The winery produces a number of classic AOC Valais wines as well as a number of blends and Reserve wines.

The Cayas Syrah du Valais is 100% Syrah made from grapes grown on shale soil in Balavaud, Vétroz, and Chamoson et Fully. The grapes are macerated for 10 days prior to a 20-day alcoholic fermentation. Malolactic fermentation and aging occur in 50% new oak barrels.

Tasting Notes -- On the nose balsamic, vanilla, blackpepper, meat, gaminess. On the palate, round, dusky, sweet sensation. Ripe fruit. Savory mid-palate. Rich, young tannins. Great acidity. Long, intense finish with vanilla and balsamic aftertaste.


Previous Iconic Swiss Varietals Tasting posts
Leyvraz St-Saphorin Grand Cru Les Blassinges 2012
St-Jodern Kellerei Visperterminen Veritas Heida 2012 AOC Valais


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Iconic Swiss Varietals tasting with Paolo Basso: St-Jodern Kellerei Visperterminen Veritas Heida 2012 AOC Valais

One of the highlights of the 2014 DWCC Conference was a tasting of Iconic Swiss Varietals with noted sommelier Paolo Basso. I reported on the background of the tasting and the first wine tasted in a prior post and will cover the environment around the second wine and the tasting notes in this post. The second wine tasted was the St-Jodern Kellerei Visperterminen Veritas Heida 2012 from the Valais AOC.

Valais AOC is the largest Swiss wine region, stretching 120 m along the right bank of the Rhone river and encompassing a surface area of 5259 ha. Fully half of the country's wine is produced therein.

Source: swisscellars.com

The climate is continental with cold winters, hot summers, and an autumn warmth which -- in combination with the Foehn wind -- favors the maturation of late-ripening varieties. The region is one of the driest in Switzerland with annual rainfall averaging 600 mm.

The main portion of the vineyard is situated in the 50-km space between Mantigny and Sierre where elevations range between 450 and 800 m but, in the commune of Visperterminen, elevations can reach up to 1150 m, some of the highest vineyard elevations in Europe. The vineyards are owned by a total of 23,000 landholders and are located on a variety of soil types. The primary varieties in the region are Pinot Noir, Chasselas, and Gamay.

Located at the entrance to the Visper Valley, Visperterminen is home to some of the highest vineyards in Europe. The lowest vines are planted at 600 m on the banks of the Vispa from where the vineyard rises steeply -- defined by short terraces with dry stone walls -- to elevations in excess of 100m. The south-facing slopes cover 42 ha of limestone-infused clay and sand soils.

Vineyards of Visperterminen. Source: swissinfo.ch

Visperterminen is also famous for the Heida variety, a small. low-yielding grape that is also known as Paien in the region and Savagnin blanc and Traminer farther afield (Other synonyms includee Nature and Gelber Traminer). This ancient grape, whose origins lie in the sub-alpine regions of eastern France, is grown own-rooted or grafted in Visperterminen and its wines are sometimes referred to as the "pearl of the Alpine wines."

Now back to the wine. The Heida Veritas is produced by St. Jodern Kellerei, a coop established in 1980 to produce and market the wines of the growers in Visperterminen and Visperta. The coop has 500 members and produces 18 different wines in 400,000 bottles from 300,000 liters of wine.

The grapes for the wine are grown on a 0.4-ha plot on lightweight, dry moraine and slate soils. The 100-year-old, Gobelet-trained vines are planted at 9000 vines/ha and are farmed after an integrated production philosophy.

The grapes are destemmed and macerated for 8 hours prior to fermentation. Fermentation is conducted in concrete eggs using selected yeasts. After fermentation the wine is aged on the lees for 6 to 8 months with lees-stirring. The wines are gently filterd prior to bottling.

Notes: This wine exhibited ripe fruit on the nose with pineapple, lychee, overripe peaches, banana, and dried aporicot being the most notable. Rich and warm in the mouth with a savory palate. Round with a long finish. Elegant.

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Iconic Swiss Varietals tasting: Leyvraz St-Saphorin Grand Cru Les Blassinges 2012

Paolo Basso has consistently been one of the world's best sommeliers and has two World's Best Sommelier awards (2010 and 2013) as official recognition of that standing. I had never had the opportunity to meet him, or attend one of his tastings, so I jumped at the opportunity to register for a tasting titled Iconic Swiss Varietals that he would be hosting at the DWWC 2014 Conference in Montreux, Switzerland.

The tasting was scheduled for the final day and would be the last official event before the Grand Finale Dinner at the Montreux Casino. The high level of interest and participation in the Grand Tasting (hosted by Jancis Robinson and Dr. José Vouillamoz) and the subsequent Rare Swiss Varietals tasting (hosted by Dr. Vouillamoz) had pushed the Paolo Basso tasting way behind schedule and placed him in the position of being between attendees and their drinks. But when I got into the room, there he was sitting unfazed and calmly waiting for everyone to put in their appearance so he could get started. And that calmness and cool efficiency pervaded the entire tasting. It was truly a wonder to behold. One of the highlights of the conference for me.

Due to my lack of familiarity with the wines, producers, and regions from which the grapes are drawn, rather than provide the tasting notes en masse, I will cover each of the wines in a separate post and then provide the tasting notes at the conclusion of that treatment. The full complement of the wines tasted is shown in the picture below.

The first wine tasted was the Pierre-Luc Leyvraz St.-Saphorin Grand Cru Les Blassinges 2012, a white wine made from Chasselas grapes grown in the Blassinges plot of AOC Lavaux in the Vaud canton of Switzerland.

First the AOC. AOC Lavaux is an 800-ha vineyard stretching from Montreux to Lausanne -- the largest contiguous vineyard plot in Switzerland -- whose vertiginous vineyard terraces have merited inclusion (2007) on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Source: lake-geneva-region.ch/en/gastronomywine/

St-Saphorin is a section within the larger vineyard with calcareous loamy soil that rests on a base of chalky rock comprised of pebbles joined by sandstone cement. Pierre-Luc farms 3.5 ha of vines in St.-Saphorin, 2.8 ha of which is planted to Chasselas. The 3.5 ha is distributed between 10 non-contiguous plots, one of which is Les Blassanges.

Chasselas is the most important, and most widely planted, variety in Switzerland where it yields a light-bodied wine with good acidity and aging potential. The wine tasted was a blend of several Les Blassinges parcels.

Notes:
Lees and licorice on the nose. Paolo thought that this was a typical expression of the grape and wine. A sense of RS. Weighty with slight salinity. Supple wine. Paolo though that the faint effervescence enhanced the acidity. Low-to-medium body. Round with licorice and citrus on palate. A pleasant wine with a medium to long finish.


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Ticino (Switzerland) wine region: The physical environment

I have written extensively about the Merlot wines of the Right Bank and Tuscany (see here, for example) but was unaware of how interwoven into the fabric of the Ticino wine region the variety was until the DWCC14 Press Trips were announced. Given my love of the grape, I was extremely pleased to be selected as part of the 10-person team that would tour the region under the auspices of Ticinowine, the wine promotion arm of Ticino Wine and Vine.

Ticino -- called Tessin in both French and German -- is a 2,813-km² (1,086 square-mile) Swiss canton located on the southern slopes of the central Alps. Italian-speaking (an artifact of rule by the Dukes of Milan until its conquest by the Swiss Confederation in the 15th Century), except for the German-speaking municipality of Bosco/Gurin, the canton is almost completely surrounded by Italy.

Source: wineandvinesearch.com

The canton is divided into two geographic regions by the dividing line of the Monte Ceneri Pass: Sopraceneri, encompassing the Ticino and Maggia Valleys; and Sottoceneri, the region around Lake Lugano. The Sopraceneri lands were formed by glaciers and streams and, as a result, are more mountainous and rife with terminal moraines and alluvial cones and is acidic. The soils are rather stony with a full complement of silt and sand. The Sottoceneri soils are limestone and deep, rich clays.

Ticino's climate has been described as "modified Mediterranean." The Alps in general, acts as a barrier such that the climate in the northern parts of Switzerland are different from the south. Ticino, situated as it is to the south of the Alps, receives some Mediterranean air from time to time and can reach temperatures of 21.3℃ in the summer with an average annual temperature of 11.7℃. Ticino's 2100-2286 hours of sunshine per year is the highest in Switzerland. The warm, moisture-laden air from the Mediterranean deposits a lot of its mass as it rises to soar over the Alps, leaving Ticino with the highest annual rainfall (1750 mm) in all of Switzerland. The Froehm is a warm wind which blows over the Alps from south to north but, on occasion, reverses itself and blows from north to south, impacting Ticino. Ticino is prone to fierce storms and the risk of hailstones has prompted grape-growers to install anti-hailstone nets.

A total of 1000 ha of Ticino land is dedicated to grape growing today, down from over 7000 ha pre-Phylloxera. As shown in the map below, the northern wine growing areas hug the river valleys while the southern ones, though centered around Lake Lugano, do venture into non-aquatic areas. Elevations in the region vary between a low of 200m and a high of 600 m, with the average vineyard located at approximately 325 m above sea level.

Source: wineandvinesearch.com

There are a total of 3600 grape growers in Ticino and they provide the inputs to the 200 producers and the Coop who produce the region's wines. Vineyards are generally small, steep plots of between 3 ha and 6 ha and yields are at 70 hl/ha. Fifteen companies produce 80% of the wines produced using all purchased fruit or a combination of owned and purchased fruit. The Coop produces 1 million bottles annually.

The primary grape varieties planted in Ticino are shown in the table below.

Red Grapes	White Grapes
Merlot (85% of all plantings)	Chardonnay (2.3%)
Pinot Noir (1.5%)	Chasselas
Bondola (1.7%)	Semillon
Cabernet Sauvignon	Sauvignon Blanc
Cabernet Franc	Kerner
Gamaret	Riesling x Sylvaner
Garanoir	Pinot Gris
Ancellota	Pinot Blanc
Pinot x Cabernet

Merlot, far and away the most dominant variety, suits the Ticino environment because it ripens early and ahead of the weather change which can occur in October. It was first planted experimentally in 1906 and, since that time, research work done by the Cadenzzo Agricultural Center of the Swiss Federal Research Station has adapted the variety to Ticino climatic conditions.

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