If speed-drinking wine is a crime, I’m guilty – 200km/hour guilty. On the Inter City tilt train from Geneva to Zurich, I open a bottle of Switzerland’s favourite white, Chasselas, a souvenir of a week-long train trip through the country’s vineyards. It never stood a chance of chilling in an Australian fridge, and if so, it would be one bottle of the 1 percent of wine exported by Switzerland – a maths sum that I’m too tipsy to calculate.
The story is that you have to travel to Switzerland to enjoy Swiss wine, and the best way to explore the nation’s wine-growing regions is by train – a rail network that ticks with the precision of a Patek Philippe. I start in Salavaux, a dozy village on the shores of Lake Murton in the vineyards of Vully, 50km west of the capital, Bern. Château Salavaux is my castle for the night. Nearby Cave Guillod produces some of Switzerland’s finest organic wines. I get acquainted with the berries long before I savour their fermented juice.
It’s harvest time, and winemaker Cedric Guillod hands me secateurs and a crate to fill with fruit, my ‘ticket’ for a seat at his tavolata, a lunch table set among four hectares of vines. Harvesting is back-aching work, but I’m proud to fill my box in half an hour. Proud until told the local crew fill eight crates an hour. Each. I would have done better if I hadn’t snacked so much.
The tavolata is exquisite; Filet Mignon with a mushroom sauce is served with Guillod’s berries, which look even better bottled. My favourite is ‘Celeste’, a blend of Chasselas and Pinot Gris with cheeky hints of pear, lychee and lemon. I have two glasses.
My crate, still within eyesight, tells me I’ve earned three. With the peaks of Jungfrau and the Eiger just visible on a hazy horizon, wine in the vines is a magical experience.
ROMANS AND MONKS
Two trains and two hours later, the next view is the Lavaux vineyard terraces that swaddle the shores of Lake Geneva. Raise a glass to the Romans! They brought vines to the region 2000 years ago, and cheers also to the Benedictine and Cistercian monks who artfully crafted the stone walls and terraces from 1079. It would have been a colossal job, but wine was the reward and surely a great motivator.
Centuries on, vines cling to the same steep slopes. Chasselas is the undisputed sovereign here. This is their home turf; you will see the grapes at every turn. Lavaux is also home to a rare variety, Plant Robert, fondly known as ‘Robert Plant’ – perhaps in the hope that the old Led Zeppelin lead singer will pop by for a glass. It’s a dark red wine that’s spicy and peppery, a ‘Stairway to Heaven’ for the palate!
Taste a drop at Domaine Potterat, a 600-year-old cellar in the village of Cully, where the centrepiece is an 1881 manual timber press, one of few still used every day of harvest. It takes a village to work it, but the hand-pressed juice, I’m told, is superior. Sorry, Chasselas, in a valley where white wine dominates, I’ve got a ‘Whole Lotta Love’ for Potterat’s Syrah, which has aromas of black pepper and liquorice. Robert Plant, you should visit. And sing your song.
Back on tracks, it’s a 10-minute rail ride from Grandvaux to Vevey, one of the ‘pearls’ of the Swiss Riviera. It’s a beautiful town. A Swiss Travel Pass gets you a free ride on the funicular railway that ascends 400m through the Chardonne vineyards to the foot of Pèlerin for huge views.
Walk back down. It’s an excuse to stop at Chardonne village for refreshment – wine if you must!
My liver needs a break. A scenic trip on the Vigezzina-Centovalli Railway is the perfect cleanser.
The train leaves from Domodossola, just over the border in Italy, and tracks to Locarno, Switzerland.
It is one of Europe’s loveliest train rides and it’s free with your train pass (with a charge, about $9, if you want to reserve a seat. You do.)
The picture windows are ginormous, and for two hours I cross two countries, 83 bridges and viaducts, ravines, vineyards, mountains, meadows and forests. And I love that they sell their own branded beer, Birra 100, created to celebrate 100 years of the railway, Vigezzina. Sorry liver, I gotta try it. Nice.
SWISS BEAUTY
Morcote is a place that is so beautiful it has government protection. It’s pretty, all right. Named the most beautiful village in Switzerland in 2016, it is 10km from Lugano and now on a federal inventory of sites worthy of protection. Lake Lugano laps its feet, potted colour dresses the ‘catwalk’ that is the waterfront promenade, and cobblestoned alleys with centuries-old churches, cemeteries, gardens and patrician homes hijack your breath. I tiptoe through the ancient, narrow alleys like they’re crown jewels.
But I’m going to ghost this beauty for a date with Vico Morcote. A winding 10-minute drive up the hill has me in the village that crowns the peninsula. It towers over the lake, has a 15th-century castle once described as “unconquerable unless a great sacrifice of men and money”, and hugging its foundations are vineyards that have grown non-stop since Roman times.
The vineyard is Tenuta Castello di Morcote, one of the most charming estates in Switzerland. It’s organic and biodynamic and Merlot is the modern-day ruler here, loving the loose soils laced with granite and rose porphyry, a volcanic rock peculiar to the peninsula. Fuoco Merlot Ticino DOC is the top drop, with 90 percent Merlot and 10 percent Cabernet Franc, but at $188, is not on the tasting list. I have fingers and toes crossed that it will be on the table at the estate’s Ristorante Vicania for dinner.
Is it rude to not eat a chef’s creation? I’ve never seen a better-looking trout. It’s gorgeous, with stunning co-stars: sweet and sour apple, caramelised onion and edible flowers, a plate that demands thousands of Instagram likes but also screams “Don’t touch me!” I do.
My next task is to savour the creamiest-ever mushroom risotto. The chef plays the intense flavour card alongside the subtle one; mushroom and truffle, cooked just perfectly. Then roe deer leaps before me; a venison fillet that’s so generous it could feed the village. This extraordinary meal ends with a velvety coffee cream in a crispy biscuit case with chestnuts. When I collapse in my bed at another old castle, Relais Castello di Morcote, there could be packets of peas under my mattress and my inner princess wouldn’t give a toss.
It’s refreshing to be on the water. A regular ferry takes one hour to get to Lugano with a two-minute wharf stop in Campione d’Italia, Italy, the quickest country visit ever!
It’s been a week of ‘wow’ moments on a rail trip that has explored a country smaller than Tasmania with the opportunity to enjoy some of the world’s rarest wines.
Did I love it? Oui, si, ja and yes.
MiNDFOOD promotion
