The Wine Ladies

Swiss Wines Rock The Big Apple!

May 2nd, 2010: City Winery, New York, New York: The secret is finally out! Swiss wines really rock!

The Swiss are known for their cheese, chocolate, watches and banking but their wines have remained more of a secret with approximately only 2% of Swiss wines ever leaving the country. Chandra Kurt wine consultant, writer and author of Switzerland, said, “it was time to let the secret out, that Swiss wines are amazing and that it was time to let the world know about it.” We were invited to New York City to witness a remarkable and historical wine adventure, “Swiss Wines In The City”.

Invited by Chandra, we brought The Wine Ladies TV show to the heart of Manhattan to the City Winery http://www.citywinery.com the only urban winery in New York City combining proprietor’s Michael Dorf’s passions of food, wine and music into a unique and exciting venue. Michael said, “For a long time I’d been enjoying wine as a fan-drinking it, taking classes, attending wine dinners-but it was not until I actually started participating in the process of working with the grape, turning it into wine, putting it into a bottle, and watching it develop over time, that I really started to understand wine. And when I would give my friends a bottle of wine with my name on it, most would respond by saying: ‘I wanna do that too!”

Just over a year ago two barrels ( Petite Arvine Cru des Domaines 2007 and Cava, Syrah Du Valais, 2008) of Switzerland’s finest wines from the Valais wine growing region, from two different wine producers Provins-Valais http://www.provins.ch/en/ and Jean-René Germanier http://www.jrgermanier.ch/en/home.html were shipped over and were patiently waiting for their bottling here in the big apple at the City Winery. Invited guests from the world of wine and food, media, entertainment, fashion, and assorted dignitaries were invited for a spectacular evening including a grand tasting in the City Winery Wine Cellar of 30 Swiss wines, a bottling party of the two barrels as well as a delightful dinner including a selection of Swiss wines.

We had a chance to sit down and chat with some of the people who made this event all possible, Chandra Kurt, the idea lady, on site host Michael Dorf, “Wine Woman of the Year” and winemaker from Provins-Valais Madeleine Gay, the charming and motor cycle riding CEO of Provins-Valais Roland Vergères as well as the President of the 4th generation Jean-René Germanier winery Jean-René Germanier and finally Gilles Besse Swiss television star and wine maker for Jean-René Germanier.

Here are some of the highlights of the show but make sure to watch the complete episode of Swiss Wines in The City. The Wine Ladies TV episode June 2nd, 2010 on http://www.thatchannel.com 2:30-3:30pm

Some interesting facts about the Wines of Switzerland

The country of Switzerland is the size of the region of Champagne, France
It has 6 wine growing regions with the Valais region being the largest divided into the French Valais and the German Valais

Swiss wines are made from 40 different indigenous grape varieties (Chasselas, Sylvaner, Petite Arvine, Amigne, Humagne Blanche, Humagne Rouge, etc) as we all some vitis vinifers grape varieties like Syrah, Pinot Noir, etc.