The weather around Geneva in October turned cool to cold, occasionally rainy, with a low hung grey cloud over the valley. Occasionally the sun broke through, it warmed up and turned picture perfect gorgeous. Think of an extended fall with sunshine in New England. The trees and bushes all orange and yellow, the sky and lake piercing blue. It was that way the weekend of November 6th when Nancy read about a wine tasting in Switzerland just a 15 minute drive from our house in the Jura Mountains overlooking Geneva. Several small adjoining villages including Preissy and Chulley held the Festival of St. Martin, a Saturday filled with free wine, food and entertainment put on by the vineyards of the area. Having never been to one, we weren't sure exactly what to expect and it turned out being a mixture of wine tasting, eating, and partying lasting all day.
Entertainment was provided by both the locals and hired entertainers. Some turned out in costume including the Monk pictured here and a fellow decked out as a Count complete with embroidered waste coat, frock, and three corner hat. An odd ensemble pictured behind the donkey played American favorites such as Elvis songs and hit fine jazz notes by a few talented horn players. In addition as with all festivals Swiss, three Swiss horn players moved around with the crowd performing some Swiss favorites including several Mozart pieces. They played with music written on three clefs with each taking turns playing the soprano, melody, or bass parts which occasionally moved through wonderful harmonies. There were also jugglers and other street performers.
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The Monk and his Steed
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| Swiss Horns |
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| Tasting Cave |
The wine tasting in this event was from four or five different producers all located close to each other in the century old stone wineries serving their wares in Caves such as the one pictured at left. Some had entertainment, some had wine pourers dressed in costume, and others were just wine being poured as quickly as the pourers could pour. Several of the wineries had food and one told us they had sold out of all their bottled stocks except for some 2008 wines they were pouring. I don't pretend to know a great deal about wine but have learned that Swiss wines are generally produced in small vineyards in small batches and are considered some of the best wines in the world. They rarely make it out of Switzerland and probably can only be found in the states in a few large cities. Of course they are non-existent in France. The wine tasting in this case was similar to a pup crawl where the crowd, mostly from Geneva along with numerous English speakers, walked down the hill from one village to another sampling the wares. As you might expect, as the day wore on, the crowd noise increased and the pourers and drinkers became increasingly convivial and rowdy. Amazingly, Nancy was talking French and numerous Swiss seemed to be babling English with her.
We saw several storage rooms with wine stored in barrels, see picture to the right. At one winery, they were taking bags of the leftover grape skins and boiling and pressing them. The run off called Mars (I think) was a clear liquid that tasted like liquid fire. Apparently it is 80 proof and seemed to be a big hit with the locals. It was poured into enormous wicker covered glass jars. As we left later in the day, we noticed the wine fields around the area on the side of the mountains had dropped their leaves and most of the grapes picked. We stopped and picked a few clusters that had not been harvested yet. The grapes were delicious on their own.
