17 hours ago
Lake Geneva's Terraced Lavaux Vineyards Gaining Deserved Notice
The terraced vineyards of Lavaux on Lake Geneva are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Credit: Maude Rion
If Switzerland hardly jumps to mind as a wine producing nation and the white grape variety Chasselas rings no bell, expect that to change as the stretch of steep Lake Geneva shoreline called Lavaux gains ever more recognition.
Between Lausanne and Montreux in the canton of Vaud, Lavaux's south-facing terraced vineyards are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The town of Vevey makes an ideal base for exploring this section of the broader area known as the Montreux Riviera.
You can dispel with thoughts of only the usual trifecta of Swiss watches, cheese and chocolate as your goal here. Perhaps you already know the small Italian-speaking canton of Ticino as a prime wine growing region. Some 2,000 acres harvested here in Lavaux represent an even tinier fraction of the wine world, but it's all packing an ever great wallop on the enotourism scene.
Even without vineyards that go back to Roman times, the views from Lavaux to the Alps on the southern French side of Lake Geneva are spectacular. Switzerland's exceptional train system with its unlimited Swiss Travel Pass makes it a mere hour ride to get here from Geneva and twenty minutes from Lausanne. From the train stop at Grandvaux village, a wander down the slopes toward the lake takes you through the heart of this unique physical and cultural environment.
With their stone houses, hamlets dotted throughout the Lavaux terraced landscape look much like they have for centuries. Credit: Maude Rion
You would do well in advance to engage the services of UNESCO-certified guide Marc Checkley who has lived in Lavaux for nearly a decade. The New Zealand native with an infectious enthusiasm for the region is adept at walking backward downhill as he explains 15,000 years of geologic time; how a retreat of the Rhône Glacier began creating the deep lake; and, how, like right out of a Hollywood cataclysmic event, the 6th-century Tauredunum mountain collapse triggered a tsunami and caused massive shoreline destruction all the way to Geneva on the lake's southwestern tip.
As you walk through hamlets and between 280-miles-worth of high stone walls that monks built a millennia ago to create the terraces, Checkley explains how the walls breath and retain the solar heat that keeps the narrow lanes and vines themselves warm at night. The sun reflecting off the lake adds to the ripening process.
To the English ear, domaine sounds like a grand name for what here at Domaine Potterat is, like most Lavaux wineries, a quintessentially small family run operation. In the post card-perfect village of Cully, Eliane and Guillaume Potterat work over a six-hundred-year old cellar. Their late-19th-century press is primitive enough that it takes a team of workers to push the heavy timber lever to crush the grapes, but its cast iron mechanics are a thing of late-industrial era beauty.
Among the some 30,000 bottles that Domaine Potterat produces annually, their Epesses Grand Cru, Courseboux and Côtes de Courseboux white wines are among the best known. You'll find a weekly farmers market just outside their operation in the narrow streets of Cully, while in springtime some performances of the Cully Jazz festival are held in their cellar and garden.
The CGN fleet of historic ships plies the waters of Lake Geneva, with a stop at Lavaux. Credit: Marie Contreras
Uncommonly these days, all harvesting in Lavaux is done by hand—given the challenging terrain, not such a remarkable practice. Just enjoying the exquisite countryside here might be good enough reason to come back in the fall to sign up with a vintner and join in the labor yourself.
With plenty of helpful signage along the paths and roads, you can't get lost among the Lavaux terraces. Down in Cully proper, one of various docks on Lake Geneva is a stop for the CGN fleet of Belle Époque steam paddle boats that still ply the waters. To be sure, a few in the fleet of eight are no longer steam powered, but the big red paddle wheels on either side remain a romantic element.
With Lake Geneva having thirty species of fish, trout, perch or monkfish may well be on the menu for lunch that can be booked onboard, along with wine tastings. A cruise is also the chance to spot some of 230 bird species at home here, from ducks of all manner to mute swans, gray herons, great crested grebes and great cormorants.
In the town of Vevey, the Hôtel des Trois Couronnes lies right on Lake Geneva. Credit: Leading Hotels of the World
Two Leading Hotels of the World member properties lie within minutes of one another. Le Mirador Resort and Spa on Le Mont-Pèlerin looks far over the lake. In the town of Vevey, the Hôtel des Trois Couronnes with origins back to 1842 retains its old world flair—attic rooms have heavy timber crossbeams that run low through the middle, so watch your head. It should be a rule that dining under the Le 3C Restaurant patio awning be followed by a walk on the lake promenade. The property's Puressens Spa includes a long ground floor lap pool.
Two doors from the hotel, the Alimentarium museum takes up a handsome early 20th-century Neo-classical lakefront building. As it once housed Nestlé headquarters, no surprise that the museum is devoted to food and nutrition around the world. La Fourchette , or the Fork of Vevey, is an instantly recognizable Instagram star of a 26-foot-tall stainless steel sculpture that sticks up from the lake water.
Just outside of Vevey, fans of the seminal modern architect Le Corbusier can drop in for a look at his mid-1920s Villa Le Lac on the water. Minutes away inland, the Chaplin's World museum is housed in Manoir de Ban where the early cinema genius Charlie spent the last 25 years of his life, and is devoted to his work.
