Interview with Swiss wine writer Chandra Kurt: Part I

Award-winning Chandra Kurt is one of Switzerland’s foremost wine writers, and has written seven books on wines in German. One of these, now in its 12^th edition, Weinseller 09/10, independently reviews some 500 wines stocked by Switzerland’s biggest wine sellers (Coop, Denner, Globus, Manor, Spar and Volg) in terms of the quality they represent for money. There is an excerpt (top international picks in the 25-franc and under category) from Weinseller at the end of Part II of this interview, which will be posted on October 1.

Kurt is also a widely-read wine columnist whose articles appear in several popular Swiss-German publications including Schweizer Familie with a print-run of around 185,000 and estimated readership of 719,000.

The Zurich-based expert has particularly strong ties to the UK wine scene; she is a member of the Circle of Wine Writers and part of the editorial team that produces Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book, Jancis Robinson’s Oxford Companion to Wine, Tom Stevenson’s Wine Report as well as Berlin-based Britisher Stuart Pigott’s Wein spricht Deutsch.

Kurt is also the author of Wine Tales: Geschichten zwischen Tagliatelle und Soutane - 15 delightful short stories each one built around a memorable bottle of wine. The Italian edition of the book won the Italian Association of Sommeliers’ Best Wine Book of the Year prize in 2006.

Besides writing, Kurt is also active internationally as a wine consultant. Born to a Swiss father and an Italian mother in Sri Lanka in 1968, the largely self-taught Kurt traces her love of wine back to time spent with maternal grandparents in Emilia Romagna.

I met Kurt at a wine workshop she gave in Sierre, Valais, this past summer. She had selected four grape varieties strongly identified with Valais (Humagne Blanche, Heida, Humagne Rouge and Cornalin). In the workshop, we explored wines made by different wineries from each variety in order to get a feel for their expressive range. Three of the varieties (so far) are also used in wines made by Provins Valais as part of the Chandra Kurt Collection first launched in 2008. For more about Kurt, go to www.chandrakurt.com and www.collectionchandrakurt.com.

I conducted the following interview with Chandra Kurt in English.

GM-V:  Since the platform for this interview is Swisster.ch, the Swiss-French press group Edipresse’s website dedicated to explaining Switzerland in English to expats, I would like to limit this discussion to Swiss wines.

Expats, tourists, residents of other countries who wonder why Swiss wines are not available on their markets, have three main quibbles (over and above unavailability abroad) that I’ve heard over and over: (1) Swiss wines are expensive; (2) Swiss wines mostly don’t have those velvety reliable year-in year-out tastes that are associated with New World wines, or the heady tastes of new Italian, Spanish and French wines; (3) Swiss wines that you get in Swiss supermarkets, in regular cafés and restaurants, on the train, or when the caterers bring their liter bottles of Chasselas and Gamay or Pinot Noir to serve at your reception, are actually nothing to write home about! Where’s the good stuff, how do you get hold of it?

CK: Let me start with the assumption that Swiss wines are expensive - I myself heard this many years ago when visiting the Vinopolis wine museum in London. There was a painting of mountains on the wall and the voice in my museum-headphone explained that in Switzerland wine prices are ”as high as the mountains!”. Well, it’s not that bad. But you will not find super cheap [good Swiss] wine for 3-4 CHF bottle. Prices start at 8-9 CHF. On the other hand, you also don’t have extremely expensive wines such as you find in Bordeaux, Burgundy or Tuscany. Prices for Swiss wines are usually between 9 and 30 CHF and the quality you get particularly in the higher price ranges is great. Swiss wine cannot be super cheap because it’s not easy to work. Lots of vineyards are on hills or need a lot of manual labor - it’s not an industrial production like you might find in New World vineyards.

About the taste of Swiss wine - I believe that Swiss wine will always surprise wine lovers all over the world because of its diversity and its minerality. I also think if we go into international competition and comparison there are some Syrahs (from the Valais), some Merlots (from Ticino) and some Pinots (from Grisons) that are outstanding. Swiss wine has a taste of its own - Switzerland has a cooler climate than hot New World climates, but we don’t have terroirs that give the complexity you will find for example in Burgundy. I also think that our white wine culture is more interesting than the red wine.

The best way to get good Swiss wine is to buy directly from the producer. This is how most (80-95%) good Swiss wine is sold. Since Switzerland is so small, and wine is produced in almost every part of the country, in driving time of 30 minutes to an hour you will find a good wine producer. They love to get visitors, and you can taste wines and ask questions. It’s also very simple to buy over the Internet. Let me give you five addresses to start with:

www.weingut-fromm.ch (Malans, GR)

www.henricruchon.com (Echichens, VD)

www.bachtobel.ch (Weinfelden, TG)

www.jrgermanier.ch (Vétroz, VS)

www.davaz-wein.ch (Fläsch, GR)

Part II of this interview will be posted on October 1.

Visual courtesy of Chandra Kurt.