| THE SWISS FAIR FOR WINELOVERS |
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| Make sur this is on your calendar ! |
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The first weekend in September the Vinea Association organizes Switzerland’s largest open-air wine fair. More than 10,000 visitors from throughout Switzerland are expected in Sierre 3, 4, and 5 September 2010 for this year’s event. Vinea is outdoing itself this year with a rich and varied programme of wines from Switzerland and abroad. The wine fair was originally open only to Valais wines but two years ago it expanded to include wines from all of Switzerland. Visitors can taste, compare and judge for themselves more than 1,200 wines made from the country’s main grape varieties. The renown of Swiss wines has been growing rapidly in recent years, a fact underscored by the wonderful results they’ve had recently in international wine competitions. A bonus: Swiss wines give excellent value for money.
This year, for the first time, Vinea opens on Friday evening, and the programme is an exciting one. The Swiss guest of honour is Ticino, noted for its fine Merlot wines. The foreign guest is Châteauneuf du Pape, one of the best appellations from France’s Côtes du Rhône wine region, which will be presenting different vintages of its wines. The historical Valais winery this year is Albert Mathier et fils in Salgesch.
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| Program of VINEA swiss wine fair |
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Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 September
General opening, Vinea fair
On Saturday, more than 100 producers from Valais and Switzerland’s other wine regions join the wine producers associations who open Vinea Friday evening. Wine-lovers wander the length of the street, glass in hand, booklet to guide them and a small notepad for jotting tasting notes, and in some cases an iPhone. From the open tents that line the main street of Sierre, wineries offer visitors a wonderful range of their wines, made from classic Swiss grape varieties such as Chasselas, Pinot Noir and Gamay to those from the extraordinary wealth of specialty grape wines that are helping build Switzerland’s reputation. It’s impossible to taste the 1,200 wines on offer in the street; visitors must make their choices. Some of the more disciplined will sketch out a plan for themselves, concentrating, for example, on one type of wine or one grape variety. Others will spend more time with one winery to sample its complete range, to trade views on the wines with the producer and perhaps to order wine.
Wine-tasting makes you hungry and visitors will find something for everyone. The main street offers traditional raclette as well as fine cuisine, but several nearby restaurants have partnerships with Vinea, providing a good mix of cuisine. For those who want to walk for a while before coming back to the street for more wine-tasting, the vineyards trail and the Musée de la vigne et du vin are nearby.
For those who want to learn the basics of wine-tasting or to improve their skills and knowledge, workshops in rooms equipped for this are offered at the Sensorama of the Château de Villa and at the Château Mercier.
Clearly, the options are enormous and it’s impossible to fit evertything into one day, which explains why so many visitors put the first weekend in September on their calendars, to give themselves two days to take advantage of all that Vinea, the Swiss wine fair, has to offer.
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