Wine

The first wine was grown in Geneva over 2,000 years ago. Since that time viticulture has flourished uninterruptedly in Switzerland’s southwestern corner. Winegrowing has first been documented in the year 912 A.D.

Along the Roman trade route on Lake Zürich and in the Rhine Valley, Roman settlements sprung up. In the year 300 A.D. wine was grown on many of the south facing hillsides.

It is not know whether wine was grown in the Valais before Julius Cesar defeated the Gauls in the 1st century B.C., since there is no documentary evidence. It is assumed that over two millennia ago a wild vine was discovered, the Vitis sylvestris, whose fruit resembles other berries of this region.

All of Ticino’s eight districts grow wine. The Ticinese vineyards benefit from region’s mild climate that is almost Mediterranean in character.

Like the vineyards in many other wine-growing regions, those in the Three-Lake-Country have experienced their ups and downs. The wine growing area reached the point at which the largest expanse of land was planted with vineyards in the middle of the 17th century, most likely due to the increased demand during the Thirty Years War.

The Canton of Vaud is increasingly becoming a wine-growing region whose wine meets the highest international standards. This landscape is waiting to be discovered and enjoyed.

Even the Romans loved the wine from Graubünden’s Rhine Valley. The sought-after, characteristic Pinot Noir, however, did not become endemic until the beginning of the 17th century. The young mercenaries and farmers’ sons from Graubünden brought the Pinot Noir shoots from Burgundy to the Bündner Herrschaft, the most northern part of Graubünden, around 1630.