For several years, statistics have been acting as harbingers of doom. They explain that the Swiss are drinking less and less wine. They may be drinking less, which is an inescapable fact, but they are drinking better!
The environmental groundswell advocates for local wines rather than those with a disastrous carbon footprint from flying halfway across the planet. Restaurants, wine shops, bars, and of course the wineries themselves are competing with ideas to attract lovers of fine local vintages. This is true not only for the "heavyweights" of viticulture like Valais, Vaud, Geneva, and Tessin.
Today, every canton in Switzerland plants vines! Even the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden has them. The least populated canton in Switzerland, known for producing one of the most famous Swiss cheeses, "Appenzeller," has been caught up in the wine-growing fever. Over 6,376 square meters, the people of Appenzell have planted Riesling-Sylvaner, Johanniter, and Maréchal Foch. The latter is a red hybrid grape variety found in Canada, a cool-climate region. With annual precipitation of around 1,100 mm and an average temperature of 18°C in the hottest month (July), the people of Appenzell were right to plant varieties resistant to more unforgiving climatic conditions.
This canton continues to be an exception in the statistics. Indeed, it is the only one, along with the canton of Obwalden, not to produce Pinot Noir, the emblematic Swiss grape variety. "Klein aber fein," as our friends from across the Sarine like to say—an expression that could be translated as "small but refined." Let us drink, let us drink our wines from our small country with such fine and delicate vintages! These figures are taken from the 2017 viticultural year statistics of the official cantonal harvest control.
