Hi there

just a good tip for you wine lovers out there..

During 2 weeks in November the Swiss winemakers federation hosts a great tasting of wines from around the world. Swiss wine producers, wine distributors and wine importers present their wines. Tasting booths are set up on about 10 ships which during the summer cross Lake Zürich.

the details are in

http://www.expovina.ch/

I will mark the weekends of the event in Calendar..

Dont know if it will be interesting to turn in into a EF or not

cheers
stamp

Just wanted to add some tips for people who have never been to this event before.

If you can possibly visit the ships at an off-peak time (like during work hours) the experience is much nicer! During the busy times it can get VERY crowded. Often it can be difficult to move through the narrow parts of these ships - especially since people are crowded around each passageway tasting wine.

Larger groups don't tend to work well - since the area is spread out over the passageways of the ships a group would tend to get fragmented very quickly, and people have different tastes when it comes to the wines they'd like to try. In the past when I've gone with smaller groups we've often ended up on different parts of the ships bumping into each other occassionally.

That said - it's a great event to discover all the various wine importing businesses around the place. You may find it an easy way to locate the importers you are interested in without having to search around the country for the wines you like.

Diem - since this isn't likely to turn into a social event (so far) we should probably file it under commercial events.

Edit: for those who don't click on the link the two weeks in November that stamp mentioned are 2-16 November. I.e. starting today.

Thanks for the tips mark. My wife and I plan to go this weekend, I guess we should go reasonably early to avoid the crowds. Obvoiusly it would be nice to go at 19:00 or so, but I guess everyone will be there by then, so I guess we'll just have to do more spitting than swallowing.

Yes as I said the ships are here but you can ask one or two "experienced" tasters in the forum how sensible it is to go on the first weekend... You will be one of the 100'000 or so others BEst is Monday first thing then by the time it gets busy you don't care

Hello all,

Is everyone feeling too delicate on a Monday to consider the docking of the wineships and some serious sun-is-above-the-yardarm wine quaffing ?

The ships dock at Bürkliplatz in Zürich 1-15 Nov and it is certainly an experience not be missed.

http://www.expovina.ch/

It is good fun, and if anyone is interested in an organised excursion we can make an event of it...

dave

A more civilized activity perhaps for next week ?

dave

Yes. Wine floats my boat

This is good stuff if I may say so. Do not miss the Wallis stalls.

I am just looking at the ticket prices. Can someone please tell me what a :
"Eintritt mit Carte Blanche: CHF 10.- pro Person" is ?

No one has even given me "Carte Blanche" to do anything and indeed it may be a mistake on this occasion....

dave

If you're a member of some sort of something (not quite sure what) you can get the discount ticket price, but the rest of us have to pay the CHF 20. If I remember correctly though they were only CHF 15 last year. Damn inflation.

If you buy wine at the expo, or from one of the online retailers like Moevenpick, you might just get a free ticket. I got 5. Had to drink myself half to death to achieve that feat.

Note to self: leave credit card at home this time.

just checked out the aussie wines and they have the Bleasdale Mulberry Tree Cab Sauv (2004) for 21.- per bottle; well worth a look if anyone is interested. :-)
the new zealand Sauv Blancs are a bit lite-on though, which is a real pity....... :-( (although i did see a Shaw and Smith S.Blanc in the Aussie lists which is not so bad)

anyone else got any recommendations; i'd really like to try some new stuff but get confused by all the different brands and regions.......

I dont want to be in any club that would have me as a member; so 20chf it is then.

dave

Carte-Blanche is a card sponsored by Tages Anzeiger. It gives you "access" to events with a discount.

http://www.tagi.ch/dyn/news/carte_blanche/index.html

Last year some swiss friends and I got a good example of how the Aussie (and some SA and NZ) wines were attempting to copy what the old-world wines were doing. There was an Aussie woman at one distributor's stall that was quite helpful in describing how the wines were.

Try some of the red wines from Vallais, those from Sion, and especially from Salgesch. There are some Grand Cru Pinot Noirs that are quite nice, and a bargain for what they are. The white wines are good from Vaud.

Finally, go and try some Tokaji from Hungary if you've never had that.

I'm returning with the same Swiss friends to the Wyyschiff again this year.

I think that you will find this going on on a global scale. There is a great documentary called "Mondovino" which looks into the globalisation of the wine industry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondovino

This looks very interesting, maybe we could put this as social event and once we are there, it is not important to stick together...

I am looking for Zinfandel (California) - son of Croatian wine Plavac Mali, which is not there... that is my favorite red wine.

Well, to some degree. I've seen Mondovino. The filmmaker is saying that basically everyone is trying to make Chateaux Margaux these days to satisfy Robert Parker. Is this bad? I suppose if you don't like Bordeaux it is. Otherwise, there IS an overall improvement of wine going on, and some of the traditional methods are going away. But, by all means go and support the local Swiss wine industry, which caters to a different clientele than those that read Wine Spectator (and try some Coralin).

In any case we were mostly sampling various Cote de Rhone copies and Syrahs and stuff like that. Not really the wines that Mondovino is talking about.

You might want to check out some Primitivos, as they're related to, if not the same grape as Zinfandel. We found a few really good italian ones last year.

Just left the expo. Tried some wine. Completely forgotten which ones. Nice though. Where do I live? How do I get home? Why am I on a train?