Geneva
History and a wealth of fine wine
Geneva as a wine region often surprises foreign visitors, who tend to know the name as a city, home to dozens of international organizations and the place where the League of Nations was created. It is in fact Switzerland’s third largest wine-producing region and one of the most delightful and easy to visit for urban-dwellers and guests. Its extraordinary situation gives it a mosaic of micro-climates that are responsible for a surprising number of legally permitted grape varieties (49).
Geneva's Three Distinct Growing Areas
Three bodies of water edge the land: the Rhone river, fed by Lake Geneva, the lake itself (Léman is its French name), which was created by retreating glaciers, and the Arve river.
Three regions mark the varied soils, weather patterns and ultimately the terroirs these create, although all share a landscape of gentle rolling hills and low vine-covered slopes that are mostly easy to work with machines.
Satigny, at the center of the Mandement, is Switzerland’s largest wine growing commune (a commune is a political unit, like a town).
Rich soils from the mountains
Mountains ring the city and vineyards, with Europe’s highest mountain, Mont Blanc, easily seen on sunny days. The pre-Alps below it and on the opposite, west side of the lake the Jura mountain range, add drama. The Mont Blanc range is famous for its granite and the Jura for limestone and marl. Each has contributed for millenia to creating a mixture of soils on the land far below, in Geneva, but it is almost impossible to generalize about soil types because they are so varied that vines within 10 yards of each other can be growing in very different soils.
Innovation to face the future
Traditionally, Geneva produced much Chasselas white wine and Gamay reds—Beaujolais in France, famous for its Gamay. Over-production in the second half of the 20th century led to a dip in reputation. Once that was corrected Geneva regained its name for innovation and quality. The region planted disease-resistant new grapes like Divico, an interspecific variety that requires no treatments. Growers are reviving historic specialty grapes like Altesse and Mondeuse. Chasselas and Gamay still hold strong positions, but the relatively new grapes like Gamaret and Garanoir now cover 13% of the area and Geneva is a forerunner in developing quality wines from them. Switzerland is a leader in Europe in the field of developing new varieties, crucial in the face of climate change.
A curious fact: Geneva for centuries used the hutin system, where vines are trained to grow up trees.
