Ahh, a weekend to relax in Geneva…but who can relax when it’s the only day of the year that all the vineyards are open to visitors? Not us – so we donned our wine-drinking caps and headed out to the countryside for one of the few days you’ll ever get something for free in Switzerland!Now, a word about Swiss wines; I’ve had a couple since I’ve been here, and I’ve spoken to quite a few people about them as well. The Swiss don’t export much wine, and they claim it’s because the wine is so good that they drink it all themselves. Well, I’m here to tell you, that’s a load of nonsense – Swiss wines are simply bad. Really bad. In the winter, they warm it and put sugar and spices in it, and it’s still bad. It’s just not something that the Swiss are particularly gifted at, much like electronics or getting along with other cultures. Hey – don’t be offended, Switzerland – your chocolate and cheeses are world-renowned, and more than make up for your shortcomings. That being said, I do exaggerate slightly, as their white wines are actually ok, and go well with fondues. The reds are atrocious though.
Back to the story – so one day each year, the canton of Geneva opens up its wineries to the public, and everyone walks around tasting wines at the var
ious caves. It’s kind of neat that they do this, although in theory, California’s wineries do this every single day of the year, so I guess that kind of puts it into perspective. Anyway, we took this opportunity to meet up with some friends and head out to the various wineries, hitting the sub-appellation of Dardegny (we ended up here more because we just wanted to get off the crowded shuttle, rather than actually seeking this place out). Dardegny is basically a street with a couple of wine producers located on it, and a bunch of vineyards stretching in every direction. All the other sub-appellations are essentially the same thing, which is probably why it’s impossible to find any useful information about any of these places online. The fun thing about this area is that it’s very rural, and while you’re only a ten minute train ride from the center of Geneva, you’re still in the middle of pure countryside. This tends to happen a lot in Switzerland, which is one of its strong points.We of course took the early train out there (because we’re hard-core), and started our rounds of speaking to the producers in broken French. Wendy, our soon-to-be-leaving roommate, has reached the point in her Genevoise stage where she doesn’t even bother with the broken French, which is very admirable. It’s good to have a girl around who will do this, because the locals like to practice their English with a girl, whereas if I start with English, it would result in not getting any wine. So we talked with a few people, drank some wine, and moved further and further into the heart of the city.
Like I mentioned, the heart of the city is just the one street, so it didn’t take long. However – the day turned out to be really beautiful, and with tents and benches set up, it was nice to just sit and relax in the sun for a few hours. As an added bonus, I did learn quite a bit about the local wines, and even found some that were pretty decent. I might also go so far as to say that Geneva makes very good dessert wines, but I haven’t had many of those so it’s hard to say.The rest of the weekend was uneventful, with the exception of almost blowing our deck up. We had bought a cheap barbecue grill awhile back, and were setting it up, when the gas tank caught fire. Thanks to some quick thinking by Soph, and some risking of life and limb by me, we were able to get it out – but we are now sadly retiring from our grilling days in Geneva, before ever getting started. This is probably for the best, although now we have to figure out how to get rid of that piece of junk grill we have…
Next week: Nothing!
