Switzerland/ Swiss wine tasting and answering some questions - Episode #68

August 10, 2006

episode68

2003 Bovard Epesse Terre A Boire

Gary tastes a very special white wine from Switzerland. Gary also asks for your help at the end. Watch as Vaynerchuk also tackels many of your burning wine questions.

85 Responses

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  1. about a month ago

    Randy B

    Hey Gary,

    I absolutely love your show! Since discovering it a couple of months ago I’ve been going through the entire archive from the beginning. I’m up to #68!

    Anyway, I had to leave a comment regarding this episode. You mentioned the price of wines in restaurants and how exorbitant they are. I couldn’t agree more! So what did I do about it? I opened a restaurant/wine store. We sell our wine for people to take with them, but if you come in to eat, we only charge $3 extra to enjoy the bottle at the table. Wine at retail prices in a restaurant! And we’ve been open for almost three years now. I hope to franchise my idea within a couple of years. I’ll look you up when we expand to New Jersey!

    Keep up the great work!

    Randy

  2. about 6 months ago

    The Fanjestic

    Qotd: Why is wine the 1 and only industry in which the critics are more famous and well known than the actual players involved.

    Imagine if the local movie critic was more well known and famous than Brad Pitt or Tom Hanks!

  3. about 8 months ago

    Kristen

    I’ll have to try and seek out some Swiss wine!

    QOTD: Why does wine scoring start at 50 points?

  4. about 9 months ago

    Tursiops

    Thanks for answering my question on facebook and giving me this link.
    I am from swizerland, and I know they make great wines, I have a friend who his father is in the business.
    This episode is more than 1 year old, so maybe I’ll send you some other great swiss wine so that you can try something else.

    Keep up the good work!

  5. about 10 months ago

    Greg

    Thanks for doing an episode on Swiss wines.

    There’s a great wine festival here in Zurich every year in November with wines from all over the world. It’s a great chance to find out what great wines are around AND compare them with the Swiss wines. It’s a fun time, and I learned a lot when I was there last year.

    There are some great deals in Swiss wine. The problem is that most of these deals are with wines that get bought directly from the wineries and never make it into a store, even a Swiss store. I’ve found some great Chasselas that go for about $8-$10. Chasselas is a great wine for Asparagus.

    What I really like about Swiss wines is that they make very unique wines here. The wines are made for a local market that’s very educated about what they want their wine to taste like, and could care less about what Robert Parker or anyone else thinks.

    You should take a trip to Switzerland one of these days and visit a few of the wineries here. You’d love it.

  6. about 11 months ago

    WA Ambassador

    I never knew that Switzerland even made wine. They have totally been off of my radar. Now I’m going to have to check them out. Thanks for a good start.

  7. about 12 months ago

    Fred

    Hi,

    just find out about this interesting episode about swiss wines. Winemaker myself in geneva I was thrilled and quite surprised by the way you spoke about our CHASSELAS (typic swiss grape).

    Wines made from this variety are often misjuged and misunderstood from people outside Switzerland because it (almost) always contains CO2 and produces light wines that are not in “the way we make wine today”. But that is the way we drink CHASSELAS in Switzerland.

    Thanks anyway for the curiosity and the objectivity you put in your wine tasting, that is the way we should always taste wine..

    Do know that aside from CHASSELAS we also produce a lot of different wine types made from Sauvignon blanc, Scheurebe, Kerner, Chardonnay and lots of other stuff.

    Hope to discover more about wine around the world soon through The Wine Library TV.

    See you. (why not in Switzerland).

    Fred who apologise for his poor english.

  8. about 14 months ago

    David Canada

    QOTD - Got to be pricing….so damn realtive.

  9. about 15 months ago

    Sam

    I think the restaurant idea sounds great… I say “Del Frisco’s”-esk with a solid sommelier and good price wine. I’m there… Book me for every weekend for the rest of eternity… My doctor is going to kill me for the cholesterol though

  10. about 19 months ago

    ThomasS

    Yuw, another late comment … I never had a Swiss wine. You know, the only bottles you see here are Fendant de Valais and, I think its merely because of the crappy labels (with a large Swiss flag on it) that every time puts me off when my hands itch to grab it from the store shelves. Yet, I still believe I’m not a label buyer … :-? . Maybe it’ll change: a good friend of mine has a Swiss boyfriend who every time a meet him goes nuts lyrical about his wines. So … . Let’s hope.
    QOTD: confusing? The split up of the wine market between supermarket wine shelves and ‘real’ wine shops. There is quite a big tradition over here of the supermarkets having for about 200-400 different wines on their shelves. Yet, lot of people say that these wines are inferior to the ones you buy in a small shop. Is that true? Some things I already noticed are that they have different labels, the lead caps differ sometimes and cuvées you’ll find in a supermaret are not always mentionned on the winelist of a domaine/producer’s website, … Is it true maybe that the same wine on label is in fact different when found in a supermarket/small shop? Is it true that maybe the supermarket wines come from different and/or inferior casks/cuves? Is it all crap or is it true or half-truth? I never tried to seek that out myself with a blind tasting or something like that …

  11. about 22 months ago

    SS Chris

    Gary, Dede and I are in our kitchen, Dede concocting some kind of nice pasta dish, and we have just cracked Bovard Epesse from this episode (I’ll talk about the wine in a second). But first I must talk about the SS (the most important thing–wink, wink).

    Besides using the SS to help pick the wines I like…I also use it to go back and view the episode when I’m tasting the wine for the 1st time. With all due respect to SS Chris and the copious tasting notes that he transcribes, it is still no substitute for actually watching “The Chuk”. We watched the episode while we were drinking the wine for the first time. The SS also helps to quickly identify the episode, and then, through the outstanding work of Sir Brian, there’s the direct LINK to the episode. I think you should share this “SS method” watching the episodes when tasting the wines for the first time.

    Back to the wine….UNBELIEVABLE white…so, so good. I’m not sure if WL has some more because you stated that it was a “special order” at a special low price….but I’ll check it out.

  12. about 24 months ago

    Christopher

    Most confusing thing – you can’t judge a wine by it’s bottle (or lable) which makes it difficult to choose a wine. For a consumer it isn’t always possible to taste before purchasing, Regardless of any review, critic or salesman suggestion, you have to taste the wine first before knowing what it is like (or being able to judge it for yourself). No other information will give you all the details, of course, the wine drinking experience is very important part of this.

  13. about 24 months ago

    JP

    Gary,

    Great show. I was expecing you to pull out the lobster. I have noticed that many wine raters say the wine should drink well for X years. The problem is there is no date on when they rated the wine. Does X years refer to the vintage year or the date of tasting? It would be a good idea for the wine write up to have projected dates of consumption at the assumption of proper storage tempetature. Am I missing something? Could you give some general guidelines for the typical dates of consumption base on wine types, etc.?

  14. about 24 months ago

    Craig K

    Entertaining episode Gary and I have to admit I have never had a Swiss wine. Not sure whether this is good or bad, but when you taste only one wine it barely fills my left WLTV cavity. Most confusing? I agree with others: France! My question of the day relates to a different aspect of wine “resiliency”. Parker has described a phenomenon called “bottle shock”. Do you believe there is such a thing, or is it a bunch of hoo-ha?

  15. about 24 months ago

    ronguy

    Keep up the good work Gary. I have been a fan since before the videos started. DECANTING: How can I decant a wine for an hour or two at room temperature and still have it at the proper drinking temperature? AGING: will wine age the same with an artificial cork or a screw cap as it does with a real cork? PRICING: why do you show all your wines as being on sale? Your sale price seems to be your regular price.
    Now I have to watch the new episode.

  16. about 24 months ago

    Bruce

    Gary, great episode. How does one develop a “nose” for wine? I love complex wines but can’t put those pleasant aromas into words well.

  17. about 24 months ago

    Chris

    Gary,

    My biggest question currently is when to open my bordeaux and petite syrahs. Both are exceptional when drank at the proper time but can be ghastly if too young or old. Great episode.

  18. about 24 months ago

    joe

    Gary:

    p.s. I LOVE the idea of a fine resteraunt offering wine for retail+$5 for glass service. GREAT concept. I usually try to bring my own wine, for the reasons you cited…and tend to go to the finer BYOBs. But if there was an outstanding resteraunt with wines at retail prices - - I would flock there. Also, in your episodes, I love when you taste a wine and speak to the food you would match it to. In your resteraunt you could have your menu items included your favorite wine-pairing recommendation! I would love to revisit so I could try every pairing you suggest.
    Joe

  19. about 24 months ago

    Peter

    The last Swiss wine I bought I used in fondue. Thanks for getting me interested in them again.

    I would love to know how you built your internet business, (legally I assume), where others had difficulty. I keep writing letters to Trenton to allow direct shipments from producers to consumers in NJ. Are you in favor of this, or do you like the current system?

  20. about 24 months ago

    K Spengler

    Exciting fun filled episode again, Gary. I haven’t seen this addressed, but for me, it’s an issue most basic and confusing.
    It’s taste profiles in general. I realize, there are certain profiles that are familiar to everyone, but so many are quite distinct and unique. Lemon, tar, tobacco, those things I get,,but Quince, gooseberries, etc., kinda hard to get a base note on those. Are there ANY decent “tasting” kits available that are not artificial in flavor, or do I need to go on a wild “gooseberry” chase??
    Thanks for your time, great job!

  21. about 24 months ago

    kjb

    Boy I think this thread will give Gary enough Q&A material for the foreseeable future… there are some great questions.

    Gary, I second (or third?) that restaurant idea.. Seeing as you live in NYC, have you been to Landmarc in Tribeca? They have a great wine list with a similar pricing strategy. In fact when the New York times profiled them a few years ago they demonstrated that they had many bottles at, and some below retail prices using well-known wine merchants as the benchmark. And the food is great as well (which as others have pointed out is key)!

  22. about 24 months ago

    Chris Fehnel

    Hey Gary,

    Another fine episode. Not at 100 comments yet, but I’m trying to help a brotha out.

    Oh yeah, and a restaurant like that would be sweet. I’d definitely make the trip.

  23. about 24 months ago

    Jaye

    Gary - just ordered 6 bottles (I have trusted your opinions in the past and been mostly delighted with your picks). When would you suggest this wine should be drunk by (a year from now, 2 years, more?) Some will get drunk right away, but I don’t drink nearly as much white wine as red, so I would like to know how soon I should think about finishing these bottles.
    Thanks! Hope you read comments this far down the list!

  24. about 24 months ago

    TimF

    Dan - Others probably have thoughts about this, but I think it’s generally accepted that Robert Parker came up with the 100 point scale. He wanted people to be able to relate to the scores they earned in the classroom. So essentially 90-100 = A, 80-89 = B, 70-79 = C. That was his idea and now it’s permeated the entire community/industry…

  25. about 24 months ago

    Dan

    Great show, thanks for the answer to my question. I agree by the way. When my wife and I are at home enjoying a nice bottle taht we had shipped in from New Jersey in the spring, it tastes a little different than when we are at a friend’s house drinking the same wine.

    I fine it odd, though perhaps not confusing, that most wine tasters use a 100 point scale, but then only use the last 20 points. As I understand it, a wine gets 50 points for just showing up, and another 30 points if you can drink it without gagging.

    Why not use use a 20 point scale?

    Cheers!

    Dan (In Houston)

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