The social drinker

Walking through Zurich the other day, I thought once again that Switzerland in summer is close to heaven, as long as you earn a seven-figure salary. How the impecunious James Joyce and Vladimir Lenin managed to survive in Zurich for so long is one of life’s great mysteries, but it does seem far-fetched to speculate that it was the inability to afford a drink that finally forced Lenin to take his historic train to Russia 100 years ago, to launch his revolution.

The Swiss are great exporters of first-class goods and services. Watches, chocolate and discreet banking are all exported, but they sensibly keep their wine to themselves. Almost all the great wine writers agree the Swiss make some of the best wines on the planet, but these wines are rarely celebrated because they rarely leave their own cantons.

It is as if nobody in Dublin wanted the rest of the world to know about Guinness.

So what should you sample should you have the good fortune to find yourself in Switzerland, or the sort of eccentric restaurant that serves Swiss wine? The best answer is probably a bottle from Neuchatel; an area not too distant from the charming little capital of Bern.

About a quarter of the wines from this 1,500-acre winemaking area are red, and most of them use the pinot noir grape, which grows well on limestone.

White wine from this area is made from the Chasselas grape, which is then encouraged to fizz slightly because it is not separated from its yeasty sediment. We don’t often drink wine made with Chasselas, and perhaps this is the reason why it is such a treat. Whatever the reason, don’t pass up on the opportunity to sample one of Switzerland’s greatest hidden secrets.