I guess a few of you know I like Swiss Wine, and that I’ve just been to Switzerland, a trip that included some fine walking in the Swiss Alps as a prelude to visiting three Swiss wine regions and drinking quite copious quantities of Swiss wines. I plan to publish a short article on each of those three visits over the next couple of weeks, followed by a roundup of the wines we drank in restaurants and with friends over the seven days we were there.

Why might you be interested in Switzerland, a country whose wines are rarely seen on export markets and when they are spotted, they are quite often excruciatingly expensive…or so we are led to believe?

Well, first of all there is a bit of a crisis in Swiss wine. Local consumption, which is where the vast majority of Swiss producers sell their wines, has fallen by 16% over a fairly short period. Add that to vastly increased costs (which we have seen worldwide, but especially in Europe), and you can see why all but the very top names have wines left over, sometimes from two or three vintages. Some are being forced to quit viticulture altogether.

One answer is to prod at export markets. In the UK we pretty much used to have to head to Alpine Wines for our Swiss fix. Joelle Nebbe-Mornod still does an excellent job of bringing in some top Swiss wines for those who can afford them, along with a number of surprisingly less expensive and affordable wines. But there are other signs of life. I’ve just, for example, bought my second bottle of Swiss wine from The Wine Society this year. The first, from a top Lavaux producer, cost £22.50, the second, from the same region, just £14.

Another reason you might find these articles interesting is that I recently reviewed the Smart Traveller’s Wine Guide on Switzerland, written by Simon Hardy and Marc Checkley and published by the Academie du Vin Library. It’s an excellent guide. I gave a copy to the Swiss friends we were visiting and they love it, even if you might think it’s taking coals to Newcastle (as the saying goes). However, in each of the three wine regions I’m about to write about, I am doing things and visiting places which the authors of that guide, for whatever reason, miss out.

I am in no way criticising the authors of the Swiss guide for doing so, but I know my readers, and what they might like. If you read the articles, starting with this one, I’m sure you will find the places and producers I visit quite appealing.

My first visit is to a region which I can’t say will be the best known in the country by a long way, but it is very attractive, and if you have been reading Wideworldofwine for a while, you may well have read about this producer’s wines, of which it is fair to say I am a fan.

Domaine de Montmollin – Auvernier – Lac de Neuchâtel

Avernier is an old village, surrounded by more recent development, which sits on the western shore of the Lac de Neuchâtel, one of the lakes (along with Bielersee and Murtensee) in the Trois Lacs region. It is, by some margin, the largest of the three lakes, and as the names of the three lakes suggest, we are close here to the bridge between French-speaking Switzerland (Suisse Romande) and German-speaking Switzerland (Deutschschweiz), a bridge which is colloquially known as the Röstigraben, inexplicably named after the famous potato dish which came out of Bern.

We are north of Lausanne and up towards the French border with the mountainous part of the Jura region. The lake’s wine regions here can be confusing because the southern edge of the lake, based loosely on the towns called Grandson and Orbe, are actually part of the wider Vaud region, though even those with a reasonable knowledge of Swiss wines might have to think very hard before they recall the names of the two Vaudois sub-regions there (Bonvillars and Côtes de l’Orbe).

The wines of Auvernier are certainly French-speaking (so to speak), as is the Domaine de Montmollin. Whereas the aforementioned pocket guide gives a recommendation for the wines of the Château d’Auvernier, I’ve been following Montmollin, a stone’s throw away, for many years, since in fact I tasted their Oeil de Perdrix at an Olympic event on London’s South Bank in 2012.

The Montmollin family has a connection with the château because they were once the feudal Lords of Auvernier. They have been farming grapes here since the 1600s. The current generation, brother and sister team of Benoît Montmollin and Rachel Billeter-de-Montmollin, manages a large estate today, some fifty hectares, and it is all cultivated biodynamically (with BioSuisse Certification). The terroir is a mix of limestone and clay, benefitting from the reflective warmth of the lake. Winemaking is largely in stainless steel, to create fruity and fresh wines with a nice line of acidity, but there is some wood, mostly venerable old oak casks still in use, plus some new oak for the top Pinot Noirs.

Last day of Harvest ’25 at Montmollin (1 October)

What of the wines? Importer Alpine Wines (www.alpinewines.co.uk) has the largest selection from Montmollin, currently numbering eight cuvées/vintages on their web pages. A quick look there will show that this estate is well-known for its Pinot Noir. Five of those eight wines are priced under £40. I most often buy their Oeil de Perdrix, something of a regional speciality, made from Pinot Noir. It’s a Rosé wine that repays keeping two or three years after harvest, as its back label will suggest. I also buy their Chasselas, which usually comes in more that one cuvée, including an unfiltered version (very good) and a single site bottling.

There are, I think, around twenty-eight different wines in the range, so you could almost imagine you are visiting some Alsace producer. Aside from those I mentioned already, I picked up a couple of wines I really wanted to try. One was the “A Poil” Petnat which I shall write about in an upcoming article. The other was the “A Poil” red blend, which contains PIWIs Galotta and Divico, the latter a variety I have planted up here as a wild experiment with global warming, in the sunniest and driest part of Scotland. French speakers might guess from the name, A Poil, that these are natural wines, without the addition of sulphur. Nevertheless, all the Montmollin wines like a little age, and 4-5 years is suggested for that cuvée.

Chasselas from a single parcel, “zero zero” petnet À Poil (a glowing note in Falstaff today) and Oeil de Perdrix

If you visit Switzerland, a day up in the Three Lakes would not be a day wasted, and Domaine de Montmollin is very welcoming, even as I caught them on the last day of harvest. I do suggest making an appointment, though unlike some producers, if you fail to do so all may not be lost. They are a very nice family.

As for Swiss wines being expensive…the red blend mentioned above was 26 CHF (which is around £25), the Petnat a little cheaper still.

Domaine de Montmollin is at Grand Rue 3, 2012 Auvernier

Tel +41 (0)32 737 10 00 or email info@domainedemontmollin.ch

Opening hours are Monday to Friday 8am to 12pm and 1.30pm to 5pm, and 09.00 – 12.00 on Saturday. It is common for Swiss cellars to be open without an appointment on Saturday mornings, as well as the Portes Ouvertes days advertised throughout the year.

The town of Neuchâtel has a regional wine festival/Fête des Vendanges which takes place in September. It’s a large and hectic affair, which can either be avoided or scheduled in depending on your preference.

Drive times to Auvernier (depending on traffic): Geneva 1h 40m; Lausanne 1h; Zurich 2h 30m; Basel about 2h; and Bern 1h. Mind you, you can easily double that if you are trying to get back to Geneva in rush hour. Remember to make sure you have a carnet for the Autoroutes.

Views around Montmollin and Auvernier’s old village centre. The last photo on the right is the Château d’Auvernier. To the east of the old village there is a park which leads to the lake shore, which we used as our picnic spot.