Pairing Wine and Food

We said our goodbyes to Colby’s family in Murren and left them to continue the party without us for a few more days. Although we would have been happy to stay on in this spectacular place, the time had come for us to wave farewell to the mountains and venture on to our third WWOOF farm. This time, we would be helping at a vineyard and winery in the rolling hills of northern Switzerland.

By evening we had arrived at our hosts’ house on the edge of town in Ormalingen, near the city of Basel. Although the view from Murren had been jaw-droppingly spectacular, our new surroundings had their own calmer loveliness. Ormalingen is a town of about 2000 people nestled among a mosaic landscape of grain fields, fruit orchards, forested hills, and other villages. A larger town of 6000 people down the road has all but merged with Ormalingen, so our new WWOOF farm had a much more populated feel than either of our previous farms. As we dream about what kind of environment we ourselves would like to live in, it has been instructive to get a taste of life in many different settings. First was the little historic hamlet in Ticino, second the isolated rural farmhouse near Thun, and now in Ormalingen a newer development with a suburban feel. The Swiss suburbs aren’t nearly as repellent as US suburbs, however. The houses and yards have much more character and they are clustered together rather than sprawling over miles of former farmland.

Along with the new landscape, we had a new family to get to know: Claude is a good-natured man of few words, his wife Ruth is kind and earnest, and his sister Sabina is a fun free spirit. Claude heads up “Chiquet-les-Vins,” the winery he started 12 years ago.  Over our first dinner on the patio together, we got to hear about how it all began. Claude and Ruth were on vacation in the South of France and happened across a winemaking workshop. Claude had an interest in winemaking, and this workshop provided the spark for his inspiration. As a former engineer, he didn’t have much background in that area but decided to go for it! It was refreshing to hear about the way Claude followed his passion, jumping into a new endeavor with faith and energy. He began planting his vineyards and today produces about 5000 bottles of wine per year, an average of one bottle from each of his 5000 plants. The customers are individuals as well as local shops and restaurants. And although not many of the vineyards in the area are organic, Claude described the decision to grow this way as an “of course” that was naturally in line with their lifestyle.

The first few days of work were sweat drenchers. Although we got up at 6 am, it wasn’t early enough to beat the heat that crested to an oppressively humid 35ºC (95ºF) by lunch time. As the sweat ran in rivulets off our necks, we helped to corral the quickly-growing stems back into their trellises to keep them growing in the right direction. Our other task was to prune leaves, shoulders, and small stems off the vines to create a zone with good air flow for the fruit to hang and ripen. Doing these exact same two tasks for two weeks gave us lots of time reflect on life. As a break to our daydreams, it was also fun to chat with Sabina, our main work partner. She lived in New Zealand for 25 years, so that made it especially easy to communicate. We learned about her career as a masseuse and about her interest in holistic health. Eventually the convivial chatter gave way to a natural silence as we focused in on the vines. As the three of us inched our way down the rows, time glided by quickly. Our minds settled into a long meditation on sunlight, heat, sweat, photosynthesis, and glowing green leaves. Julia found the rhythm of the work rather peaceful and satisfying, but the triple whammy of heat, monotony, and early mornings was not a recipe for smiles or whistles from Colby. Fortunately, after a few days we got into the groove. It felt like a Zen parable, devoting ourselves to an endless task that we wouldn’t see the fruit of, and much less wouldn’t even be finished by the end of our two weeks’ work. Still, it was a good experience and gave us a new window into all the work that goes into the wine we drink.

Although we didn’t get to taste the fruits of our own work, we did get to enjoy the products of previous years’ work. Over our dinners we sampled the different red and white wines from Chiquet-les-Vins. Claude is able to grow organically with the help of grape varieties hybridized with wild grape species that are naturally resistant to fungal disease. These hybrid varieties have the cute German abbreviation name of “Piwi”. Although some wine connoisseurs are stuck in their ways expecting the taste of traditional varieties, there is growing enjoyment and popularity of Piwi varieties. We could see why – the wines we tried were truly delicious and delightful. We even found our new favorite white wine, the perfectly balanced Sauvignon S.

Because of their recent development, another unique aspect of the Piwi varieties is that very few have romatic names like the traditional Merlot or Chardonnay do. Rather, most varieties have only a barcode-like assemblage of letters and numbers assigned by the plant breeders. This means that Claude has the fun privilege of inventing names for the wines when he is the first one to produce a particular variety in his region. For example, one of his red wines is named “Prisma.” This wine is produced from one of their vineyards outside the nearby town of Maisprach. Sabina dreamed up this enticing name as a reorganization of some of the letters in the town’s name.

A couple months ago it was actually a bit uncertain whether we’d be able to WWOOF at this farm after all. In recent years the weather has been warming up earlier in the spring, tricking the plants out of dormancy before the danger of frost has passed. After the buds have started to grow, they are very susceptible to being killed by the cold. Although there was a problem with frost last year, the late frost this year caused the worst damage Claude has seen yet. He was considering abandoning this year’s crop and just leaving the vines to recover, but they ended up bouncing back with some fruit. After doing some expected yield calculations, Claude tentatively decided to go ahead with the season. However, the frost had killed all the buds in the normal positions along the branch, so the vines grew back all bushy and irregular. This makes the work of managing them much more time-consuming and finicky. On top of this, he is only hoping for one-fourth of the normal yield – assuming everything goes well and the weather stays warm and sunny into  October. Thanks, climate change! Even during our time there, Claude was still debating the best strategy for this crazy year. How much fruit should he try to get out of the plants this year, since it comes at the expense of their ability to recover and store up energy for next year? He kept changing his mind, understandable given the uncharted territory.

Being at the vineyard gave us a taste of all the big and stressful decisions of a production farm, especially since it was all one crop. It’s hard to imagine putting so much work into something with such an unknown outcome. Pondering the potential futility of our work, we remembered that almost any important project in life has a measure of this uncertainty. Even though there’s a possibility your passions and projects won’t work out, it’s still worth it to dive in and give them a try (usually). Besides the weight of difficult decisions, we also learned about the joy Claude finds in his business. He described how grape growing and winemaking are just as much art as science, with lots of intuitive decisions to be made. He described the satisfaction of engaging in the full spectrum of the process, from choosing which grape varieties to plant to assessing the taste of the wine. In a world where so many jobs only let you work on one narrow part of a system, we could appreciate how fulfilling it would be to put your heart into the whole web of a system and see it come to fruit as a tangible creation.

History and Culture

Working with the grapevines gave our imaginations an easy leap back into the past. Vineyards are part of the region’s long history -- the remains of Roman grape trellises from almost 2,000 years ago have been discovered around the Ormalingen area. In the early years AD, northern Switzerland was an important part of the vast Roman Empire. The ruins left by that civilization are still being found today, including a Roman bath recently discovered just a few blocks away from where our hosts live. In the process of excavating to build a new house, they struck ruins and so the construction was put on hold for an archaeological dig. One of the workers invited us to walk in and take a closer look. He pointing out where the sauna, bath, fire pit, and main house were. It was crazy to imagine all the stories and layers of history hidden beneath the foundations of the modern neighborhood where we were staying.

For a weekend outing, our hosts drove us to the nearby ancient city of Augusta Raurica (now superimposed with a modern city called Augst) to marvel at more Roman ruins. Augusta Raurica was an important Roman city conveniently located on the Rhine River. Walking around the grounds from archaeological site to site gave us a sense of the city’s vastness – from around 100 to 300 AD, up to 15,000 people lived here at a time. It was fun to imagine daily life so very long ago as we walked around the excavated ruins of the massive theater and amphitheater, temple, city walls, bakery, acqueducts, sewer system, and trade workshops. All the feats of construction and engineering were seriously impressive. It was also amazing to learn that the city wasn’t really discovered until the 1960’s, and they estimate that 60% of it is still undiscovered. Today it’s almost impossible to do new construction in the area because you have to stop for an archaeological dig whenever you stumble upon ruins. And the ruins are everywhere. We could easily imagine how naturally the amphitheater blended into the forested hillside before it was discovered and excavated. And in the crop fields around the city, a recent drought revealed the ghostly traces of a vast network of ancient walls beneath the fields (above which the crops died sooner because their roots couldn’t grow quite as deep). Augusta Raurica is a whole world concealed by time, slowly being revealed to modern eyes and imaginations. In addition to the city of Augusta Raurica, a major military outpost called Vindonissa was located a few dozen kilometers away, which we visited the following weekend. Anyway, we finished our day with a Roman themed dinner back at home – build-your-own pizzas from the backyard oven and red wine from the vineyard.

We also got to experience more “recent” history in the form of castles. One of our hosts’ favorite dog walk loops goes to the ruins of the Farnsburg castle, which was first built in the 1300s and whose latest iteration happened in the 1700s. Since there is so much history everywhere, Switzerland has a pretty casual approach towards historic structures. Rather than being roped off, we were thrilled to be free to walk all around the stone foundations and walls, climb the stairs, wind up the spiral staircase, and gaze out over our kingdom. Again, we were in such a neat place and we were the only people there.

Another day we journeyed to Aarburg Castle. We were particularly interested in this castle and city because Aarburg is the region where Colby’s family historically orginates. In contrast to the forest-hidden ruins of Farnsburg, the Aarburg castle is an intact behemoth presiding over the city from a rocky protrusion. Rather than becoming a museum, the castle has found its modern purpose as a juvenile detention school. Although the castle was neat, it was hard to fully appreciate it through nauseating misery of the heat and humidity.

In addition to learning about the past, we also got to dip our toe into modern life and culture. Julia was thirsty for music and set off to the city of Basel for a symphony concert. It took place in a massive ornate red sandstone cathedral on the Rhine River. As the music swelled and danced within the walls of the 700-year-old church, it lifted the audience to a place of otherworldly beauty. And best of all, for an encore the pianist played Julia’s very favorite Chopin nocturne, music so sublime it made shivers swirl through her body. After the concert, watching the city lights shimmer in the dark current of the Rhine brought peaceful closure to the evening.

Imagining the Future

We were also excited to find out that the Biomarche organic market would be happening while we were in the area. This is a massive market that happens one weekend each year in a nearby city called Zofingen, drawing an incredible 40,000 visitors. We wound our way past endless booths lining the streets of the beautiful old town, marveling at the endless array of earth-friendly products. It was fun to connect with the energy and passion of the vendors, sample their foods, and learn more about the organic movement in Switzerland. Seeing all the different ways that people are engaging in a local and  sustainable food system sparked our imaginations about what we’d like to do in our own lives. There are so many options -- growing, processing, distributing… One booth that we found intriguing was called Hello Fresh, a company that mails out a cardboard box with recipes to cook a certain number of meals and all the necessary ingredients in the amounts needed. Although this concept seems like a great fit for its niche market, busy people wanting to eat better and learn how to cook, it didn’t seem like it would be scalable onto the wider food system. We contrasted this model with the ConProBio cooperative we learned about in Ticino, which we believe has a broader appeal and effectiveness.

Working in the vineyard gave us even more time to mull it all over. One question we contemplated was the economics of it all. At the market we were astonished at the prices of things (memorable examples were $35 for a salami or $60/kg for 5-year-old Parmesan cheese). But these are the prices that allow farmers to make a living wage while growing food in an ecologically sound way. Our hosts think that food in Switzerland is undervalued compared to the country’s high wages, and that people’s priorities are mixed up. People would rather fly around to lots of fancy vacations than invest in wholesome food. Hearing these comments felt like deja vu from Thun, where we had heard these exact same comments from Andi and Christina. The question is, how can we encourage society to see more value in food and farming? And especially in the United States, how can we have incomes high enough so that people have the ability to make that choice?

Although the food system is by no means perfect in Switzerland, it seems more forward-thinking than in the United States. We’ve been amazed at how common organic food is, even in the mainstream supermarket chains such as Coop. Organic products in Switzerland are certified by Switzerland’s organic certification agency, “BioSuisse,” which is the same one that certifies Claude’s vineyard. Similarly to the United States, inspectors from BioSuisse visit the vineyard periodically to check on things. And similarly to the US, it’s a lot of paperwork. But it was good to hear about the respect Claude has for the agency. He said that BioSuisse has high standards, good principles, and does a thorough job (it is Switzerland, after all). We did notice that there didn’t seem to be a lot of concern about pesticide cross-contamination, however. For example, the edge of Claude’s vineyard brushes up within meters of his nonorganic neighbor’s.

In addition to organic products, there are lots of local options as well. It helps that regional differences are celebrated in Switzerland. We noticed a striking example of this back in Winterthur, where a paper grocery bag from the Coop supermarket was decorated with an array of eggs showing the diverse colors and shapes originating from the different regions of Switzerland. It’s hard to imagine something like that happening in the US. And in Ormalingen, the yogurt and lettuce that our hosts bought were labeled specifically from Northwest Switzerland. Since all of Switzerland is less than one-fifth the size of Minnesota, that means it’s pretty local. Even closer to home, our hosts served us sausages from the farm up by Farnsburg castle, and bread baked by the farmer’s wife down the road. Seeing what Switzerland is doing surrounding local food gave us hope and ideas towards the development of regional food systems in the US.

At the same time, we learned that local food systems around Europe are being challenged by the free trade policies of the European Union. Our hosts lamented the way these policies have resulted in food being produced as cheaply as possible and then transported all over the place. We’d heard about these challenges from our previous hosts as well.  Although Swiss farmers have some protections since the country is not part of the EU, they are still struggling with lower prices from international competition. Additionally, some of our hosts have mentioned they have friends who cross the border into neighboring countries to buy cheaper groceries, which undercuts prices for Swiss farmers. Since globalization and free trade are such big forces in our world today, it was important to learn about some of their consequences through the specific lens of farming in Switzerland.

Our stay in Ormalingen also gave us time to sit with our computers and chip away at the always snowballing to-do list of projects. One of the downsides of long term travel is that it is impossible to live in the present moment 100% of the time. As much as we’d like to engage fully in the experience at hand, it is just as critical to reflect on past experiences (via writing the blog and going through photos) as well as plan and dream for the future. At this point we are beginning to look towards the fast-approaching next phase of our trip in the UK. As we pruned grape vines together, we spent a lot of time envisioning what we would like to get out of our travels, and even more grandly life in general. Besides dreaming, a more concrete task we accomplished was buying a new phone for Colby (his old one had been sacrificed to the hot tub in Thun a couple weeks before) :’(

And when we weren’t busy with one thing or another, we relaxed into the quiet rhythms of daily life – going for a long dog walk with Ruth, meeting some of their children and grandchildren, quietly gazing out across the valley, savoring Ruth’s cooking, and looking at photo albums together. One of the great parts of WWOOFing has been sharing all these day-to-day moments with our hosts. The small and subtle things have often made the greatest impressions on us. Getting a glimpse into a handful of other households’ lives has opened our eyes to the innumerable different experiences and possibilities of life.