Lavaux grapes
The terraced vineyards of Lavaux run down to Lake Geneva, from Lutry to Montreux, held up by stone walls. Inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2007, the vineyard mostly grows Chasselas, a white grape variety, and its grapes are harvested in autumn.
On the hillside at Epesses, at harvest time, people move on foot from one wall to the next, a small crate of bunches on their back. The slope, too steep for machines, means the harvest has to be brought out by tracked carrier, by small monorail, sometimes by helicopter.
Origin
15,000 years ago, the Rhône glacier still covered the shore. As it retreated, it left a moraine of crushed rock, where vines have been grown at least since Roman times, notes the Lavaux Patrimoine mondial association. Everything changed in the 12th century with the arrival of monks: they cleared the hillside, cut it into steps and entrusted the vines to peasants paid by the task, the ancestors of today’s vignerons-tâcherons. The first walls dated with certainty go back to the 14th century.
Growing
Some thirty varieties grow here, but Chasselas accounts for three vines in four. According to Agroscope, the federal agricultural research centre, all its plants descend from a single vine, born centuries ago from a spontaneous cross and propagated since without seed. Mutations have nevertheless given it green, yellow, russet, pink or purple berries. Between 370 and 600 m above sea level, the vines here enjoy “three suns”: the one in the sky, its reflection on Lake Geneva and the warmth the stone gives back in the evening. And everything rests on the walls: 400 to 450 km of masonry, more than 10,000 terraces, repaired in winter with the old stones.
At the table
Hardly any grapes are grown here for the table: almost the whole harvest is made into wine in the region. White wine nevertheless comes back at dessert, in a homemade tart that Culinary Heritage of Switzerland links above all to the shores of Lake Geneva. Onto shortcrust pastry goes sugar dissolved in wine, often thickened with cornflour, sometimes spiced with cinnamon. It was made to use up leftover wine, especially in winter.
Today
In June 2007, UNESCO inscribed these terraces on the World Heritage List as a living cultural landscape. Their protection is older: the people of Vaud approved a constitutional article in their favour in 1977, and a law has preserved them since 1979. The Lavaux appellation covered 798 hectares in 2022, from Lutry to Vevey-Montreux; Epesses accounts for 171 of them. The Fête des Vignerons, which comes back to Vevey only once a generation or so, pays tribute to those who work the vines.
Sources: Lavaux Patrimoine mondial association, pages “Cépages”, “Vigne et vins de Lavaux”, “Lavaux et ses patrimoines”, “Murs de vigne”, “Vendanges 2023”, “Inscription au patrimoine mondial” and “Lavaux, site protégé”; Agroscope, press release “Le Chasselas, champion de la diversité génétique” (2014); Culinary Heritage of Switzerland, entry “Gâteau au vin”.