The latter has been in production for 150 years which makes Charles Bonvin et fils the oldest winery in the canton of Valais.  I tried a recent Dôle whilst watching the Swiss version of the Red Arrows air display across the Rhone Valley from Bonvin’s Clos du Château garden terrace restaurant.  I say restaurant but I actually mean rustic Swiss shack with a basic kitchen and a few bits of random garden furniture.  And yet a sole jolly elderly gentleman was able to turn out steak tartare, médallions de foie gras, and une assiette valaisanne to die for.

Christophe paid a flying visit.  The ex Swiss footballer told us about the various grapes he grows, what altitudes are best suited to each (after many experiments), how he feels the terroir of the valais is unique and unlike any other wine region.  However, Swiss wines are expensive to produce because the steep slopes make picking hard work.  Maybe this is why they don’t appear on British shelves all that regularly.

The Dôle was about 55-60% Pinot Noir, the remainder Gamay.  The legal minimum is 50% PN.  Incredibly tasty, fruity and served lightly chilled as intended.  Just one of those moments in life.  Sitting on a sunny terrace on a late September afternoon with a great glass of wine, fantastic food, good friends, and jet aircraft performing acrobatics above just for me (actually I heard that the display was to honour the Swiss Airbase at Sion’s 65th anniversary).

As it happens we were surrounded by Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir vines just a couple of days before the vendange.  Could I stay and pick a few grapes in return for a few cases?

Les Mazots du Clos du Château
Colline de Champlan, Sion, Valais, Suisse.
Réservations +41 (0)79 628 61 70
W: www.charlesbonvin.ch

Ring for directions, you will never find it yourself.

Shown through to a private room for six, I did feel rather smug until I realised that we were in some sense gaoled.

The room is cosy.  Yes cosy.  Very low ceilinged is another good description.  Peter and Alan decided to prove just how low by kissing it, but fortuitously I caught them in a “howl at the moon” devil’s pact pose which they won’t thank me for publishing.

Being the season, the specials menu was Bambi’s parents.  Filet de Cerf avec pâtes et choux rouge was the daddy and was my choice.  Biche was mummy, and Alan and Heidi’s choice, served with a vat of boiling oil to cook the raw meat.  My filet was simply the best deer I have ever eaten.  Smooth, lean, and tasty it beat most fillet steak hands down for both flavour and texture.  Serve it saignant (rare) at all costs.  The pasta turned out to be tagliatelle, my favourite, cooked just so.  Red cabbage I can take or leave but this one was more takeable than most.

A salad with a decent French dressing was the pre-cursor to venison heaven.

Edith recommended a local Syrah to go with the rich meat.  I don’t know if my glass was dirty but the first pour smelt of condoms.  At CHF42 (about £21) it turned out to be a real bargain.  By the third bottle the condoms had been put back in the wallet and replaced by caramelised toffees, blueberry and orange with some spicy, peppery flavours.

The wine list was simple and local as you would expect from a place located on the edge of a very steep hill and just below a deserted single track mountain road, barely passable by yak or elephant, although modern 4x4s seem to make it through.

One further pièce de resistance turned out to be the toilets with a fantastic automated cleaning mechanism.  Are the Swiss the cleanest race in Europe?  They are certainly amongst the best cooks.

Could I find any complaints?  I’ll try my best.  The Génépi was not home made, but then Edith did not look very game for trawling August mountain tops for rare plants to soak in vodka.  The spirit she buys in is almost as good as the secret recipe home brews that adorn many an alpine resto.

Although close to the Italian border, the macchiato was more a cappuccino, and whilst in the French speaking part of Switzerland, there was no Armagnac on the digestif list.  I could have been unreasonable and complained but on reflection, I have never seen Calvalais on a London menu.  This is the valaissane answer to Calvados and much nicer, by the way.  I have also never seen ice cream made from conifer sap.  When served with a slug of Genepi, this was the most unusual, original and entertaining mouthful since Monica Lewinsky.

If you are in Nendaz to ski, bike, walk, paraglide, or simply drink and eat, you must not go home without visiting Edith’s place.

Chez Edith, 1997 Nendaz, sur la route de Siviez, Suisse.
T:  +41 (0)27 288 21 89

Despite a reputation for ennui, Switzerland is one of my favourite places in the world.  But when I walked into St Moritz on Wardour Street, and asked for a table, the Swiss owner did not even recognise me.  I spoke to her in French for a few sentences.  The other waitress was obviously brand new.  She got a couple of bollockings for not serving correctly.  I ordered a kir and some water.  I asked if the rosti was authentic. I insisted that my Pinot Noir was served un peu frais. The blank look finally led me to ask if she was Germanic Swiss…  Romanian apparently, which was a relief.  I thought I was losing my French accent.

I asked (in English) why she tried to serve the Pinot Noir Vaudois Grand Croix 2006 Canton Vaud (£23.95) warm.  She admitted that it should be served cool but every time she tried to serve it at the right temperature, customers complained that it was too cold…

I am starting to realise that the reason that restos serve all red wines too warm is because the general public insist it is so.  The education I wanted to mete out upon the ignorant restaurateurs of the UK, is targeted at the wrong audience.  The general public are the ignorami.

After only 10 minutes in an ice bucket, the Pinot was perfect.  Strawberries, salty celery, chicken coup and old leather ski boots, went with the escargots like a toff’s school book with a Sheaffer, although the snails were a bit heavy on the rosemary.  The calves liver (foie de veau), perfectly pinkly chargrilled, went equally well with the rosti on the side.  The atmosphere was spookily like a Swiss chalet.  I shut my eyes and wondered if I might ski back to my hotel, but it was only raining when we departed, and in any case it was uphill with no chair lift.

At £95.40 for two (inc service) I thought the bill was quite steep for a back street Soho gaff.  But to be honest, the food was superb.  The wine was OK, too.  The show (We Will Rock You) was a stark reminder of how dodgy and naively left wing Ben Elton’s humour is, and yet how stunningly good Queen’s music and lyrics were.  Nevertheless, it is good fun, and I recommend the show (Dominion Theatre outside Tottenham Court Rd Tube).  I recommend St Moritz (just round the corner) even more so.

St. Moritz, 161 Wardour Street, London, W1F 8WJ.
T: +44 (0)20 7734 3324  F: +44(0)20 7734 8995
W:  www.stmoritz-restaurant.co.uk

Arriving at Le Perron, in old town Geneva, it is not at all clear what type of restaurant it is – Italian, French, Romanche or even German?  Whilst sitting outside wondering which of the four national languages of Switzerland we would be greeted in, I was surprised to hear French with a Far Eastern twang.  As enthusiastic as my mate Miki from Japan, our waiter was a gem, and (I guess) a first generation ex-pat.  Which only reminded me that Japan is one nation I would love to visit.

Travel dreams aside, I was bought back down to earth with the pleasant bump of the wine list’s arrival, which had several French treasures amongst the local Swiss residents.  It was my last night in Geneva and I had had my fill of local wines so I was pleased to see a claret as “wine of the month” from an excellent year, 2003.  The Château Sainte Barbe (CHF42 = only £18 – no rip off) was quite tannic but displayed blackcurrants, raspberries and spicy vanilla oak.  It was strange to come back to Merlot/Cabernet Sauvignon after so much Pinot Noir and Gamay.  But it was a good move because the filet de boeuf morilles demanded something a little more serious.

In fact the steak was not exceptional.  Nowhere near the quality of the starter of green salad which came with a French dressing approaching my own in taste (and that is the only decent thing I can do in a kitchen).

In summary, the wine was better than the food but both were superseded by the atmosphere which was fantastic.  Three elderly ladies on bicycles popped in for a glass of wine, laughing and smiling.  I hope they made it through the Geneva Mercedes filled roadways unscathed.  It’s nice to see some old folk who really enjoy life.  I hope I will be like that in 20 years, although I suspect I will be more like Victor Meldrew.  Many would say I am already a grumpy old man, but at least a nice glass of wine cheers my spirits!  So does a bill of CHF 163 which translates to approx £70 or US$144 – great value in any language, even Romanche!

Next time I am in Geneva I will seek out Le Perron, although maybe for lunch rather than dinner, or perhaps an early evening aperitif on a bicycle.

Le Perron, 5 Rue du Perron, 1204, Genève.
Tél: +41 (0) 22 311 3108. Fax: +41 (0) 22 311 3163.

I agree that wherever practicable, one should buy an item based on any colour but red, and I once had a red car re-sprayed to avoid embarrassment.  But then there is wine.  Ah wine.  This life long axiom falls apart at the seams, since I have only ever seen one blue wine and it was grim.

So spotting a bar in Geneva which could have been named after a Man United kit, I approached with trepidation.  I am sick of seeing United players out on the town in Manchester whilst the City players sleep soundly preparing for the next game (or maybe just don’t get recognised).  Would Le Rouge et le Blanc be crammed with Swiss footballers, winos, or just ordinary folk?

We popped in for an evening meal but ended up only taking a swift drink.  There was no kitchen to speak of.  The menu was one course long.  The waitress had the wine list in her head so a 20 minute conversation ensued (in my pidgin French).  I was losing the will to live whilst simultaneously risking death by de-hydration, so I asked for something local.  I tried to joke that she should make it snappy, like a crocodile sandwich, but this didn’t translate well and she walked off with the sort of look you give someone you suspect of being an axe murderer.

She returned with an Uby, apparently from Geneva.  It tasted like a cross between an Alsace Riesling and a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, a basic wine, mainly grapefruit flavoured.  As for the bar, it’s a really dumb idea not to have a menu or a wine list.  It is equally daft to write l’addition on the table.  Having to carry our table to the till was most inconvenient, and my back is still recovering.

There was a bit too much Jamiroqui on the sound system and there was hardly room to swing une souris, never mind un chat.  Despite all this it was packed with trendy genevois poseurs in various stages of post-work merriment and if I was a watchmaker, Swiss banker, or army knife manufacturer, I would probably be a regular.  Since I neither work nor live anywhere near Geneva, I won’t be going again.

Rouge et le Blanc, Quai des Bergues 27, Genève, Suisse.  Tél: +41 (0) 22 731 15 50.

So our holiday gambling trip took us to Montreux.  The food and wine were so poor I would be embarrassed to waste even an instant of your time troubling you with a description.  The gambling trip was not a raging success either, although the croupiers were extremely friendly and we did walk out 25CHF in profit (sadly not enough to cover our travel expenses to and from the casino).

Let’s rewind to our afternoon trip to Morges, where the “casino” was built in the classic French style.  Think Monte Carlo’s jeune offspring gurgling and smiling charmingly across Lake Geneva.  Only this offspring had undergone a sex change, metamorphosing into a bar/resto.

Morges is a charming enough town, like many on lake Geneva.  On a sunny autumn afternoon with nothing better to do than idle, Restaurant Casino’s balcony made a great location to sit and watch the world go by.  Dappled faces chatted to each other on the tree shaded terrasse below.  Aquatic birds circled, casually riding the thermals whilst pretending not to keep an eager eye on any unsuspecting child with an ice cream held aloft.  Lazy amblers idled along the pavements like cars stuck in an M62 traffic jam.  And the more wine I drunk the slower the scene became.

Oh, the wine – when in Morges do as the Morgeans do, eh?  50cl of Commune de Morges Bolle & Cie 2006 was only 15 CHF ($12).  Bananas and pineapples sprung to mind.  A veritable fruit cocktail.  In fact, anyone remember fruit salad chews?  Very similar in flavour.

Restaurant Le Casino, Place du Casino 4, Quai Lochmann 19, 1110 Morges, Suisse. T:  +41 (0) 21 802 62 15.
E:  info@casinomorges.ch.  W:  www.casinomorges.ch.

Bistro les Bergues is just off Quai des Bergues which overlooks the wide river that divides Geneva’s competing neon armies of Rolex, Credit Suisse and Patek Phillipe advertising hoardings (which are best viewed at night).

I would love to talk about the prices and rip-off mark-ups in the wine but Alban sneaked off and paid for the entire meal while I was not looking.  I tried so hard to offer cash but he insisted.  Then he took the piss out of the English weather and people, and I understood that he had purchased the right to some impudence.

Bistro les Bergues is Croatian owned, but serves food that is more reminiscent of the Middle East.  The Mezzé lebbanais was interesting but lacking variety.  Various dips, salad and pitta bread but no imaginative side dishes.  Still, they kept bringing top-ups and the quality was superb.

My main course of St-Jacques grillées sauce homardine (lobster) was a crustacean gem, or 5 gems to be precise.  But the company was more important than the food or wine at this time.  We hadn’t seen Alban for nearly two years and he is a diamond.

The wine was local (at Alban’s insistence).  Vertigo Pinot Blanc (de Geneve) was from Bardonnex and tasted of pears and peaches.  Nice and dry and perfect with the scallops.

I owe Alban one, despite his cheek.  Il ne parle pas anglais du tout, donc je veux lui dire qu’il n’est pas con, comme je l’ai dit!  Salut Alban…..!  Alban, si j’avais su que tu allais payé, j’aurais commandé encore une bouteille de vin!  A plus tard.

BISTRO LES BERGUES, Rue Kléberg 8, 1201 Genève.
T:  +41 (0) 22 73 11 250.  E:  info@bistrotdesbergues.ch.
W:  http://www.bistrotdesbergues.ch/home.aspx.

So why stay in Lausanne then?  It’s a fair question, thanks for asking.  On a previous holiday we had stayed in Evian and done the ferry trip the other way.  In doing so, we found a resto in Lausanne which did the most fabulous rosti ever tasted.  As I was not running this blog in those days, I had no record of the name or location of this establishment.

So we asked around for the best rosti shop in town and a random camera retailer recommended Brasserie Bavaria.

A strong Germanic influence is obviously at play, so we tried hard not to mention the war whilst placing our order.  The first course of warm goats’ cheese salad was as good as caprine produce gets.  Smooth and as creamy as a double whipped cream sundae.

The main course of rosti was equally excellent.  Fred went for cheese and eggs whilst I plumped for cheese and dried beef (a Swiss version of bresaola, or maybe just bresaola, we are not far from Italy after all).  We wondered if this dish was the inspiration behind cheesy chips, a disgusting portion of soggy fried potatoes served with congealed melting fat dolloped on top, in English seaside towns.  Fortunately there was no comparison.  The rosti was crisp and delicious.  The cheese portion was sensible and not overpowering in quantity or flavour.  As a result both plates were ultimately clean enough to not need a dishwasher visit before the next customer.

The wine choice was another local Dôle.  “Pourriez-vous le servir un peu frais?” j’ai démandé au garçon qui m’a répondu “bien sûr, monsieur, comme toujours!” A refreshing change from the typically British response “Red wine?  Chilled?  No, I’m sorry you have to have it at room temperature”.  The wine was Dôle Madelon AOC Valais, Cave Hubert Germanier.  At CHF36, definitely no rip-off here.  Smooth blackberry excited by a red grapefruit buzz.  It had more structure than any of the other Dôles I tried this holiday.

Sharing an apple strudel for dessert it seemed silly to complain that I couldn’t have my favoured macchiato, and, that instead of my beloved Armagnac, Remy Martin Cognac had to suffice.   The strudel, served with top quality vanilla ice cream was an almost perfect apple pie.  Crisp, dry filo pastry, raisins more like fresh grapes, lemon flavours and super sweet apples.

The bill came to CHF 137.80.  Since the Swiss franc is not far off par with the USD, Americans may not think this particularly cheap.  For Brits, this translates as less than £60 – awesome value….

So if you ever have the misfortune to find yourself in Lausanne, before you commit suicide due to boredom, I strongly recommend eating your last supper at the Brasserie Bavaria.

Brasserie Bavaria, 10 Rue du Petit Chêne, 1003 Lausanne, Suisse.  Tél:  +41 21 323 39 13.

So if you are in Haute-Nendaz and you find a Panasonic camera, please hand it in at the Police Station?  But before you do, can you post the memory contents on Flickr and send the hyperlink to me?

On the way up the hill from the station, we found Le Raccard, and, as it happens, we were sweating profusely on this hot autumn day.  Enjoying a quick snifter (petit pichet) of wine, water and tea, we quickly realised that this was the only place open on Monday nights in the ultra low Nendaz season of October.

The 2dl of Fendant tasted of pommes, bananes, un peu sec mais beaucoup de fruits.  Bananas was to become a surprisingly common feature of the Valais wines I tasted.

So the evening saw us back at the place, looking for quality cuisine Valaisenne.  An escape route from Dôle was found in a glorious Pinot Noir called Chateau La Tour (no not that one) Goubing 2006.

All four if us did a blind tasting and after violent disagreement settled on raspberry, and tomato juice with Worcester sauce.  At CHF39 (approx £16) it would be rude to talk of rip-off restaurant mark-ups.  In any case I couldn’t find an online dealer stocking the wine in any country.  And the total bill, at less than £100 for four hungry (and thirsty) mouths, was astonishing value, all things considered.

The food was really good with mignon de porc, côte de porc and fondue chinoise amongst the choices. Our hosts, Viviane et Gigi Angelone looked after us without so much as breaking out into song, or sweat.

A relaxing end to an invigorating weekend.  Oh well, on to other parts of this nation of cuckoo clocks and army knives.  The bus to Sion awaits the morrow.

Le Raccard, 1997 Haute-Nendaz, Tél:  027 288 15 43;  Fax:  027 288 23 61; Mobile:  079 436 64 26.  E:  lerac@bluewin.ch.

Le Déserteur, Haute-Nendaz.  Tél:  027 288 24 55;  Fax:  027 288 38 14;  E:  info@ledeserteur.ch; W:  www.ledeserteur.ch.

It seems that Dôle is merely a recipe.  An oenological prescription that determines the correct proportions of two grapes, Pinot Noir and Gamay.  The former, it is determined by the powers that be, should constitute the majority of the mix.  And what powers!  Anyone who has ever been to the land of the Milka Cow will know that “Remplissez cette fiche, s’il vous plait” is the most common phrase heard.  Filling out forms is something of an obsession for this nation and is one part of la vie suisse that Marie-Bernard detests.  She describes herself as une artisane de la vigne et du vin and her openly stated aim is to make wines as natural as possible.  She relishes the variations in the wine that serendipity generates, and the fact that the somewhat random combination of grape, sound, smell and alcohol, should produce something different every time, to be the absolute and pure beauty of wine.

Sadly the authorities don’t agree and every action she takes on a wine, requires a form to be completed, lest the Obergrupenfuhrer of the AOC Valais issues a 14 day warning of inspection.  This do-gooder auditor can close down her operation if the requisite fiches have not been remplissées.

The variety of grapes grown in the Valais region is astonishing.  Marie-Bernard pointed us at Petite Arvine, Chasseloir, Pinot Noir, Gamay, Muscat and Syrah – a heady mix.

We sampled a few nice ones.  The Petite Arvine 2002 tasted more like a nice mellow Muscat.  The sibling 2006 was fresher, sharper, more zingy with pineapple and honey notes.  Both very nice wines in their own right.

The Dôle 2006 was light, fruity quaffable wine tasting of young raspberries.  Whilst containing 49% Gamay it was not as jammy as a Beaujolais, and was more serious in the way that a Volkswagen is more serious than a Mini. 

Our final sample was a 2005 Syrah.  Marie-Bernard decanted this, and then vigorously swirled the wine in the decanter as if trying to conjure an ancient spell to unleash a plague of locusts upon the vicious wine auditors.

The Syrah tasted of blackberries and spice.  Opinions were divided.  Most agreed on black pepper but the taste of ginger was a less unanimous vote.

In all, a great experience and I am so glad I got out of bed.  It is, however, a strange experience tasting wine in the morning.  I reluctantly exchanged my normal propensity to swallow, for a temporary spitting fit, and was proved to be thankful later in the day having climbed several hundred metres to Lac Cleuson.

I would like to publicly thank Marie-Bernard, and Audrey, our translator, for making the visit such an endearing experience.

In case any of you are wondering what Fact 1 was on this fine day, I can reveal it was that French-Swiss breakfast chefs hate cooking poached eggs – from a nation of foodies, this is a travesty.  Facts 3, 4, and 5 cannot be revealed on a blog for family consumption.

Marie-Bernard Gillioz Praz, Vigneronne – encaveuse, Rue de l’Etang 71, 1971 Grimisuat/VS.  Tél:  +41 (0) 27 398 15 44;  Fax:  +41 (0) 27 398 49 69.  E:  mbgillioz@bluewin.ch