Switzerland

Switzerland exports about one percent of what it makes. The domestic market pays well, production is small and costs are very high, so Swiss wine is almost invisible abroad. The vineyards themselves are among the most dramatic in Europe: the Lavaux terraces above Lake Geneva, built by Benedictine and Cistercian monks from the eleventh century, are a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Chasselas is the signature white, a neutral grape that most countries treat as a table grape and that Switzerland uses to express site. It is low in aroma and moderate in acid, which is exactly why differences in soil come through. Valais, the driest and warmest canton, holds the native specialities: petite arvine, humagne blanche and rouge, amigne, cornalin.

The country is divided by language as much as by geography. French-speaking Valais, Vaud and Geneva make about three quarters of the wine; German-speaking cantons grow pinot noir, called blauburgunder; Italian-speaking Ticino is merlot country, planted after phylloxera destroyed the earlier vineyard.