I shared quite some stories about the mountain sports, but not yet so much about the wine trips. However, I made some beautiful tours and met some interesting wine makers in the last months! For this 2nd part of my wine blog I took the road bike to Appenzell early in the spring of 2021. The front picture of this blog shows Appenzeller's highest peak, called Säntis. The photo characterizes the season in which we made the tour and I found it so great to cycle from the green valley to this landscape with snowy peaks at the same day.
Appenzell Innerrhoden and Appenzell Ausserrhoden
When I’m talking about Appenzell, I actually talk about two Swiss cantons: Appenzell Innerrhoden and Appenzell Ausserrhoden. These two cantons are surrounded by the canton of Sankt Gallen and belong to the German speaking part of Switzerland. On the map below, you see how both cantons are situated in the north-east of Switzerland.
Appenzell has a lot to offer in term of culture, culinary specialities and nature. The Appenzeller Bärli-Biber cake, the mountain Säntis, Quöllfrisch beer, the mountain area of Alpstein and many traditions like the “Alpfahrt” and “Viehschauen” are part of Appenzeller’s pride.
The two cantons belong, just like Graubünden (Wine blog Part 1), to the wine area in the German speaking part of Switzerland. In the first blog I elaborated on the typical grapes and the background of this area. So if you are curious or want to refresh your knowledge, check the first wine blog.
Appelzeller Winzer
Although I knew there are some vineyards in Appenzell, the area is not really famous for the viticulture. When I did my research to prepare for the wine tour, I searched for official registered winemakers situated in Appenzell. I actually didn’t find any in Appenzell but I found a few from Sankt Gallen who own some wine yards in Appenzell. That is not surprising while the wine yards are mostly situated on the boarder with the canton of Sankt Gallen (see map). I decided not to look at the address of the winegrower, but to search for biodynamic or biological wine produced from Appenzeller grapes. And then, completely unexpected, I found a biological winegrowers society that was really from Appenzell. Seven passionate wine yard owners call themselves the Appenzeller Winzer and they work together to produce a red wine, a white wine and liqueur from their own grapes. The society is not officially registered in the “Branchenverband Deutschschweizer Wein” but they just produce their own wines. Once I found them, I directly contacted Mr. Joseph (the contact person on the website). Already in his first reaction, it was clear that he was passionate and proud of what the seven winemakers create together. Joseph very much wanted to present his wines to me and he invited me at his home in Appenzell village to pick up a bottle.
The society owns wine yards in the area of Wienacht-Tobel and they grow Pinot Noir and Riesling-Silvaner. Which are by far the most common red and white grapes in the German speaking part of Switzerland. By experimenting in different phases of the process, the diversity of wines produced from the same grape variety is great. The Appenzeller Winzer choose to actively keep the yield low by pruning the grape vines during the growing period. This improves the quality of the remaining grapes, and in the end the wine gets more flavor as well. Because the Appenzeller Winzer want to be sure that their grapes will be processed into beautiful wines, they asked the renowned winegrower Roman Rutishauser from Thal (Sankt Gallen) to advise on the process. I met this winegrower on one of my tours in Sankt Gallen as well and I will tell more about him in the blog about Sankt Gallen. What I can say already is that the Appenzeller community did not ask the least winemaker to support them. That is promising!
The wine tour
In the period that I contacted Joseph, it was far from cycling weather. I agreed with him that he would hear from me as soon as we had planned a nice day for a Appenzeller wine tour. In the meantime I worked out a tour to Appenzell together with Tom. Normally I always want to ride or hike through the vineyards to really see where the wine comes from. Since the Appenzell village is quite a bit away from the vineyards and I will pass through the Appenzeller vineyards with the Sankt Galler tour anyway, I have decided to adjust the tour criteria a bit this time. We drew a nice trip from home with a few climbs in the Appenzeller cantons (see map). A few weeks later we also cycled an alternative route over the Schwägalp Pass. But I have to admit that we cycled that one without bringing home a bottle of wine, so that's a bit of cheating ;).
The real wine tour was one of the first longer rides of the year. It makes me very happy when we can be outside and active all day long and on such a first tour I realize that even more. The landscape in early spring is beautiful and I very much enjoyed cycling through the green valleys and between snowy peaks at the same day. We had plenty of time to ride easily towards Appenzell, but of course Joseph did not stay home all day for us. In a time slot of one hour we could visit him and that was doable. Already during the first climb we got acquainted with the open Appenzeller culture as I met Mr. Hans, who accompanied me on his e-bike. While I wanted to keep the pace going cycling up the hill without a motor, Hans told me a lot about his youth, his career, his cooking skills and his current dating life. Very nice and funny how openly he spoke about everything. At the top of the climb he safely handed me over to Tom again and he drove further with a friend. We saw Mr. Hans two more times that day and because of the way he enthusiastically called out and greeted us, I had the feeling that I was in a small Dutch village.
Winding through the streets of Appenzell we arrived at Joseph's house and he was waiting for us with a friendly smile. We were invited for a cup of coffee, but the outside temperature was not high enough to have a long break so we decided to skip that offer and continue the ride. While I was carefully storing the beautiful bottle with a self-designed label in my saddle bag, Joseph told us more about the wine society, the collaboration with winegrower Roman Rutishauser and the design of the labels. That there is a lot of love and passion in this wine was already clear to me, but after this visit it was more than confirmed. It was time to move on and both Tom and I cycled out of the authentic town of Appenzell with a big smile. The way home was still quite a distance, but it didn't seem to be that hard anymore in terms of climbing.
With about 30 kilometres to go I was quite low on energy reserves and it was time for some magic food. Although this blog is actually about wine, I have to mention the well-known Appenzeller Bärli Biber cake. These traditional and vegan cakes are praised as power food during endurance sports. It is not the first and will not be the last time that the Bärli Biber cake will get me through the day. It is a pity that they are all individually wrapped in plastic. So I hope that Appenzell Verpackungen GmbH will find a good solution for that soon ;-).
The tasting test
The Wiisse wine was already sold out so the choice of color was made for me and we went home with a bottle of Roote. The bottle of Roote stood on our dining table for a while before it was tasting time. I actually knew very little about the taste and what to expect. The funny thing is that I let myself be influenced by the label. The cheerful label initially gave me the impression that the wine would be fresh and a bit lighter. Well, that was not quite the case! After opening the bottle, I was almost overwhelmed by the powerful taste. And if I take a look at the label again, I actually see a hiker with a very powerful stride. I could have known! A little air did this wine good, and I certainly recommend it with red meat. I notice a little smoky taste (here they describe it as ‘würzig’) and it has some light tannins.
With the tasting test, the Appenzeller Tour comes to an end. I would like to go back and get a bottle of Wiisse as well. So let me know if you want to go hiking or cycling with me next time. Maybe Mr. Hans is also around again ;-).
Sources:
https://www.baerli-biber.ch/
https://akioma.de/en/success-stories/swiss-cantons
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