Time for grapes in Lavaux, a UNESCO heritage vineyard
This is the best time of the year to visit these centenary terraced vineyards: with the colors of the fall starting to shine, still nice and quiet weather, bright blue hues in the lake, the Alps in the back, and abundant grapes ready to harvest.
In Switzerland, Lac Léman (Lake Geneva in English) has the privilege of hosting a wonderful UNESCO World Heritage Site: the terraced vineyards of Lavaux. They consist of around 800 hectares of terraced vineyards spread over 30 km roughly between Lausanne and Vevey, along the north shore of the lake. The site is extremely sunny, not only because of its slope and orientation facing south but also because it receives both direct sunlight and also the reflection, all day long, of the sun on the lake. Some locals in fact call this region the land of the 2 (some say 3) suns!
Vines have been grown in the area since Roman times. The vine terraces we can enjoy today were built around the 11th century by local monks. In fact, all this region is transversed by the Via Francigena, a pilgrimage route that connects England to Italy. This route, which I covered in a special story here, crosses the whole Lavaux region along with other easy hiking paths including one specifically prepared to visit the vines (the “Chemin des Terrasses de Lavaux”).
We visited Lavaux this last weekend by bike (yes, there’s also a bike route that goes through it). It turned out that grapes were almost ready for harvest! The weather was quite nice, and the leaves of the vines were just starting to lose their green colors, all elements putting together a great scene that called for a rich book of photoshoots.
So here we go, starting with two shots that kind of summarize this whole story: fruit, fall-colored leaves, the lake very blue as algae retract, the Alps in the back, and some typical buildings of the region:
Here are the stars of the story: vines, mostly of the Chasselas variety:
And also a variety of dark grapes that I couldn’t identify:
As I described in the intro, this time we visited Lavaux by bike. Other times we just feel like walking, so we do shorter paths between towns such as Cully and Rivaz where the nicest parts are.
The route we rode to get to the spot where I made the photos looks like this: Nice setting, don’t you think?
Here and there the route has some places prepared to rest and enjoy the views, with seats and tables covered in vines. This photo shows you the one where we stopped, also making clear how steep the terraces are:
The stunning scene includes the vines, the mountains, the lake, and also some nice views of over-a-hundred-year-old ships crossing the lake:
And one last photo before we leave. Still 15 km to ride until we get home:
For an official page of the region see:
And here’s the official entry at the UNESCO site:
If you’d like to know more about the lake, see this story:
And tell me, how many Swiss flags did you see in these photos?
Did you ever notice that the Swiss flag is square? I think it’s the only square flag in the world.
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