Swiss wine innovation
Students in Lausanne have launched a project to find innovative ways to market wine, along the way creating three wines in designer bottles.
Students from the prestigious Hospitality School of Lausanne in Switzerland have embraced the challenge of finding innovative ways to market wine.
They named their project Vikarus, in homage to the Greek myth of Ikarus (or Icarus) combined with the Italian word for wine. Those with a classical education will remember that Ikarus tried to escape the Labyrinth with his father Daedalus using wings made from feathers and wax.
Ikarus ignored his father’s warning about flying too close to the sun. The wax melted and Ikarus died. “When there is a chance to fly, you must risk the possibility of falling,” group spokesman Gregory Foster told me in a video interview from Lausanne.
His college in the Lavaux region, which part-funded the project, has twice been named the best hospitality school in Switzerland. Lavaux is a UNESCO world heritage site.
A centre piece of the project involves elegant and artistic bottles (see below) made by a company that normally produces perfume bottles. Foster said each bottle gets hand-polished to soften the sharp edges.
The 2019 white wine Heliodor is made from Pinot Gris. Under 1% of winegrowers where the school is based are interested in this variety. There the focus is usually Chasselas.
Maxime Dizerens makes the wines. He said grapes benefitted from three heat sources: direct sunlight, light reflected from Lake Geneva and heat from the stone walls around his estate. Vines are about 25 years old and grown at an altitude of 520 metres.
The Vikarus 2020 rosé, Sapphire, is made from Pinot Noir with a touch of Gamay. Foster said the wine was made in a similar style to rosés from France’s Côtes de Provence and designed for early drinking.
Their red wine, called Blood Diamond, involves combining two vintages (2018 and 2019), something rarely seen with red wine. It is a blend of 75% Gamaret-Garanoir, 20% Diolinoir and 5% Plant Robert. Three-fifths of the wine is aged for a year in second-passage oak barrels.
The students have already marketed their wine in China’s three biggest cities and have a distributor in Shanghai.
The project also incorporates an online store. You can find more information here.