Swiss offline with Wine Spectator’s Marc

Marc is NOT a serial killer!
I know: for a compliment it isn’t THAT cool, but it was my first real offline, and one I had been anticipating for two years! There is no heading that would do justice to it anyway…
From the general to the particular: Switzerland is truly a beautiful place, it was cold as hell for November, even snowy on Sunday morning; the Conference (on contemporary American poetry) was great; Fribourg is small, medieval, and charmingly provincial…but all I needed was a good—or at least original—wineshop, and a superb restaurant. It has both.
As warming up Marc gave me a good shopping tip about the Cantina del Mulino (www.cantinadelmulino.ch), a nice place with mostly organic and biodynamic growers. The top two bottlings of champagne Larmandier Bernier and a couple of promising Rieslings (Nikolaihof Smaragd vom Stein 2001 and Ostertag Moenchberg 2000) now rest in my cellar for about 60% of what they would cost in Spain (where they are not available anyway).
On Friday evening—just after I finished my presentation—Marc appeared at the train station, gave me a call and waited outside in the cold (an unpractical Swiss tradition if you ask me, it took me about a full minute to find him) until I appeared. Youngish and very much like the picture I had seen, the guy embodies all the positive stereotypes about the Swiss we have been taught (apple on his head, horribly polite, and thanks to his experience living in Spain not a bad guy after all!!). What the hell, after all the morning nonsense we’ve shared we had no choice but to take to each other immediately.
The restaurant he selected—Le Perolles—is everything I could want: elegant in the bar area and exquisitely sober in the dining room, the service was meticulous yet not asphyxiating, the food was unquestionably good and the (Swiss) wines surprisingly so! Disastrously enough he was spot on with two Swiss bottles. Dammit: taste to believe.
We opened with a glass of champagne from Spiegelau flutes. From what I saw in the list it was likely Jacquart. With better palate than nose my impression was that the bottle had not been opened for us. “Average bubbly” was Marc’s verdict, but in any case, as warmer up it fulfilled its mission.
The white was a Petit Arvine from a good producer whose name has escaped us (a pity, because it’s so darned hard to choose from all the Swiss whites available in Spain nowadays), from the 2002 vintage. With a bold and fragrant nose, the 13,8% alcohol in the label suggested a heavier wine. Not at all; the unexpected acidity refreshed the whole palate leaving a surprisingly light impression that matched the meal even better. The nose resembled a hypothetical blend of Riesling and a more boldly aromatic variety (think Alsace), and the mouth was savory and satisfying. Something around 90+ would do it justice IMHO. It lasted through the first courses of the degustation menu and held its own until the venison appeared, the moment for the ";Riflessi d’Epoca"; 2001 from Guido Brivio, an excellent Merlot from the Ticino area. For one who’s not into meat, game is becoming a regular in my diet, but I must admit that the dish was superb, and the merlot worked beautifully with it. With perfect varietal nose of blue fruit, roasted coffee, mineral echoes, and polished tannin, this red was an excellent match for the venison. Surprisingly polished in the palate for a 2001, and with nice acidity, the nose was beautifully developed and expressive even without decanting. BTW all stemware was high-end Spiegelau, very appropriately shaped and sized. I found it—much to my frustration—an excellent bottle of merlot. 91.

Even though the evident piece de resistance in the menu was the venison (you wouldn’t believe the artsy arrangement on the plate, it was as pretty as a baroque still life, full of baby-sized fruits), it was followed by an almost better treat: the cheese-cart was longer than some taxis I’ve been in! This was truly a fascinating and EYE-OPEN