I spent a long year of my adolescence in Switzerland with my family, living in a city on the northern coast of Lake Geneva, or lac Leman as the locals have it. Lausanne is the capital of the canton of Vaud, with the Valais just to the east one of the two primary centers for Francophone Swiss agriculture, primarily vineyards and orchards (not, of course, considering dairy, a much larger segment of the economy).

Both the Valaisiennes and the Vaudois produce a characteristic regional wine. As I recall, in The Valais, it’s a dry red known as Dôle. In Vaud, it’s a snappy dry white called Fendant (which is also made in the Valais). A similar wine, from the same species of grape, is vinted to the west of Switzerland in france where it’s called Chasselas. I believe the names in each case are drawn from the grape varietals, but not being a wine expert, really don’t know.

The Fendants are vinted from community-managed vinyeards that line the northeastern shores of the lake, steep terraced slopes that are unbeleiveably scenic to drive through. Every couple of miles you wind through a little cluster of neat, thick walled buildings, and somewhere nearby you’ll find the village’s caveau, where the wine is available. I think the wine is also made in the caves, but can’t recall.

This wine is commonly available durring the summer and served at the various community festivals in the region and is treated informally as the correct complement to a midday meal of sausage and cheese and the like. I suppose in some ways one could liken it to the way Americans drink beer in the summertime. Unlike beer, however, the Swiss drink it in tiny, near cylindrical glassed that I suppose must hold about two shots of liquid. It’s common for these glasses to be emblazoned with the heraldry of the town holding he festival or the location of the dining establishment. The wine, in essence, formed my palate for white wine, and to a greater or lesser extent the degree to which a white diverges from this crisp, apple-like dry white with some overtones of salt and sometimes a hint of sulfur determines the personal attraction to the wine.

As the wine is primarily produced for local consumption, it’s quite rare for it to be exported in any quantity, and in the twenty years since I was last in Switzerland, I have only had Swiss Fendant a couple of times, most recently about six years ago at Le Gourmand in Ballard. Since then, I have made a habit of pestering wine stewards all over the city for news of any imported Swiss fendant. I just missed a few bottles last fall, I understand, to my frustration.

Imagine my joy, then, when last week I found a bottle of Puget Sound produced Chasselas, made by Mount Baker Vineyards, an outfit sadly lacking in web presence. Priced at a reasonable nine bucks, the bottle is a slightly sweeter incarnation of this than the pseudoplatonic ideal resident in my memory. But it’s pretty close and I’m thrilled to see it being produced here. Vaud is at approximately the same latitude as Mount Rainier, not Mount Baker. Baker is aligned with the French region of Alsace, where the grape is also vinted. The Alsatian versions are also sweeter. The Mount Baker Vineyards approach seems to me closer to the Swiss than to the Alsatian. I look forward to more.