The Valais Wine Region

The Rhone valley between Martigny and Visp grows more wine than any other Swiss region, on terraces climbing the sunny slope in stone-walled steps. It is dry and hot in summer, and the water for the vines still comes down the mountain through the bisses, open channels cut and built along the cliffs centuries ago. Chasselas is bottled here as Fendant, but the region's interest lies in the varieties grown almost nowhere else: Petite Arvine, Amigne around Vetroz, Cornalin and Humagne Rouge. At Visperterminen the vines run well above a thousand metres, among the highest in Europe. Most producers are small and sell locally, so tasting means going to the villages rather than the shops.

What you actually see

• The terraces - dry stone walls stepping up the slope above the Rhone.
• The bisses - open irrigation channels along the cliffs, now walked as footpaths.
• The local grapes - Petite Arvine, Amigne, Cornalin and Humagne, grown almost only here.
• Visperterminen - vineyards above a thousand metres at the German-speaking end of the valley.

When to go

September and early October for the harvest, when villages hold their own weekends and the terraces turn colour. Spring is green and quiet. Summer on the valley floor is genuinely hot and the terraces carry no shade at all. Small producers open by appointment rather than fixed hours, so arrange visits ahead instead of turning up.

Honest expectations

Swiss wine is expensive and almost none of it leaves the country, so prices look steep against anything comparable elsewhere. Tasting rooms are often a single room at a farm with limited hours and no English. Without a car the villages are awkward to link, and stretches of the valley floor are industrial and flat rather than scenic.

Nearby

Sion's two castle hills stand mid-valley and Sierre marks the language boundary.