It doesn’t take an ancient Greek philosopher to recognise that the more you learn about wine, the more you know you don’t know. This was recently reaffirmed to Noble Rot at a restaurant in Switzerland’s Valais, when presented with a gigantic carte des vins full of almost totally unrecognisable bottles. In our defence, the fact that the Swiss (quite rightfully) refuse to share their venerable vinos – exporting as little as 1% of their annual production – means that outsiders barely catch a glimpse of their world class Fendants, Syrahs and Petite Arvines. Yet traversing the winding roads around some spectacular mountainside vineyards both here, and in nearby Savoie days earlier, proved to us indisputably that Alpine masters like Marie-Thérèse Chappaz and Domaine des Ardoisières mean business. Read our profile of Swiss and French Alpine wines in Noble Rot 34.