Jura, Savoie & Switzerland Wine Tour: Alpine Appellations in 3D

Jurassic marl, steep alpine crus, and lakeside Chasselas in the sub-alpine corner of France and Switzerland.

The Jura, Savoie and Switzerland Tour is a guided 3D flythrough in 47 frames: the Jura with L’Étoile and Château-Chalon, then Bugey and Bugey-Cerdon, Savoie from Jongieux and Seyssel through Chignin, Apremont and Ayze to the Lake Geneva crus, and Switzerland canton by canton through Geneva, the Vaud with La Côte and Lavaux, Neuchâtel, the Valais, Ticino and the German-speaking east. Along the way 23 producers, the Jura appellations, 27 Savoie and Bugey appellations, crus and towns and 26 Swiss cantons, regions and villages are marked as clickable pins, each opening a profile in the panel. The Tour is part of SommGeo membership, which starts with a free 15-day trial.

• Frames: 47, with named stops at the Jura, L’Étoile, Château-Chalon, Bugey, Bugey-Cerdon, Savoie, Jongieux and Seyssel, Chignin-Bergeron, Apremont and Chambéry, Ayze, Crépy, Marignan, Ripaille and Marin, Geneva, the Vaud, La Côte, Lavaux, Neuchâtel, the Valais, Ticino and German-speaking Switzerland
• Pins on the tour: 23 producers (8 Jura, 5 Savoie and Bugey, 10 Swiss), 6 Jura appellations and places, 27 in Savoie and Bugey and 26 in Switzerland, every one clickable
• Tools: Frame navigator with a frame list, clickable pins that load the info panel, compass and camera tilt, measurement tools for distance, height, slope and area, full screen
• Inside the pins: Appellation and cru pins give the grapes, the style and the slope; producer pins give the domaine and how it works; canton pins set out the Swiss system region by region
• Savoie cru by cru: Twenty Savoie and Roussette de Savoie crus are pinned, from Abymes, Apremont, Arbin, Chignin and Chignin-Bergeron to Jongieux, Marestel, Chautagne, Ayze, Crépy, Marin, Marignan and Ripaille
• Switzerland in detail: The Vaud regions (La Côte, Lavaux, Chablais, Bonvillars, Côtes de l’Orbe, Vully), the Lavaux Grands Crus Dézaley and Calamin, and eight Valais villages from Fully and Chamoson to Salgesch and Visperterminen

This Jura, Savoie, and Switzerland wine tour covers three regions within a few hours’ drive of each other, each with its own rules and grapes. Pupillin is just over an hour from Gevrey-Chambertin and less than two from Lausanne, and the French Savoie shares a border (and a few grapes) with the Swiss cantons of Geneva and the Vaud. The Tour follows the sub-alpine arc from the Jurassic marls of Arbois and Château-Chalon, through Bugey and the steep crus of the Savoie, into Switzerland’s lakeside Chasselas, the sun-baked Valais, Merlot-driven Ticino, and the Pinot Noir of Graubünden. Very little of the Swiss side travels; only about 1 to 2% of Swiss wine leaves the country.

Inside This Tour

This Tour covers the Jura, Bugey, the Savoie, and Switzerland’s major wine regions, with detailed pins on appellations, crus, and producers. Every map frame is fully interactive. Don’t just watch the flythrough. Click, drag, zoom, and rotate the 3D terrain to explore from any angle, then click every pin for the full content.

• Jura appellations on their Jurassic soils: Arbois, Pupillin, Château-Chalon, L’Étoile, and Côtes du Jura
• Vin jaune, vin de paille, Crémant du Jura, and Macvin du Jura explained
• Bugey-Cerdon and the Savoie crus, from Jongieux and Apremont to Ayze and the Chasselas crus of Lac Léman
• Switzerland’s canton-by-canton AOC system, Lavaux’s Grand Cru AOCs, and Neuchâtel’s Oeil-de-Perdrix
• The Valais: Dôle, Petite Arvine, Grain Noble ConfidenCiel, and a don’t-miss stop in Vétroz
• Producer profiles: Overnoy/Houillon, Tissot, Jean Macle, Domaine du Gringet, Louis Bovard, Gantenbein, and more

Appellations & Wine Law

For a geographic overview of France’s wine regions, see the France Fast Map. Here, we focus on how the appellations work.

The Jura gave its name to the Jurassic Period, and its vineyards sit on Jurassic limestone and marl, with clay on the lower slopes, under a strongly continental climate. Five grapes are permitted: Chardonnay (roughly half the vineyard), Savagnin, Poulsard, Trousseau, and Pinot Noir. Côtes du Jura AOP covers the whole region and every style. Arbois, among France’s first AOCs in 1936, houses many of the top estates, with Pupillin as its best-known subzone. L’Étoile (~67 ha) is white-only and named for the star-shaped fossils in its soil. Château-Chalon is for vin jaune alone: Savagnin, aged under a veil of yeast and bottled in the clavelin. Styles run from oxidative to fresh, and about a quarter of production goes to Crémant du Jura.

Altitude keeps the Savoie crisp and bright. Jacquère is the most planted grape, with Altesse (Roussette), Bergeron (Roussanne), Mondeuse, Gamay, and Pinot Noir in support. Vin de Savoie AOP is the umbrella, and 16 crus may append their names to the label, most requiring at least 80% Jacquère or, along Lac Léman, 80% Chasselas. Ayze is the only cru permitted for sparkling wine. Bugey, technically in the Ain rather than the Savoie, contributes Bugey-Cerdon: méthode ancestrale rosé from Gamay and Poulsard, gently sweet and lightly sparkling, and a useful pairing for difficult dishes.

“Swiss wine law” is a bit of a misnomer. Each of the 26 cantons defines and regulates its own AOCs, so the Vaud and the Valais can (and do) play by different rules. Pinot Noir narrowly leads Chasselas nationally. The Vaud is Chasselas country, and within Lavaux, Dézaley and Calamin stand as Grand Cru AOCs. Neuchâtel devotes over half its vines to Pinot Noir and gave the world Oeil-de-Perdrix rosé. The Valais, the largest region at ~4,600 hectares and among the driest and sunniest, is home to Dôle (its blend rules loosened in 2021) and Petite Arvine, claimed as indigenous by both the Swiss and Valle d’Aosta. Ticino is about 75% Merlot, and close to 30% of it is vinified as white wine.

Producers Worth Knowing

Emmanuel Houillon / Pierre Overnoy, Pupillin

Pierre Overnoy ran this Pupillin domaine from 1968 until 2001, when he handed it to Emmanuel Houillon, his apprentice since his teens. Overnoy bottled his first cuvée with no added sulfur in 1984, decades before natural wine had a name. Under 7 hectares, long élevage, and some of the rarest and most expensive bottles in the Jura, with Ploussard as the house signature.

Domaine Jean Macle, Château-Chalon

For many tasters, the benchmark of Château-Chalon. Laurent Macle now runs the estate his father Jean made famous, from cellars steps from the vineyard rim. The Côtes du Jura white, Chardonnay with a dose of Savagnin raised sous voile, is nearly as celebrated and one of the region’s great values.

Bénédicte & Stéphane Tissot, Arbois

Roughly 50 biodynamic hectares around Montigny-lès-Arsures and Arbois, mapped bottling by bottling: single-site Chardonnays like Les Graviers, terroir-specific vins jaunes, and serious Crémant. A Tissot Arbois Chardonnay poured blind in Paris is the wine usually credited with luring Guillaume d’Angerville (of Volnay) to the Jura, where his Domaine du Pélican took over Jacques Puffeney’s vines from 2015.

Domaine du Gringet, Ayze

Formerly Domaine Belluard, the estate that put Gringet on the map. Dominique Belluard farmed roughly half of all the Gringet in existence, a variety essentially found only in Ayze, and made stellar still and sparkling wines from it. Following his death in 2021, the estate continues under new ownership with the same vineyards; Les Perles du Mont Blanc is the most commonly seen bottling, Le Feu the flagship still wine.

Domaine Louis Bovard, Lavaux

The reference producer of Lavaux, run since 1983 by Louis-Philippe Bovard, the tenth generation. Dézaley Grand Cru Médinette is one of the standard answers to whether Chasselas can age, and the estate’s Chasselas conservatory preserves old clones of a grape too often dismissed as neutral.

Weingut Daniel & Martha Gantenbein, Graubünden

By broad critical consent the country’s benchmark estate, and one of the hardest Swiss wines to find. From roughly six hectares at Fläsch in the Bündner Herrschaft come Pinot Noir from Burgundian massale selections and Chardonnay, with only a few cases a year reaching the United States. Neighbor Donatsch, in Malans, is the region’s other most sought-after name.

Notable Vintages: Jura & Switzerland

In the Jura, 2018 stands out: a generous, sunny vintage with ripe, balanced wines across all colors after a run of short crops. 2015 was warm and concentrated, with excellent potential for vin jaune. 2020 brought another early, ripe year with real structure, and 2022 delivered healthy volumes and quality after the losses of 2021. 2010 produced classic, high-acid wines that have aged beautifully, particularly the whites and vins jaunes. Switzerland tracked closely, with 2015 and 2018 the standouts.

For tough years, 2021 was brutal: April frost followed by a wet summer and heavy mildew cut Jura yields by well over half, and Neuchâtel and the Vaud suffered similar losses. 2017 lost much of the crop to spring frost, and 2016 combined frost with severe mildew pressure.

Pins on this tour (82)

Every producer, appellation, cru, canton and village marked with a pin on the Jura, Savoie and Switzerland Tour, as loaded in the tour itself. Click any pin in the Tour for its profile.

Name	On the tour as
Producers (23)
Bénédicte & Stéphane Tissot	Producer, Jura
Castello di Morcote	Producer, Switzerland
Castello Luigi (Zanini)	Producer, Switzerland
Caves de Seyssel	Producer, Savoie and Bugey
Dolin	Producer, Savoie and Bugey
Domaine Berthet-Bondet	Producer, Jura
Domaine Bourdy	Producer, Jura
Domaine de la Rochette	Producer, Switzerland
Domaine du Gringet	Producer, Savoie and Bugey
Domaine du Pélican	Producer, Jura
Domaine Jean Macle	Producer, Jura
Domaine Louis Bovard	Producer, Switzerland
Domaine Patrick Bottex	Producer, Savoie and Bugey
Domaine Renardat-Fâche	Producer, Savoie and Bugey
Emmanuel Houillon/Pierre Overnoy	Producer, Jura
Jacques Puffeney	Producer, Jura
Jean-François Ganevat	Producer, Jura
Jean-René Germanier	Producer, Switzerland
Luc Massy	Producer, Switzerland
Marie-Thérèse Chappaz	Producer, Switzerland
Robert Gilliard	Producer, Switzerland
Weingut Daniel & Martha Gantenbein	Producer, Switzerland
Weingut Donatsch	Producer, Switzerland
Jura appellations and places (6)
Arbois	AOP
Château-Chalon	AOP
Crémant du Jura	AOP
L’Étoile	AOP
Macvin du Jura	AOP
Pupillin	Village
Savoie and Bugey appellations, crus and places (27)
Abymes	Savoie cru
Apremont	Savoie cru
Arbin	Savoie cru
Ayze	Savoie cru
Bugey-Cerdon	Bugey cru
Bugey-Manicle	Bugey cru
Bugey-Montagnieu	Bugey cru
Chambéry	Town
Chautagne	Savoie cru
Chignin	Savoie cru
Chignin-Bergeron	Savoie cru
Crépy	Savoie cru
Cruet	Savoie cru
Frangy	Savoie cru
Jongieux	Savoie cru
Marestel	Savoie cru
Marignan	Savoie cru
Marin	Savoie cru
Monterminod	Savoie cru
Monthoux	Savoie cru
Montmélian	Savoie cru
Ripaille	Savoie cru
Roussette du Bugey	AOP
Saint-Jean-de-la-Porte	Savoie cru
Saint-Jeoire-Prieuré	Savoie cru
Seyssel	AOP
Virieu-le-Grand	Town
Switzerland cantons, regions and villages (26)
Bonvillars	Vaud wine region
Calamin	Lavaux Grand Cru AOC
Chablais	Vaud wine region
Chamoson	Valais village
Conthey	Valais village
Côtes de l’Orbe	Vaud wine region
Dézaley	Lavaux Grand Cru AOC
Entre-Deux-Lacs	Neuchâtel zone
Fully	Valais village
Geneva	Canton
Graubünden	Canton
Grimentz	Valais village
La Béroche	Neuchâtel zone
La Côte	Vaud wine region
Lavaux	Vaud wine region
Neuchâtel	Canton
Saint-Léonard	Valais village
Salgesch	Valais village
Sopraceneri	Ticino zone
Sottoceneri	Ticino zone
Ticino	Canton
Valais	Canton
Vaud	Canton
Vétroz	Valais village
Visperterminen	Valais village
Vully	Vaud wine region

Hopefully this index is useful on its own. To explore these regions interactively, with every boundary on real terrain and a full profile for each, start a 15-day free trial. To see what one of these maps is like first, a different map is unlocked for everyone every day. For the open maps of the French side, see the Burgundy, Jura and Savoie 3D Fast Map and the France Fast Map; the Tours User Guide explains the controls.