Ripaille, Marin, Marignan, and Crépy

These four vineyards, located close to the edge of Lake Leman, are planted in the Chasselas grape. The same grape is known on the Swiss side of Lake Leman as fendant, because the pressure of two fingers is enough to split the skin, which se fend but does not crush to pulp. The fendant comes in pale green and russet pink. Its exact origin is contested, and it was grafted on the roots existing in the Lemanic areas after the philloxera crisis of the late 1890s and early 1900s.

The wines made from Chasselas grapes are intensely diuretic. Someone even quipped—and it may have been Dr. Rama in—that they were “a lot more so than Evian.”