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Mythopia
Switzerland8 wines3.8 avg
53
Hans-Peter Schmidt's Alpine biodiversity experiment in Valais - 3.5 hectares at 800-900 metres, zero sulphur, Pinot Noir and Chasselas, with cuvée names borrowed from cinema.
Mythopia is something unusual even by natural-wine standards: part winery, part ecological research project. Founded in 2004 by Hans-Peter Schmidt and Romaine Schmidt in Arbaz, above Sion in the Valais. Three and a half hectares of vines at 800-900 metres on steep Alpine slopes. When the Schmidts arrived, the soil was depleted from decades of conventional farming. They nursed it back using only natural methods - no synthetic chemistry, no shortcuts. Hans-Peter also runs the Ithaka Institute for agroecology and biochar research; Mythopia is, in effect, its field site.
Zero added sulphur, no fining, no filtration. Seventy percent Pinot Noir, the rest Fendant (Chasselas) and Rèze, an ancient Valais variety. The cuvées borrow names from films and concepts: Illusion (Pinot Noir), PI-NO (Pinot Noir from forty-five-year-old vines), Shining (three-month maceration), Disobedience (Fendant), Vagabond, Blue Velvet, Jadis (Fendant/Rèze), Finito.
Hans-Peter also has projects in Occitania (France) and Andalusia (Spain). Alpine altitude, zero-zero winemaking, and the soil-recovery story as a living backdrop - the wines are as much a record of the experiment as its product. Ecological experiment that happens to produce drinkable results.
