Switzerland's biggest wine festival

Huge glowing bunches of grapes carried through the town, the muted sound of saxophones and colorful costumes everywhere in the streets of Vevey: as soon as you arrive in the town on Lake Geneva, you feel as if you're in the middle of a Broadway show.

Actors hurry to their next entrances and on the many small and larger wooden stages there's music, song and dance — always with a glass of wine in one hand. Up to 500,000 liters of it flow at the Fête des Vignerons, this unusual cultural festival that honors those who rarely stand in the limelight: the vineyard workers and the winegrowers who have made the Lavaux vineyards with their steep terraces on the Swiss Riviera world-famous.  

Olympic standards  — the arena

The Fête des Vignerons, which was first celebrated in 1797, takes place just once in a generation; the last one was in 1999. It is a monumental festival of Olympic proportions. The new arena, which measures 14,000 square meters (150,595 square feet), was built especially for the show, the heart of the festival, in the middle of Vevey's market square. A poetic play about life in the vineyards, presented on a stage that is also a screen, the largest in the world, equipped with 40 million tiny LEDs.

The arena is so impressive that Uli Wüger, who guides visitors through this gigantic open-air theater during the festival, is used to the astonishment on their faces. He greets each flabbergasted “Wow!” with a chuckle.  Yes, this really is something special. The arena can accommodate 20,000 spectators, and for those in the top tiers, the region extends in all its beauty: Lake Geneva and the Alps on one side and the vineyard terraces on the other.  

Chasselas — an iconic variety

This grape variety is widely cultivated here, so wine made from it is sold everywhere in the bars, restaurants and wine cellars during the festival. Chasselas is a way of life here. The locals feel closely connected to it. Christophe Chappuis cultivates his favorite wine himself. The picture of his family tree, which he presents proudly, is almost as impressive as the arena.

The Chappuis family has been growing grapes in Rivaz, one of the many small winegrowing villages here, since 1335. Some of the dark brown wooden barrels where this special variety ferments and matures in his cellar are 200 years old. Grapes have been cultivated in Lavaux since the 12th century, Chappuis says as he sips his Chasselas, and he's glad to offer a taste: a light, fruity white wine. It was monks who laid out the terraces and built the walls that can be seen everywhere in the vineyards.

Since 2007 the steep slopes with the vines, their grapes still green and sour at this time of year, have been a UNESCO World Heritage site. You can explore the countryside with the Lavaux Express, a little train that trundles through the terraces. The scenery is so enchanting that it's easy to see why so many artists settled here, attracted by the sun, which shines more often here than elsewhere: Stravinsky, Hemingway, Freddy Mercury and Charlie Chaplin, whose manor house rises above Lake Geneva.

The "tramp" who made the region his home

Nowadays the manor house is part of a museum, dedicated to the memory of this screen icon, who spent the last 25 years of his life here in Switzerland, which he came to love more every day. In one of the 15 rooms, there are also pictures of Chaplin in Lavaux, posing for the camera with grapes at his ears.

That was typical of him, says Franziska Werren, who guides visitors through "Chaplin's World," where you can see not only the manor house itself but also a newly-constructed building called "The Studio". It's dedicated to the more than 80 films produced by the man who became known as "The Tramp" in silent pictures, with his derby hat, cane and distinctive gait.

"Chaplin used every moment to do something funny. He never lost the clown within him and he loved any kind of show," says Werren, who is quite an expert on Chaplin. The popular Englishman was twice a guest at the Fête des Vignerons, which he is said to have later described as the loveliest he had ever seen. Two of his children, Annie and Christopher, were among the performers in the festival's big show, which is now a mega-event. 

An ode to the region

This gigantic musical spectacle, with its unique lighting effects, singers and dancers, Alpine horn players and cows, is three hours long. It was staged by Daniele Finzi Pasca, who directed the Olympic ceremonies in Turin and Sochi. He has worked for several years on this fairy tale, in which little Julie, like Alice in Wonderland, discovers the world of the wine-growers through the eyes of a child.

The show has set the entire region in motion: 5,500 local actors are taking part, all amateurs and volunteers, like Eric Pugin, an electrician from Châtel-Saint-Denis, who, as an Alpine herdsman, leads his cow through the arena, and Titouan Chaudet, a winegrower from Rivaz, who has wanted to take part in the festival since he was four. 

The show is performed almost daily from July 18th to August 11th. Tickets cost between 68 and 325 euros (75-359 USD $). The festival is first and foremost devoted to the winegrowers. The best among them are chosen during the show to thunderous applause. "There is nobody else in the whole world who does this," explains François Margot, president of the winegrowers' guild, the Confrérie de Vignerons, which organizes the festival.

With his traditional red jacket and straw hat in his hand, he disappears quickly into the crowd again. He, too, is making an appearance in the show, at the end of which everyone claps along and bravos resound through the arena. It's a pageant that goes straight to the heart because it is much more than an imposing spectacle: it's a declaration of love to the winegrowers and the wine that unites the entire region.