The Vully Charter: For high-quality Freiburger and Traminer grape varieties
Why are Vully’s Freiburger and Traminer wines so popular? The answer is simple: the Vully Charter. This charter was created by the Vully winegrowers‘ and winemakers’ association with the aim of defining the qualitative basis of the Freiburger and Traminer grape varieties from Vully.
What does the Vully Charter say?
This charter aims to be precise in order to preserve the quality of these wines. The Vully winegrowers and winemakers accept :
- Development and replanting of massal selections of Freiburger and Traminer from Vully
- Checking the vines and cultivation choices before the harvest, encouraging work that is close to nature
- Average production limited to 6 dl/m2
- Minimum sugar content of 87 °Oe
- Vully grapes, vinified and bottled in Vully after a minimum of 6 months maturing without contact with wood, no use of wood shavings.
- Refrain from any form of enrichment of the must or wine: no chaptalisation.
- Unauthorised cutting
- Dry wine vinification, max 8 g/l residual sugar
- Inspection tasting and constructive cellaring by professionals
- 6 bottles may be requested each year from the cellarers to study the conservation of the wines.
- Defending the spirit of the charter, which is based on ethics and trust
- The Interprofession des vins du Vully is the guarantor of this Charter.
What happens if the wines don’t comply with the Vully charter?
If the wines do not comply with the charter, they cannot be called Traminer or Freiburger. Instead, they will be called Gewürztraminer and Freisamer.
Freiburger 2023 AOC Vully (70cl)
Traminer 2023 AOC Vully (70cl)
Discovering two Vully grape varieties
These two grape varieties were introduced to Vully in the 1950s by Mr Louis Chervet de Praz. Thanks to a unique combination of molasse soils and a lake climate that only Vully can offer, they have found an ideal terroir in which to fully express their aromatic potential.
Traminer, derived from the Gewürztraminer grape variety, was introduced from Alsace. When it arrived in Switzerland, its name was shortened to make it easier to pronounce. Today, this change allows it to stand out as a white wine typical of Vully.
Freiburger, created at the Freiburg im Breisgau research institute in 1916, was renamed Freisamer in accordance with international nomenclature conventions. In Vully, however, its original name has been retained due to its homonymy with the Alemannic name of the inhabitants of the Canton of Fribourg. Vully is currently the main production region for this grape variety in Switzerland, and indeed the world.
