Anyone interested in premium Swiss Pinot Noirs will quickly come across the name Tom Litwan (44). Completely unexciting and timid, the trained bricklayer builds wine presses in and around Oberhof AG, the village of Aargau, which is now finding buyers even in the highly competitive wine markets of Hong Kong and the USA.
When asked what parallels he would draw to his old job as a bricklayer, Litwan replied, “I like working with my hands.”
Staying in Burgundy caused him to quit his job as a mason and open a new chapter in his life in the vineyard. So he trained as a winemaker in Switzerland and worked for a few years in a winery in Geneva.
“Chemical sprays and fertilizers are destroying our soil”
Litwan has been producing its own wines from vineyards it has leased since 2006. It currently farms about eight hectares, yielding between 20,000 and 25,000 bottles in a good year. According to the Aargau wine law, he could bottle three times as much wine. However, Litwan prefers to work with small yields of only 20 to 30 hectoliters per hectare of vines, ie at the same yield level as Burgundy’s finest wines.
Certified for biodynamics since 2014, Litwan has a clear view on chemical pesticides: “For 80 years, our planet has been ravaged by chemical sprays and fertilizers. The promises of agricultural trade on world hunger have not been fulfilled. Instead, many floors were broken up and depleted. I will not do that.”
In addition to Chardonnay and Riesling-Sylvaner, Litwan also presses a little Zweigelt for the rose color. However, his main focus is Pinot noir, where he wines and bottles different vineyard plots separately. While Haghalde lives with about 50 percent new wood, Litwan Fure works with little or no new wood for Rüeget, Auf der Mauer, Fricktal or Chalofe vineyard wines, thus adding the finesse Pinot Noir style to the bottle as pure as possible.
“Natural fungi are almost confined to food waste”
Litwan stopped using natural corks for several years and only works with synthetic corks, as he didn’t want his customers to have wines with a faulty cone scent. It did not harm their wine or reputation. On the contrary: The 2019 Thalheim Chalofe was awarded 95 out of 100 by the “Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate” and is one of the best Swiss red wines of the vintage.
It is evident from the regular ringing of his cell phone that Litwan is fully engaged in his job as a winemaker. I still want to learn from him how he achieved a healthy work-life balance. Litwan laughs: “I have more of a work-work balance! Every now and then my partner hits me on the back of my head. But we’ve been together for 18 years, it can’t be that bad.”
Returning to Litwan’s wine cellar, we taste her elegant, fruity wines. I was deeply impressed by the 2015 Chalofe Alte Reben and the 2019 Chalofe, a unique bottling with slightly newer wood ingredients. Litwan’s wines are as calm and unexciting as their producers, but contain an intense charge of strength and energy. Red wines must be aged in the bottle for at least a few years to reach their full potential.
Financial losses with 2021 vintage
Like most Swiss winemakers, Litwan suffered from a bad harvest in 2021. “I was only able to bottle a quarter of a normal yield,” Litwan told Blick. It will only bottle one white and red wine for the 2021 vintage, as it doesn’t have enough grapes to bottle a variety of single-site wines this year. Fortunately, with the successful 2022 vintage, Litwan’s individual vineyards are making a comeback.
Litwan admits that the financial implications of a vintage like 2021 are grim. “Every ten years, little vineyard growers like me might still be able to deal with such a disaster financially. If there was such a meager crop every three to four years, I probably wouldn’t be able to get by financially.”
Shortly before saying goodbye, Litwan repairs the label maker where the drive belt broke. Like many other small Swiss wineries, Litwan is basically an SME with the boss or owner still helping out. After a few minutes the machine starts again and Litwan is visibly relieved. Now he can devote himself to his vines again and prepare them for their upcoming hibernation.