It started with a photograph.
Rio de Janeiro — the Pão de Açúcar, or maybe the Christ the Redeemer with Rio’s beaches stretching behind. I’m not entirely sure anymore. But I remember exactly what it made me feel.
It never let me go.
But a photograph alone doesn’t change a life. People do.
In Great Britain, I found myself surrounded by friends from Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil — and so many more. Their warmth, their stories, their way of living pulled me in long before I ever boarded a plane.
By the time I arrived in South America in 1989, I already felt at home.
Three years in Brazil. Two in Costa Rica. About six months in Mexico. Months in Colombia, Ecuador and Chile. Three years in Peru. Bolivia — a place I kept returning to. Eleven, maybe twelve years in Argentina. Almost a year in Great Britain. Over six months in Spain — and counting. And along the way — francophone Canada and parts of the United States.
But numbers don’t tell the full story.
Once, I decided to travel from Ushuaia to Mexico — without taking a single flight. The bottom of the world to the top of a continent, overland. Every border, every landscape, every encounter — lived from the inside. And every local wine, of course.
The landscapes, the cultures, the people — they didn’t just shape my vision. They became part of who I am.
I never remember my dreams. But one night, living in Brazil, a dream spoke to me.
In French, English, Portuguese — I’m not even sure. It doesn’t matter.
“Wine Tours in Style, Che — that’s for you.”
I woke up. And the path was clear.
Maybe it shouldn’t have surprised me. I grew up in Valais — where vines cling to mountain slopes and wine is simply part of life.
Wine was never just a product for me. It came from Lausanne, from decades of living and breathing hospitality at its highest level, and simply from the way I choose to experience life. Not as a price tag. As a lifestyle. As a way of experiencing the world.
Every region I propose, I have visited personally. Every winery, I know. Every encounter, I have lived.
That is what Wine Tours in Style means.
From the Andes to the Alps. From Mendoza to the Valais. From Ribera del Duero to the Douro Valley.
One journey at a time. Always in Style.