Welcome to The Alpine Edit, a new series that takes you beyond the slopes and into the life of the Alps. Our journey spans Verbier in Switzerland and Meribel in France, at the heart of the Les 3 Vallées ski resort. Together, we’ll explore the people, flavours and traditions that shape Alpine life, and how they flow into our chalets to create luxury ski holidays that feel both unique and authentic.
Think of it as an insider’s guide to the culture of the mountains. You’ll meet cheesemakers stirring their curds in copper cauldrons just as their grandparents did, winemakers working steep terraces and creating vintages that cut through the richness of raclette, and beekeepers whose golden honey finds its way to the chalet table. You’ll follow ski guides who grew up on these slopes, step into festivals like Mardi Gras in Bagnes, and watch local chefs reimagine these traditions into dining experiences that feel both rooted and experimental.
These cultural touches transform a ski trip into something unique, and set the stage for this series to explore the soul of the Alps.
Flavours of the Alpine Table
Much of Alpine life can be tasted. Raclette de Bagnes, melted and nutty, is a ritual as much as a meal. Fendant from Valais is poured as easily as water, crisp enough to cut through the cheese and lively enough to feel like a celebration. On family farms, cheese is still made by hand, and winemakers often invite you into their cellars, pour something unlabelled, and share stories that wander further than the valley itself. This is not performance, but simply how life here looks and tastes, and how it arrives, unforced, at the chalet table. In Meribel, the flavours shift toward Beaufort and Tomme de Savoie, cheeses with the same Alpine heritage, often waiting by the fire after a long day in the Three Valleys.
Adventure as Second Nature
For locals, the mountains are not a backdrop, they are family. Most grow up in ski boots, chasing each other down nursery slopes long before they can drive. Some go on to throw themselves into the legendary Xtreme Verbier on the Bec des Rosses, a rite of passage as much as a competition. Paragliding pilots know every current of air in the valley. Hiking guides point out ibex and marmots as naturally as you’d greet a neighbour. And when the snow gives way to summer, it is the same community shaping hundreds of kilometres of hiking and biking trails, mirrored across Meribel and the vast Les 3 Vallées, where life in the mountains never really pauses.
A Cosmopolitan Alpine Community
Verbier may be French-speaking at its core, but it is also international in flavour. The same is true of Meribel, where Savoyard heritage blends with a cosmopolitan crowd of returning families, chefs and sommeliers from across Europe. The result is an Alpine intimacy, a community where you are always meeting people who know the mountains in ways you do not, and who are almost always ready to share that knowledge.
Why Local Life Defines True Luxury
For many of our guests, families, entrepreneurs and seasoned travellers, true luxury lies in authenticity. It is not only about how fast you can ski or how beautiful the chalet is, though both matter. It is about the stories you carry home.
The memory of drinking vin chaud with a vintner who hand-picks his vines. Watching your children taste Beaufort for the first time in Meribel. Laughing with your paragliding guide as you drift over snow-dusted forests. These are the details that make the Alps more than a glamorous backdrop. They make them unforgettable.
The Alps are dramatic, yes. The snow is always thrilling. But it is the locals, the people who live with the mountains every day, who make this place sing.
The Beginning of a Larger Alpine Story
This is only the beginning. In the weeks ahead, we will explore the culture of the Alps in greater depth, from cheesemaking and Alpine dialects to paragliding and village festivals. These stories remind us that a luxury ski holiday in the Swiss and French Alps is never only about skiing, but about stepping into a living culture. It is in the details: honey from local beekeepers drizzled over a slice of Bagnes Tomme at supper, or the storytelling of mountain guides who bring the peaks to life with history and humour. Each taste and tale is part of a much larger story, and Mountain Culture is here to tell it.
