Swiss Wine Growers Seek To Limit European Imports

(MENAFN- Swissinfo) Swiss vineyards are pushing for tighter limits on foreign wine as they struggle with falling consumption, foreign competition and questions over quality – a move that could unsettle EU producers, for whom Switzerland is a critical export market. Select your language

Generated with artificial intelligence. Listening: Swiss wine growers seek to limit European imports This content was published on February 1, 2026 - 10:30 4 minutes Mercedes Ruehl, Financial Times

Several producer groups and the Swiss farmers' union want to restore a system tying an importer's right to bring in foreign wine to the volume of Swiss wine it sells – similar to a regime that was in place until 2001.

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“Unlike many other agricultural products, we do not have effective border protection for wine,” the union said, adding that foreign bottles entered Switzerland at“very low” prices.“We have beautiful vineyards that we want to preserve. Everyone benefits from a strong Swiss wine industry.”

Swiss wine growers are struggling with overproduction as consumption in the country has fallen almost 20% in two decades, while vineyard area has remained steady.

+ Swiss drink significantly less wine

Among the EU's most valuable wine export markets, Switzerland imported about 161 million litres of wine – mainly from France, Italy and Spain – in 2024. Domestic wines hold about a third of market share.

Wine traders and other groups warned that restrictions could provide temporary relief but would not address deeper issues, including declining global alcohol consumption and consumers favouring other types of alcoholic drinks.

Some Swiss producers also struggle to sell because of quality issues – though the 2001 rule change gave local producers an incentive to improve since it opened the domestic sector to more competition. Only about 2% of Swiss wine is exported.

One wine merchant said producers were creating a false sense of crisis.“They say Swiss wine will die if we don't protect it,” Philipp Schwander said.“This is absolutely not true – like everywhere in Europe, there is overproduction and there are some Swiss producers with wines that are extremely difficult to sell.”

“The share of Swiss wines in wine companies like mine is around 2% or 3% of total sales because the best Swiss producers mostly sell directly to customers,” Schwander said.“If these new rules come in, we would have to close.”

“They want to bring us back to the dark ages where quota systems also allowed bad producers to sell their wines easily without competition,” he added.

The proposal mirrors Switzerland's meat import regime, which enjoys more protections than wine, and marks the third attempt in a decade to revive quota-linked rules.

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