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Swiss are world’s top spenders on wine

The Local
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Swiss are world’s top spenders on wine
Photo: Quinn Dombrowski

Swiss people spend more on wine than anyone else in the world, according to a British study.

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The Swiss fork out a whopping £505.50 (641 francs, €599) per person on wine every year, found UK expat relocation company MoveHub, which compared wine consumption data with the price of the average bottle of wine around the world.
 
The Cayman Islands placed second, at £457.75 (€538), followed by the Falkland Islands , Aruba and Norfolk Island. 
 
The closest big spenders in Europe were Icelanders, who hand over £329.30 (€387) on wine each year.
 
But many other Europeans spend only half as much as the Swiss or even less, including France, Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain, where wine drinkers only spend £108.69 (€127) per person per year.
 
Part of the reason for Swiss people’s high spend on wine is price – an average mid-range bottle of wine costs €10.99 in Switzerland, according to comparison site numbeo.com, more than in many other European countries including the UK (€7.75), Sweden (€8.23) and Austria (€7).
 
But it’s not the whole picture. 
 
According to 2014 data from the Wine Institute, the Swiss are the sixth biggest global consumers of wine, drinking around 40 litres per person every year, the equivalent of 53 bottles. 
 
That puts them behind famous wine-quaffers the French, in fourth place, but ahead of many other European nations including wine-producing countries Italy (10th), Germany (16th) and Spain (30th).
 
Andorra topped the consumption table, quaffing 46 litres of wine per capita.
 
Though not well known internationally as a wine-growing country, Switzerland produces around 90 million litres of wine a year, however only around one percent is exported, leaving the thirsty Swiss to drink the vast majority themselves. 
 

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