Switzerland’s wine-making president pushes to restrict imports

Effort to boost local producers draws ire from foreign rivals and domestic merchants. Switzerland is proposing to restrict wine imports under a plan from the country’s president, a trained winemaker with a family vineyard near Lake Geneva. Guy Parmelin wants to restrict merchants from buying foreign wine unless they also buy or process Swiss grapes, in a move that critics say would deepen protection in a sector long shielded from competition. “This would amount to a cartel system. It would be terrible,” said Thibaut Briançon, operations director at large Swiss wine importer Cave. “How can we complain about Trump’s tariffs last year on our watches and chocolate if we are ready to do the same thing with wine?” Parmelin ran a family winery before entering government in 2016. The business still produces wines in the Vaud region, where the light white Chasselas grapevines stretch along the shores of Lake Geneva. The president, whose right-wing Swiss People’s Party draws support from ...