Alcohol consumption continues to fall

Views in the vineyards of Lavaux, overlooking Lake Geneva, remain excellent - sales less so Keystone

The average Swiss drank 8.1 litres of pure alcohol last year, down from 8.3 litres in 2013. One reason was a drop in popularity of Swiss wine, the Swiss Alcohol Board said on Monday. 

The average consumption of wine fell by one litre to 35.1 litres, with Swiss red wine seeing the greatest drop: 4.7 million litres. However, slightly more foreign red was drunk. 

A similar pattern was seen with white wine, but overall around 290 million litres of wine were drunk in Switzerland in 2014 – five million litres less than in 2013. 

The consumption of spirits also fell, but beer stayed the same at 55.8 litres per person, for a total of around 460 million litres. However, the Swiss Alcohol Board pointed to the explosion in the number of breweries, from 275 in 2009 to 483 in 2014. 

The overall figures thus continued the general declining trend for alcohol consumption: ten years ago, the average Swiss drank 9.4 litres of pure alcohol. 

But the board stressed that the figures were all averages, and a breakdown of data among various population groups was not possible.