Federal Act
on Agriculture
(Agriculture Act, AgricA)

¹ In or­der to pro­tect des­ig­na­tions and la­bels, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall is­sue reg­u­la­tions for the veri­fic­a­tion of grape har­vests and trad­ing in wine. It shall stip­u­late re­quire­ments that must be met by the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies, the pro­du­cers, the cel­larers and wine traders, in par­tic­u­lar with re­spect to re­gis­tra­tion, ac­com­pa­ny­ing doc­u­ment­a­tion, cel­lar ac­counts and in­vent­or­ies. In­so­far as the pro­tec­tion of des­ig­na­tions and la­bels is not com­prom­ised, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may al­low ex­cep­tions and sim­pli­fic­a­tions. It shall co­ordin­ate the veri­fic­a­tion pro­cess.

² In or­der to sim­pli­fy col­lab­or­a­tion between the veri­fic­a­tion agen­cies, it may fore­see a cent­ral data­base. It shall stip­u­late re­quire­ments for such a data­base with re­gard to con­tent and op­er­a­tion as well as data qual­ity, and set out the con­di­tions for ac­cess and use of the said data.

³ The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies are re­spons­ible for car­ry­ing out the grape har­vest veri­fic­a­tion. The Con­fed­er­a­tion may of­fer a glob­al amount to help fund the can­ton­al mon­it­or­ing costs, the amount be­ing based on the area of vine­yards in the can­ton in ques­tion.

⁴ The trade in wine is mon­itored by an agency des­ig­nated by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil.