ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – The latest global cost of living index by the Economist Intelligence Unit has sparked the usual national pride and fear remarks, with Australian cities showing a sudden rise to the top 10, while Zurich and Geneva have slipped, ouf, thanks to pressure easing on the franc against some other currencies.
But a strange detail remains, where seventh-place Zurich pays twice as much for a bottle of table wine, $16.24, as tenth place Geneva does, $8.19. Today that would be CHF14.82 in Zurich and CHF7.48 for the same or comparable wine.
The EIU doesn’t supply much detail on how it calculates for its index, but comparable international products are used, and of course since it is in dollars, exchange rates cause crazy fluctuations from one year to the next. While the price of wine has remained virtually unchanged in Switzerland, in 2012, according to the EIU, you had to pay $21.24 for a table wine in Zurich and $9.79 in Geneva, so if we’re buying international table wine in Switzerland, we should all be smiling this year.
Last year, Zurich’s wine was the most expensive of any city in the top 10. This year, you’ll have to pay more than $25 for a table wine in Singapore, Sydney and Melbourne – the last two are Australian cities, where wine is a major export.
The index begs the question of what is defined as a table wine, although the EIU is clear about where and how it gathers its prices:
“Survey prices are gathered and listed from three types of stores: supermarket, medium-priced retailers and more expensive speciality shops. Only outlets where items of internationally comparable quality are available for normal sale are visited. While the majority of cities provides a wide selection of goods and stores at different price levels, this range narrows down considerably at several locations. Thus, in some cities the entire range of prices has to be obtained at the few stores where goods of internationally comparable quality are found. Local markets and bazaars are visited only if the goods available are of standard quality and if shopping in these areas does not present any danger to an expatriate executive or his family.”
What the index tells us is that if you’re a green behind the ears expat who only buys American table wine and who continues to calculate life in dollars, you’ll be miserable in Zurich and Geneva, although even more miserable in Sydney or Melbourne.
Fortunately, the figures make little sense for other international people in Switzerland, who like wine. For a start, decent table wine from neighbouring France and Italy can be had for under CHF10 for 75cl bottles.
Better yet, very good local wines, red and white, are available in both cities for about CHF10 and if you go up to the mid-range, CHF15-18 you have a wide choice of excellent wines.
Swiss wines are clearly very competitive, but Zurich’s supermarkets that are charging CHF15 for a mediocre US table wine (for which you pay half that price in Geneva) have some explaining to do: both cities have the same exchange rate, the same import duties and high real estate costs.