+ Not a wine drinker myself, but can appreciate the difficulty here. How do you maintain the integrity of a traditional wine product, and open markets up for industrial production? -Strict labelling.

Plans to allow the use of wood chips to flavour Swiss wines have uncorked a furious response from the country’s winemakers.

They claim the arrival of “New World” practices will dilute the authenticity of the country’s centuries-old winemaking tradition and will also lead to confusion among consumers.

In March this year the European Union agreed to allow the addition of wood chips to wine after signing a landmark deal with the United States.

The Swiss, who are closely tied to Brussels via a series of bilateral accords, are now set to follow suit early next year.

Winemakers in the US, South America, South Africa and Australia have been adding wood chips to wines for a number of years to give them an oak flavour. The money-saving measure speeds the ageing process and cuts out the need for long and expensive storage in oak barrels.

But opponents in Switzerland fear the move will not only leave customers in a spin – an issue that has been seized upon by the Swiss Consumers Association – but also undermine the quality of native wines.

“Switzerland is a small winemaking region, only 15,000 hectares, and we need to remain a niche market with wines of a certain character. We don’t need to start producing wine on an industrial basis – we will lose quality,” Michel Duboux, president of the Association of Swiss Winemakers and Cellarmen, told swissinfo.

“What I fear most is that once we start allowing wood chips, the next step will be to allow flavouring. It’s like opening the floodgates and we are going to lose the authenticity of our wines.”