Yes, cellar-door sales of wine, spirits and beer are still illegal but will become legal on June 1. But… In mid-April, the Riksdag voted yes to “farm sales”. This means that from June 1, it will be legal to sell your products at a winery, microbrewery, cider producer or distillery.
The law will initially apply on a trial basis for six years. But it will come with many conditions and restrictions. The details are not entirely clear, but it will likely include, among other things, that you will be allowed to buy a maximum of 0.7 litres of spirits (where did the 75-centiliter bottle go?), three litres of wine, three litres of beer and three litres of any other fermented alcoholic beverages.
In order to be allowed to shop, you (the customer) must also participate in an “awareness-raising” event, which you will have to pay for. And the producer must not be too large, so, if what you are selling becomes too popular, you can lose the permit.
Some producers have already said that these are unreasonable requirements and say they are not bothering. We will see.
Others have commented on the requirement for “education” – if you have to participate in a “knowledge raising event” to buy three litres of wine, why not make the same requirement for Systembolaget, where there is no upper limit? Or maybe just five minutes? A requirement that every customer at Systembolaget must participate in a five-minute knowledge increase before being allowed to shop…
The opponents of “farm sales” painted disaster scenarios of that the monopoly would quickly “fall” if cellar-door sales were allowed. We’ll see if that happens. Hardly likely; I suspect it was just rhetoric. The monopoly will probably remain until more people realise that it serves no purpose, that it does not provide Sweden with a good range of wines at all, and more importantly (but rarely stated) it will be easier for Sweden to have an effective alcohol policy to counteract the negative effects of alcohol when it is no longer the alcohol shop that handles that task.
