Wine Production in Morocco: Excellence, Tradition, and Religion
by Antonino Finocchiaro
Last year, the renowned magazine Wine Enthusiast devoted, for thefirst time, an extensive article to Moroccan wine, presenting it as an emergingreality capable of attracting the attention of critics and international markets. According to the magazine, the wine sector had begun to move beyond apurely quantitative production logic, shifting instead toward the enhancementof terroir, grape quality, the selection of appellations, and the construction of a recognizable oenological identity. Moroccan wine was described not as an ordinary consumer product, but as the expression of an agricultural and territorial heritage aspiring to position itself within the segment of viticultural excellence.
These indications are taken up in the Wine Industry in Morocco: Business Report2026, produced by analysts at Market Publishers, one of the leading market research databases, which in this case focuses on the wine sector of the North African country. The report highlights how the sector operates within an institutional environment characterized by regulatory interventions, control mechanisms, and support policies oriented toward competitiveness and quality. Particular emphasis is placed on instruments regulating the production chain, the safety of winemaking and food-processing facilities, as well as the certification of origin and the qualitative characteristics of products. From this perspective as well, Moroccan wine emerges as the result of a strategy aimed at creating value through the control of production-site safety and thetraceability and recognizability of the final product.
The convergence between the narrative proposed by theinternational wine press and the economic–institutional analysis provided by the report invites reflection on a deeper underlying issue: the positioning of Moroccan wine as a product of excellence does not appear accidental, nor can it be attributed exclusively to market dynamics. Rather, it points to a coherent set of public policies that, for several decades, have governed wine production with a view to improving quality standards, ensuring compatibility with territorial development needs, and fostering integration into global markets.
It is precisely on the basis of this evidence that a broader question arises: how can a State that recognizes Islam as its religion of State adopt public policies aimed not only at regulating wine production, but also at promoting it as a sector of economic excellence, grounded in terroir, controlled appellations, and rigorous standards of safety and quality?
This question calls for avoiding a simplistic interpretation of the relationship between religion and public policy. In the case of the Kingdom of Morocco, the presence of wine is not a recent phenomenon, but a historical reality that public authorities have long regulated by clearly distinguishing between agricultural production, private consumption, and the public sphere. This articulation underpins both the legal–religious validity of the prohibition on domestic wine consumption for Muslims and the policy of promoting viticulture, which has significant economic importance and is also embedded in the country’s historical and cultural tradition.
In Morocco, Islam is not only the faith of the majority of citizens, but also the religion of State. This is reflected in a legal framework—dating back, moreover, to the period of the French Protectorate—which, in principle, prohibits the sale, purchase, and consumption of wine by Muslim citizens.
At the same time, the overall regulatory framework governing wine also takes into account other elements, such as the long-established presence of Jewish communities, as well as the more recent increase in tourists and foreign nationals residing in Morocco. These groups are not subject to the same restrictions regarding wine consumption and may, on the contrary, constitute a significant share of the domestic market. For centuries, the Jewish community has played a complementary economic role within a predominantly Muslim society, contributing to the preservation and transmission of local viticultural practices. The prolonged coexistence of Muslims and Jews in Morocco has therefore allowed the religious prohibition of alcohol for Muslims to be mediated by the presence of non-Muslim producers, enabling wine to circulate as an economic good without openly contradicting Islamic norms.
Moreover, in contemporary Morocco, wine is not promoted as a mass-consumption good, but rather as a quality product closely linked to specific territories, appellations, and the Kingdom’s productive traditions. Emphasizing excellence, traceability, and regulatory controls—while remaining within the bounds of discretion and moderation—does not entail encouraging consumption, but rather attributing to wine a distinct status that removes it from the sphere of public transgression and governs its social impact. From this perspective, the regulation of the wine sector does not represent a suspension of the Islamic prohibition, as it remains consistent with the institutional tradition of Islam, which has historically privileged the modulation of norms according to context, personal status, and the need to safeguard the equilibrium of the community as a whole.
The Moroccan experience thus shows how a Muslim-majority State can reconcile respect for religious prohibitions, the protection of the diverse traditions present within the country, and the valorization of a historical form of production through a regulatory framework that does not liberalize consumption, but instead circumscribes it and governs its presence within the social and cultural sphere.