Tag Archives: neo-Prohibitionists

Wine will kill you — or not

Wine will kill you -- or notThe Wine Curmudgeon will periodically relax his long-time ban on wine-related health news on the blog to remind everyone why there is a ban on health news on the blog. Like when we’re told wine will kill you — or not:

? A former World Health Organization official says “moderate drinking is better than abstaining and heavy drinking is worse than abstaining – ? however the moderate amounts can be higher than the guidelines say, ? as much as a bottle of wine a day.

? A current World Health Organization officlal says half of new cancers over the next 20 years are preventable if people change their lifestyles, and that includes giving up drinking.

How are we supposed to make a decision given such contradictory opinions from two people who seem to have the same qualifications? It’s enough, if you don’t mind the bad joke, to drive one to drink.

Some of this, as noted before, is sloppy reporting. But some of it is the medical community, which often lumps drinking with tobacco as inherently evil — except when it doesn’t. Too many studies are either limited in scope or seem to pick and choose to fit the researcher’s agenda. Cases in point: The alcoholism rate in the U.S. is about 8 percent for adults, while it may be as high as 14 percent in Russia. And that a majority of alcohol-related deaths in the U.S. involve non-Latino whites, but that the highest death rates were among Native Americans and Alaska Natives. None of the numbers offers the demographic pattern for a one size fits all solution.

One day, perhaps, the medical community will figure this out. Until then, the ban remains.

Wine trends in 2014

Wine trends in 2014The wine business in 2014 won’t be so much about varietal or sweet, though both will matter. Rather, wine trends in 2014 will be about the continuing transformation of wine into a truly global business, focusing on:

? Increased retail availability — more wines in more and different kinds of stores, and especially grocery stores. This means attempts to change state laws where that’s illegal

? More consolidation among producers — not just the biggest getting bigger, the trend over the past decade, but consolidation among mid-sized wineries, which will be folded into companies specificially formed for that purpose.

? The growing importance of the consumer, who is beginning to drink what he or she wants and forcing the wine business to adjust, rather than the other way around.

Mixed in with this will be renewed attempts by the neo-Probhibitionists in goverment and medicine to reduce wine consumption. More, after the jump:

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Prohibition-era sign

Rudy K. and neo-Prohibitionism

neo-ProhibtionismRudy K. is Rudy Kurniawan, the con man convicted last month for bilking wine collectors out of millions of dollars by passing off cheap wine as rare bottles worth thousands. The story, not surprisingly, was huge among the wine writing fraternity, both traditional and on-line, and a Google search yesterday turned up 1.8 million references to it.

On the other hand, a story that could affect every wine drinker — and not just those who can drop a couple of grand for a French first-growth that may or may not be real — was mostly ignored last year. That was the National Transportation Safety Board’s proposal to cut the legal drinking limit, which would be two glasses of wine for most women and three for men. Yesterday, there were just 37,000 Google references to the plan.

And some of us wonder why no reads wine blogs anymore. This contradiction, and what it says about wine writing and the wine business, is after the jump:
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Wine with lunch and the end of Western civilization

The Wine Curmudgeon, as a general rule, eats lunch at home — a sandwich with a couple of glasses of water while hoping the phone doesn ?t ring. It ain ?t glamorous, but it is effective.

About a dozen times a year, though, I get to have wine with lunch. It’s usually a meal with a visiting winemaker, but it could also be a media trip or just because — either I’m taking the day off or someone suggests it. And, in those dozen times a year, I’m reminded that sometimes, effective isn’t enough.

Wine with lunch is not what it used to be. Even the French, who turned it into an art form, have pretty much given up on it. Writes Simon Kuper: “France is still not like bits of the U.S., where anyone ordering a lunchtime glass is apparently assumed to have a drinking problem, but it is getting there.”

There are good reasons for this, the most obvious being that no one wants to go back to work too sloshed to get anything done. But isn’t there a midway point between being too sloshed and Kuper’s right-on description of U.S. attitudes? (Which I know first-hand, since I live in one of those places — I get the stares when I order wine with dinner.)

I was reminded of this last week, when I had winemaker lunches with J and Rodney Strong. Somehow, we managed to taste wine, eat lunch, and have intelligent discussions about the wines, the wine business, and even bread baking without anyone staggering out of the restaurant like Foster Brooks. I was even able to drive home and work both days. The wine was not a hindrance, but fun. I don’t know that I want to do it every day, but I do know that I want to do it more often.

In this, wine with lunch does not mean wine instead of lunch. I wonder if our attitude towards this sort of thing has been shaped by what Lew Perdue of Wine Industry Insight describes as the neo-Prohibitionist assault on wine and drinking. Regular visitors here know that I don’t write about the foolishness that is wine health news and that I long ago accepted that 40 percent of Americans say they don’t drink. That’s their business, and who am I to tell them they’re wrong?

But are we at a point where they’re telling the 60 percent what’s good for us? It’s a question I ask with hesitation, because it seems difficult to believe here in the 21st century, 90 years after the end of Prohibition. But if someone like me, who loves wine and writes about wine and drinks wine daily — and is responsible when I drink it — is reluctant to drink wine more often, how must less experienced wine drinkers feel?

Perhaps it’s something to discuss the next time I have wine with lunch.