Back in the '80s & '90s we were fighting cream puffs compared with the power houses you're fighting today. Gimmie that wine, Oh gimmie that wine! Can't cut loose without my juice.
While the wine industry has a right to defend its economic interests, countering criticism should not mean ignoring potential risks or broader societal concerns. Instead, an effective response involves balancing advocacy for the rights of consumers and producers with public health awareness and evidence-based policy discussions. This could include supporting research initiatives into low to moderate consumption patterns, further developing the production of alcohol free beverages, and responsible drinking campaigns while still advocating for market freedoms.
100% the need for an umbrella association around this issue seems vital at this point, to defend the interests of a majority of people for whom civilisation and free will encompasses enjoying the bienfaisant and social benefits of wine in moderation.
As a Brit I find it shocking that a Surgeon General should take a patently non-scientific approach to this sort of pronouncement, not based in fact, which makes you wonder, what is the underlying agenda?
What I find shocking is the kind of masochistic groveling on the part of wine producers and others in the industry who seem to have taken the Surgeon General's statement to heart themselves. They should educate themselves by reading Tony Edwards' book The Very Good News About Wine, in which he analyzes hundreds of studies on wine and health using the Google Scholar medical database and comes up with an opposite conclusion: moderate wine drinking is SO beneficial to health that governments should promote wine by making it tax free!
Stop apologizing for making a great product! Stop bending over backwards to emphasize moderation and low alcohol!
In any event, we now have a new Surgeon General and a new administration that is combative towards the World Health Organization and the philanthrocapitalists who fund it like Bill Gates, and it will be interesting to see the stance of the Make America Healthy Again movement, which so far is targeting petroleum dyes, glyphosates, fluoride, etc but not wine. Advocacy groups would do well to reach out to RFK jr with studies that show the health benefits of moderate drinking.
The struggle for the industry is it has been termed "Big Alcohol" in an effort to relate it to big tobacco. So and research pushback is easily labeled biased.
My thought is we present it using the temperance researchers own research. It's just a matter of reporting the entire research. Even Stockwells 2023 All Cause Mortality research results clearly stated 25 - 45 grams per day showed the same all cause mortality as abstainers. This information was never reported or shared by the press. Further, it's not considered Big alcohol research if we are citing the original articles and it puts the temperance on the defense as they have to agree, yes our research says this. Or they have to disagree and basically state their entire research is wrong.
In a nut shell, yes we need a more broad reporting of the full research. It's difficult but yes needs to be done.
Excellent article, Tom. I have believed for a long time that wine producers should be required to list everything that is in the bottle. Ridge does it voluntarily as do several other, albeit expensive, producers.
I believe that if a consumer picks up a bottle of wine in the supermarket and the label shows it is full of artificial flavorings, stabilizers, and chemicals, the consumer then will be faced with a more realistic choice because there are a number of wineries turning out good quality, additive free wines but the customer won't know it because there is usually nothing on the label beyond organically grown, natural or sustainably farmed, and those terms should be treated with healthy skepticism as well. . Maybe it is not wine itself but one manipulated into homogeneity by artificial means that is more of a threat.
Back in the '80s & '90s we were fighting cream puffs compared with the power houses you're fighting today. Gimmie that wine, Oh gimmie that wine! Can't cut loose without my juice.
While the wine industry has a right to defend its economic interests, countering criticism should not mean ignoring potential risks or broader societal concerns. Instead, an effective response involves balancing advocacy for the rights of consumers and producers with public health awareness and evidence-based policy discussions. This could include supporting research initiatives into low to moderate consumption patterns, further developing the production of alcohol free beverages, and responsible drinking campaigns while still advocating for market freedoms.
100% the need for an umbrella association around this issue seems vital at this point, to defend the interests of a majority of people for whom civilisation and free will encompasses enjoying the bienfaisant and social benefits of wine in moderation.
As a Brit I find it shocking that a Surgeon General should take a patently non-scientific approach to this sort of pronouncement, not based in fact, which makes you wonder, what is the underlying agenda?
What I find shocking is the kind of masochistic groveling on the part of wine producers and others in the industry who seem to have taken the Surgeon General's statement to heart themselves. They should educate themselves by reading Tony Edwards' book The Very Good News About Wine, in which he analyzes hundreds of studies on wine and health using the Google Scholar medical database and comes up with an opposite conclusion: moderate wine drinking is SO beneficial to health that governments should promote wine by making it tax free!
Stop apologizing for making a great product! Stop bending over backwards to emphasize moderation and low alcohol!
In any event, we now have a new Surgeon General and a new administration that is combative towards the World Health Organization and the philanthrocapitalists who fund it like Bill Gates, and it will be interesting to see the stance of the Make America Healthy Again movement, which so far is targeting petroleum dyes, glyphosates, fluoride, etc but not wine. Advocacy groups would do well to reach out to RFK jr with studies that show the health benefits of moderate drinking.
The struggle for the industry is it has been termed "Big Alcohol" in an effort to relate it to big tobacco. So and research pushback is easily labeled biased.
My thought is we present it using the temperance researchers own research. It's just a matter of reporting the entire research. Even Stockwells 2023 All Cause Mortality research results clearly stated 25 - 45 grams per day showed the same all cause mortality as abstainers. This information was never reported or shared by the press. Further, it's not considered Big alcohol research if we are citing the original articles and it puts the temperance on the defense as they have to agree, yes our research says this. Or they have to disagree and basically state their entire research is wrong.
In a nut shell, yes we need a more broad reporting of the full research. It's difficult but yes needs to be done.
Excellent article, Tom. I have believed for a long time that wine producers should be required to list everything that is in the bottle. Ridge does it voluntarily as do several other, albeit expensive, producers.
I believe that if a consumer picks up a bottle of wine in the supermarket and the label shows it is full of artificial flavorings, stabilizers, and chemicals, the consumer then will be faced with a more realistic choice because there are a number of wineries turning out good quality, additive free wines but the customer won't know it because there is usually nothing on the label beyond organically grown, natural or sustainably farmed, and those terms should be treated with healthy skepticism as well. . Maybe it is not wine itself but one manipulated into homogeneity by artificial means that is more of a threat.