(Editorial team, Reuters – Photo)
You might laugh if it weren’t so sad. The UN General Assembly is preparing, to mark its 80th anniversary, a move that places wine on a par with cigarettes and crystal meth – and all with just four inconspicuous lines in the agenda item on the ‘prevention of non-communicable diseases’. It states matter-of-factly that the aim is to reduce the “harmful use of alcohol” by banning advertising, restricting availability and prohibiting consumption in public spaces.
The Académie Internationale du Vin, a body comprising around a hundred recognised figures from the world of wine, has now issued a public appeal. That in itself is remarkable: in over fifty years of its existence, the AIV has never taken such a stance. Yet the impending classification of wine as a fundamentally dangerous addictive substance is driving even this quiet body out of its ivory tower.
The problem is not that such campaigns are being prepared. The problem is that the damage has long since been done. For two years now, the international media have been claiming in unison that there is ‘no safe level’ when it comes to wine. Even the smallest amount is said to be poison. The fact that the study in question was methodologically flawed, that countless doctors and independent researchers have pointed out errors, and that reputable long-term studies yield entirely different results – never mind. Facts no longer hold any value in this debate. What remains is a catchphrase, and that can be marketed to great effect: wine is dangerous.
Yet anyone who reads the figures dispassionately knows that: In most Western countries, alcohol-related illnesses demonstrably linked to wine account for less than four per cent (admittedly, there are certainly people who have not been included in the statistics and reports because they suffer from alcoholism whilst remaining below the medical radar). The vast majority fall ill due to spirits, cheap schnapps, and excessive consumption of hard liquor. But why make distinctions when you can generate headlines with blanket scaremongering?
History repeats itself. Even the American Prohibition of the 1920s was based less on facts than on moral campaigns. Then, as now, it was easier to declare a sophisticated luxury item the enemy than to tackle the actual causes of addiction, misery and social inequality. Back then, too, powerful lobby groups were on hand to steer the debate. In the end, the black market flourished, and society paid a high price – whilst politicians claimed they had solved the problem.
Whilst the WHO was moved to issue a warning in January 2023 – which was uncritically reproduced in the media worldwide – the ‘sober’ lobbyists had long since done their homework. Their wish lists include health warnings on back labels, massive excise duties, advertising bans and the exclusion of wine from public spaces. No more glasses in street cafés, no more bottles on terraces. The whole thing goes by the name of ‘denormalisation’ – a nice word for global prohibition in the 21st century.
The AIV is now calling for what should actually go without saying: no legislation without a solid evidence base. Anyone wishing to marginalise wine by means of a resolution should first commission independent, randomised, long-term studies – just as is standard practice for medicines. Anything else is political activism with a questionable scientific foundation.
Yet this is precisely the point we at WINEPARTY emphasise: it no longer matters. Facts have lost their validity. Even if Laura Catena, a doctor and winemaker’s daughter, meticulously compiles all the scientific findings, even if every reputable researcher points out that moderate wine consumption can actually be beneficial to health from a certain age onwards – the headline ‘no safe level’ has long since won the day.
So here’s our advice: let it be. The resolution may or may not pass, the headlines will resurface, and the debate will continue to go round in circles. What matters is not what is being debated in the conference room in New York, but what happens at tables around the world. There, wine will remain the cultural drink that is enjoyed in moderation and brings people together – less so than ever before, and culturally controversial. But there!
Perhaps that is precisely why people are so keen to cast it as the enemy: because it signifies pleasure, demands discernment and fosters community. All things that stand in the way of a politics of simplistic headlines. And so a bitter aftertaste remains: eighty years after its founding, the UN is no longer concerned solely with the causes of hunger, war and poverty, but with the question of whether a glass of rosé on a street terrace poses a threat to global health.
And that is nothing short of madness.