(Manfred Klimek)
Some movements begin as a corrective and end as a campaign. And there are campaigns that work on intensifying their own message for so long that they eventually implode. The sober and dry movement, which has argued against wine consumption with remarkable vehemence since January 2023, seems to have reached precisely this point. What began as a public-health impulse quickly developed into a morally charged discourse in which differentiation scarcely took place any more. A glass of wine was suddenly no longer a cultural asset, but a risk. And risk meant abstinence.
Dry January 2026 has now shown for the first time that this narrative is losing its traction. Lower participation, less media resonance, but above all a striking reticence among those, mostly left-liberal editorial teams that acted as multipliers of this message in recent years. In Germany, Great Britain and the USA, a fatigue has become perceptible—not with regard to the subject of health, but with regard to the way it was and is being discussed.
The decisive break, however, came from a side that had long been ignored: research. Several new studies directly contradict the blanket assertion that even small amounts of alcohol are fundamentally harmful. What matters here is less the existence of these studies—they existed before too—but the fact that this time they were read. And more than that: that they found their way into editorial decision-making processes. Suddenly, what should actually be journalistic standard was once again up for debate: weighing up, context, cross-checking.
This shifts the focus. Away from the simple message and towards a more complex view that once again considers life as it is lived, drinking culture and individual responsibility together. And it is precisely here that a second, perhaps even more important factor becomes apparent: the editorial teams themselves. In many organisations, the willingness to continue advancing a line of argument that increasingly understood itself less as journalism and more as socio-political intervention seems to be waning. The loudest voices of recent years—often younger colleagues with clear convictions and broad reach—are losing influence. Not because their positions have been disproved, but because their tone no longer carries.
There is also an aspect that has so far scarcely been discussed openly: the biographical proximity of some protagonists to the subject. In several cases, it became clear that particularly aggressive positions towards alcohol were not infrequently fuelled by their own early experiences. This is understandable on a human level, but problematic journalistically when personal history is elevated into a general norm.
A clear sign of this shift is a recently prominently placed article on ZEIT ONLINE that fundamentally calls the system of anti-alcohol communication into question. A year ago, such a text would scarcely have been conceivable. Today, it marks a kind of tipping point: the criticism is no longer coming from outside, but from within the media themselves.
All this suggests that we will not see a continuation of the previous campaign logic in 2027. Neither in Germany nor in the leading Anglo-Saxon media is there currently any discernible energy of the kind that would be necessary to continue the discourse with its previous sharpness. The movement is not losing strength abruptly, but quietly—through differentiation, through fatigue, through the revival of journalistic standards.
And yet the conclusion remains ambivalent. For the damage has been done. Over many years, an image was created that no longer understood wine as part of a cultural practice, but as a problem. This image does not simply disappear as the campaign subsides. It remains in the background, as a reference point, as uncertainty, as latent scepticism.
At the same time, there will be no reckoning. No corrections, no self-critical retrospectives, no legal disputes over the failure to conduct counter-research. Not because there would be no grounds for them, but because the price seems too high. The fear of a public backlash, of digital waves of outrage, of the judgement of an unrestrained audience is greater than the desire for clarification.
What remains is a shambles of exaggerated claims, oversimplified narratives and a debate that has damaged its own credibility. Wine will get through this. The real question is how long it will take for the discourse to come to its senses again.