Interviews

Way back in 2023, I was interviewed a couple of times, online.

One interview was with Elizabeth Schneider for the podcast at Wine for Normal People. This was Episode 424: “Using data to answer our most important questions about wine”. This podcast is currently up to Episode 586, and so my interview is somewhat buried, and you need to subscribe to hear it. So, I thought that I could also make an MP3 version of the episode available here. [Note: this may not work on all browsers.]



However, I also did an interview with The Wonderful World of Wine, hosted by Mark Lenzi and Kim Simone. This was Episode 249; and my interview can be freely found on their SoundCloud channel.

Tom Wark has a web page talking about: The art and craft of the interview and the rules for being interviewed. He lists 6 types of interview, which will largely determine what comes of the talk: Ten questions; The rambling conversation; The structured interview; The timely insight interview; The panel; The press conference. My interviews seem to be between types two and three.

Perhaps more importantly, Tom has three rules of being interviewed:
1. Don’t speak about things you know nothing about (it will be obvious when you do)
2. Know when to stop and don’t ramble (your points will be more memorable)
3. Don’t tamp down who you are to sound more authoritative (you want people to know YOU, not someone you want to be).

Christmas drink traditions in Sweden

I am currently stocking up on my specially brewed Christmas beers, both alcohol-free and otherwise, along with glögg, julmust and svagdricka (explained below). All of these seasonal drinks appear in the Swedish shops, or they can be ordered from the central warehouses. The products available can vary from year to year.

The first of these drinks (glögg) is a punch or mulled wine, which is traditionally consumed during winter, especially around Christmas. The recipes vary widely throughout Scandinavia, but essentially it is based on white or sweet wine, or spirits such as brandy or cognac. Water is first boiled and the chosen spices are added to it, and this is simmered. The resulting mixture is sieved, and the wine or spirits are added; or fruit juice is added for a non-alcoholic version. It is consumed with gingerbread (round, star-shaped, heart-shaped), and almonds and sultanas are soaked in the brew in the special cup it is served in. You can read more about it here, or watch a video here.

The second drink (julmust) is a soda. The underlying syrup (called must) is apparently made exclusively by Roberts in the town of Örebro. This syrup is sold to soft-drink manufacturers, who then make the final product their own way. The syrup is apparently made of carbonated water, sugar, hop extract, malt extract, spices, caramel colouring, and citric acid. You can read more about it here or here.

The third drink (svagdricka) is a low-alcohol malt drink (less than 2.25% ABV). It is sweet and dark. You can read a little more about it here.
  

There are also the specially brewed Christmas beers, both alcohol-free and otherwise. Swedes love their beers, and there are special brews released for different celebrations (Säsongslanseringar = Seasonal releases), including Easter, and Octoberfest, in addition to Christmas. You can check out the current alcoholic releases (80 at the time of writing, mainly ales, and dark or medium-dark lagers) from the alcohol-monopoly (Systembolaget), with the catalog at: Julöl. I should also note that many of the low-alcohol beers in Sweden are actually very good.

Sweden also makes many fruit wines, as I recently noted in my post: What countries are best represented in Sweden’s wine retailer monopoly?

Jack Jakobsson has a summary (in Swedish) of the 2025 Xmas drink releases at: Julen 2025: Systembolaget | hela provningen.

This is, indeed, a joyous time! God jul! 1

1 Note that on 27 August 2025 a publication appeared called: How much is too much? A methodological investigation of the literature on alcohol consumption and health. It states: “We conclude that the claim that ‘there is no safe level’ of alcohol intake is not sufficiently supported based on our current scientific knowledge.” Quite right, too.

The extremes of sexism in the wine industry

Recently, two articles appeared online that highlight the two extremes of inequality between males and females, in the wine industry. I live in a country (Sweden) that tries very hard to be as equal as possible, all the time, and it is usually rated as being very successful at this; so this issue does matter to me.

Let’s start with the good article:

Bulgaria’s wine revolution: from communist giant to indigenous champion

The article has a lot of information about the current situation in the Bulgarian wine industry. In particular, there is a whole section on “Women Leading the Revolution”. Consider this quote:

One unexpected aspect of Bulgaria’s wine renaissance is the prominence of women in professional winemaking roles. Bulgaria may be the only European country where women make up roughly half or more of all professional oenologists.

So, most of the recent (post-communist) jobs have been taken by women; more power to them! This is the way it should be.

Sadly, Eurostat reports Bulgaria as being second-last within the European Union in the assessment of “Independence of the justice system” as perceived by the general public; but presumably they can get this up to the same exemplary level.

Now let’s turn to the more depressing wine article, at the other extreme. It is particularly depressing for me, because Australia is where I grew up, and first learned to appreciate wine. The title says it all:

Sexism, harassment and inflexibility drive women out of winemaking, survey reveals

The article summary is:

Charles Sturt University [in Australia] has carried out a nationwide study into gender equity in the wine industry. The main factors contributing to women leaving the industry were identified including sexism, discrimination and a lack of flexibility ... Warning: This story contains details of sexual assault and language some readers may find distressing.

So, I won't quote any of the stories, but simply let you read the article for yourself. Instead, I will turn to something a bit better, later in the same article:

As a result of the study, a free toolkit has been released for the wine industry, providing practical steps to get businesses thinking about gender equity.

So long as they do a bit more than just think, but act as well, then this is the right direction.

 

Asides: There will be a Historic Apology to the First Nations People (sometimes known as Aboriginals) from the state government of Victoria; now the other Australian states must follow suit. The national ban on children accessing social media until they turn 16 seems to be of more doubtful effectiveness.

The effect of alcohol consumption on medical strokes

The effect of wine on our medical condition is not all bad, in spite of what you may hear these days. Consider this recent publication in the medical literature about its effect on the incidence of strokes, what is technically called Ischemic Stroke, which happens when a blood clot blocks a blood vessel in your brain (a medical emergency that can be fatal):

Alcohol use and types and ischemic stroke: a systematic review and meta-analysis
by Ahmad A Toubasi and Thuraya N Al-Sayegh
European Neurology 2025 88: 140-150

Here are the technical details, for those of you who are interested:
Introduction: This systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to investigate the association between alcohol use pattern and ischemic stroke risk.
Methods: We searched PubMed, Scopus, Web of Sciences, Embase, and CENTRAL till the 1st of June, 2024. Studies were included if they were articles that assessed the impact of alcohol drinking pattern on the risk of ischemic stroke. The random-effect model was utilized to combine the results. Data analysis was performed using Meta XL, version 5.3.
Results: The total number of included participants was 21,293,471 from 125 studies. The model that investigated the association between light alcohol use and ischemic stroke risk showed no association (relative risk [RR] = 0.97, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.89-1.05). Moderate alcohol use was associated with significant decrease in ischemic stroke risk (RR = 0.87; 95% CI: 0.83-0.92), while heavy alcohol use was associated with significant increase in ischemic stroke risk (RR = 1.31; 95% CI: 1.19-1.44). Subgroup analysis among males showed results similar to the primary analysis, while among females only moderate alcohol drinking was significantly associated with ischemic stroke (RR = 0.50; 95% CI: 0.33-0.75). Moderate and heavy wine use was associated with significant reduction in ischemic stroke risk (RR = 0.61; 95% CI: 0.45-0.84; RR = 0.77; 95% CI: 0.63-0.93).
Conclusions: Our analysis provided a strong and robust evidence that there was a significant association between moderate and heavy alcohol use with ischemic stroke risk. However, this association varied by several variables including type of alcohol with the effect being more protective among people who use wine.

In this graph you can see see a summary of the outcome, in which people with light and moderate alcohol use (lines one and two) had far fewer strokes (ES) than those people with heavy alcohol use (line three). However, note that this was overall alcohol, while both moderate and heavy wine use was associated with a significant reduction in stroke.

Now, this is all very well, and as a wine drinker I like it. However, as a scientist I know that it is not actually a scientific experiment. A well-done alcohol study is a dietary intervention study, in which, for example, one group of participants abstains from alcohol completely, for the length of the experiment, while the other group will consume some specified amount of wine. This would produce much more convincing results. An introduction to this type of work is provided by Lewis Perdue at the Stealth Syndromes Human Study website (Consumer introduction to assessing scientific studies). Lewis also has other interesting relevant pages on this website (eg. A strength of evidence report card for human studies).

There are other pieces of work indicating that moderate wine consumption may benefit your cardiac health, such as: Is it true that … a glass of wine a day is good for your heart? Indeed, there is now an entire book about wine and health: Tony Edwards (2023) The Very Good News About Wine: Authoritative Health Evidence the Health Authorities Don’t Tell You, which covers topics like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and dementia. This book was reviewed by Neal Hulkower (Uncorking the truth).

Nevertheless, perhaps I would not like to participate in an experiment in which I might increase my chances of getting a blood clot in my brain!

A recent survey of consumer support for changes to alcohol policies in the USA

There is much talk these days about alcohol consumption and the extent to which it should be subject to government regulation. There is much pressure, especially in the USA, to more severely restrict it (eg. The backlash to the alcohol recommendations of the U.S. Dietary Guidelines is coming). Tom Wark notes: “I believe that the single most important thing the industry can do to give wine a real lift is to repeal the most regressive wine regulations” (What does the wine industry actually need right now? 9 experts weigh in).

So, it is timely to find out what the opinions might be from the populace as a whole. One recent attempt (October 3, 2025) to do this is:

Support for alcohol control policies among US alcohol consumers
JAMA Network Open 8(10): e2535337

The authors summarize their work this way:
Key Points

Question: To what extent do US adults who consume alcohol support alcohol control policies?

Findings: In this survey study of 1036 US adults who consume alcohol, approximately one-half supported — and few opposed — policies to restrict alcohol advertising to children and to require calorie content information, drinks per container information, and cancer warnings on alcohol containers. Fewer adults supported policies to lower the blood alcohol content limit for driving, increase alcohol taxes, or limit the times or places alcohol can be sold.
Meaning: These findings suggest that among alcohol control policies, public support is highest for advertising restrictions and information provision policies.

Crucially, the authors make a big deal of having “a nationally representative sample of US adults who consume alcohol”, and they describe this sample in great detail. So, we can reasonably rely on their work.

Their detailed results were:

“Approximately one-half supported policies requiring alcohol containers to display cancer warnings (49%), drinks per container information (51%), and calorie content information (56%). Likewise, 52% supported prohibiting alcohol advertisements on television when children are likely to be watching. By contrast, fewer participants supported than opposed policies to lower the blood alcohol content limit for driving, prohibit alcohol sales late at night, and increase taxes on alcohol (range supporting: 16% to 25%); support was lowest for policies to reduce the number of outlets licensed to sell alcohol (10%).”

The main limitation of the work appears to be their requirement that the surveyed people “reported drinking at least 1 alcoholic beverage per week during the past 4 weeks”. The authors note that also “assessing support also among non-consumers is important given that alcohol control policies could prevent consumption among non-consumers”.

Thanks to Lewis Perdue for drawing this work to my attention.