Recent study shows that alcohol does have an important benefit in older age

This post is about alcohol, dementia and old age. There is a new research report that concludes that the occurrence of dementia is the lowest among people with moderate alcohol consumption, and the risk is higher among those who never drink or who drink excessively.

But, to set the scene, my wife spent a Monday recently in a hospital, being examined some of the time, but mostly just sitting there waiting (I kept her company). I then did exactly the same thing myself on the Tuesday (and she accompanied me). In my wife’s case they said: “It will be okay”, and so far they have been right. However, in my case they gave me some pills to take 3 times per day, every day for the rest of my life. These are the outcomes of getting older — back in the old days we didn’t make it, to get any older, but these days we slowly undergo physical and mental degeneration for quite a long while.

In this regard, old age is acknowledged to be the most important predictor of the syndrome known as dementia (a general decline in cognitive abilities affecting one's ability to perform everyday activities). Therefore the number of people living with this condition is expected to grow, along with the number of old adults. It should be obvious, then, that detecting this as far ahead as possible will help us (family, friends, colleagues, community, society) cope with the situation as best we can.

To this end, a recent report appeared:

Identifying early predictors of cognitive impairment and dementia in a large

nationally representative U.S. sample. Rand Research Report 2024 RR-A3207-1

It’s relevance to us in this blog should be obvious: alcohol is often implicated in cases of dementia. Well, this report makes it clear that alcohol does indeed play a potential role, but not in the way you may have suspected — there is good news aplenty.

Let’s start with what this study is, since we know that it is not a scientific experiment. It is simply a survey in which people answer questions and are measured in various ways. So, it is the quality of the surveying that matters, in terms of its size and how well it represents the intended population. According to the authors:

The data for this study come from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a United States nationally representative, biennial longitudinal survey of adults over age 50. The first wave was conducted in 1992 with a target population of the cohorts born in 1931 through 1941. Older cohorts and a younger cohort (born in 1942 through 1947) were added in 1998 [cohort = wave], so that the 1998 study represented the population born in 1947 or earlier. Since 1998, refresher cohorts of 51- to 56-year-olds have been added to the HRS every six years to maintain a population representation of adults ages 51 and older. The sample includes about 20,000 individuals per wave; more than 45,000 individuals have participated in the HRS since its inception.

This sounds pretty darned good to me — better than most such surveys. Their objective is clear:

In this report, we aim to identify predictors of dementia and cognitive impairment for individuals in the United States up to 20 years in advance using the cognition and dementia measures from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS).

So, the HRS already has within it “a validated probabilistic measure of dementia and cognitive impairment that was developed in prior research”, so that each person has been evaluated for cognitive ability. The HRS then:

allows us to evaluate the predictive power of many potential dementia risk factors, such as demographics, socioeconomic status (SES), labor-market measures, lifestyle and health behaviors (such as exercising and smoking), subjectively reported and objectively measured health, genes, parental health, cognitive abilities, and psychosocial factors (such as personality traits, social activities, and loneliness). We estimate how these factors predict cognitive impairment and dementia of individuals two, four, and twenty years after age 60.

So, that idea should be clear, from this here figure. The authors used their fancy univariate and multivariate analyses to try to work out how each of 181 potential risk factors, measured now, relates to developing dementia at a later age: “dementia prevalence among persons approximately age 80 according to their observed characteristics when they were about age 60”.

The report itself is quite readable, and you should consult it if you are interested in learning about all of the relevant factors they detected. For example:

In terms of explained variation, an individual’s baseline cognitive abilities, health, and functional limitations were the strongest predictors of dementia, whereas parental health, family size, marital history, and demographics were the weakest ones.

However, here we are interested in alcohol, which does make a suitable appearance:

Alcohol consumption is also predictive of dementia incidence; the incidence and prevalence of dementia are the lowest among those with moderate alcohol consumption, and the risk is elevated among those who never drink or who drink excessively. We found the same patterns in both sex groups and in all three dementia models that we considered.

This remarkable observation is shown in the next graph. This graph shows the males in the left pair of graphs and the females in the right pair. The top pair shows the effect of moderate exercise, for comparison, and the bottom pair shows the effect of alcohol intake. Each individual graph shows five possible situations (horizontally), and the rate of dementia associated with it (vertically).

So, to take exercise for men, as an example you should be familiar with: as the incidence of exercise decreases from left to right, the incidence of dementia increases. Or put around the other way, as exercise increases dementia decreases. You do not have all be told that exercise is good for you, but here it is one clear example.

Now look at alcohol. For both men and women, the highest incidence of dementia is among people who do not drink alcohol at all. For both men and women, the lowest incidence of dementia is among people who do have only one drink (or a couple of drinks) at a time. However, further increasing alcohol intake beyond this does increase the incidence of dementia — remember, five drinks at one time is a whole bottle of wine!

So, what people have been saying for years, that a little bit of alcohol is good for you, actually turns out to be true in this study.

The authors are moderate but clear:

Alcohol consumption is predictive of dementia incidence; the incidence and prevalence of dementia are the lowest among those with moderate alcohol consumption, and the risk is elevated among those who never drink or who drink excessively. We found the same patterns in both sex groups and in all three dementia models that we considered ... The lifestyle and health behavior predictors are noteworthy because they are modifiable risk factors and can be controlled by the individual.

Based on their whole analysis, they note:

We found strong associations between the outcomes and several modifiable risk factors. Therefore, our results suggest that there might be scope for slowing cognitive decline and dementia among at-risk people through behavioral changes and interventions. Such lifestyle modifications could be achieved by individuals taking the initiative to make such necessary changes, and public policy could also play an important role.

Our results suggest that it might be beneficial for maintaining cognitive health to exercise at least sometimes, even if it is only light physical activity, such as walking. Consuming alcohol in moderation, working longer, and engaging in hobbies and novel information activities after retirement are also associated with a lower risk of developing dementia. Similarly, maintaining good physical health is associated with reduced dementia incidence, which suggests that adopting a healthy lifestyle might be beneficial not only for general health but also for brain health ...

All these findings point toward the importance for policymakers and other stakeholders to promote healthy behaviors in the population and to strengthen individuals’ access to quality health care.

To this latter end, getting the bureaucrats’ alcohol-consumption ideas right is important. It seems that the World Health Organisation, and a number of other national and international bodies, have not yet got it right, as they have recently come out strongly against alcohol. The basic issue is that we cannot do proper scientific experiments (where we manipulate people’s behavior) to study the relevant social situations critically. All we can do is look at large databases, of which the one discussed here seems to be an important one.

The WHO is making a mistake about state-owned alcohol retailers

Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a new report:

Nordic alcohol monopolies protect public health

This continues the current WHO anti-alcohol campaign, apparently heading back towards the days of Prohibition, or something like it. Their online announcement will give you an idea of their tone:

• WHO highlights Nordic alcohol monopolies as a comprehensive model for reducing alcohol consumption and harm

WHO has released a new report highlighting the Nordic alcohol monopolies as an effective model for reducing alcohol consumption and harm. Unlike commercial alcohol sales systems, these state-owned monopolies operate with a public health mandate, restricting availability and limiting the influence of private profit interests. Countries like Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and the Faroe Islands have maintained relatively low alcohol consumption levels, despite being part of a region historically known for heavy drinking and related harms.

So, their basic point is that retail alcohol monopolies can be an effective way to reduce alcohol consumption and harm. By removing the private profit motive of sales, monopolies often have:

• fewer outlets
• shorter hours of sale
• no advertising and promotion.

I should comment on this because I seem to be the only person regularly blogging about the wine industry, and who actually has personal experience of a state-owned Nordic / Scandinavian alcohol retailer. Also, I should compare this with the situation in the USA and Canada.

The WHO claim is that they have compiled some data that support their current agenda against alcohol. One example is shown in the graph below, looking at alcohol per capita consumption (APC) in the various countries. The Nordic countries have smaller APC than most of the other European countries.

However, the WHO have not looked at how the “government monopolies” actually behave, in practice. They may once have behaved the way WHO imagines, but that was decades ago. My own experience is of Systembolaget in Sweden, for the past quarter of a century (I also have experience of Australia), where the Swedes are dedicated to providing excellent customer service.

My own personal experience of Systembolaget includes:

• it is not closely supervised by the government, but acts as an independent retailer that just happens to be owned by the government (eg. it has recently expanded its opening hours)
• if you can import it then they will sell it, although you may have to order it (and wait a few days for delivery) rather than them always stocking it on their shop shelves
• if you can pay for it then they will sell it to you, unless you are clearly intoxicated at the time or are under-age
• they have plenty of easily accessible shops
• only when the importer runs out does supply of a product end.

Systembolaget currently lists as being available nationally: 15,251 wines, 4,067 beers, 5,272 spirits, 419 cider etc, and 170 alcohol-free drinks. This is hardly a limit on supply, for a country of 10.5 million people.

I have written quite a few blog posts on this situation, including the following:

An explanation of the situation:

Why are there wine monopolies in Scandinavia?

Product availability:

Wine monopolies, and the availability of wine
The availability of wines in government-owned retail monopolies
The availability of older wine vintages in Sweden?

The prices of alcohol:

Why is wine often cheaper in Sweden than elsewhere?
Is Scandinavia currently the most attractive wine export market?

Availability of alcohol from elsewhere within the European Union (EU):

Sweden is not actually restricted to a government alcohol retail monopoly

Similarity to alcohol availability elsewhere in the world:

Why does the world have Three-Tier systems for alcohol supply?

Not everything is necessarily perfect, of course:

My annoyances with my alcohol monopoly

While on the point of alcohol sales in the rest of the EU, looking at the above graph, I would ask the obvious question: what about Croatia, Malta, Cyprus, and especially Italy and Greece? It is not like these countries don’t produce lots of alcohol, including wine, beer and spirits, and sell them both nationally and internationally. The locals apparently consume less alcohol per person than the Nordic countries, according to the graph, without government ownership of retail. Also, Denmark should be noted in this list as a Scandinavian country, but their government does not own the alcohol retail.

More to the point, there was a research report published last year (Classifying national drinking patterns in Europe between 2000 and 2019), which looked at drinking patterns within the different countries of Europe four times this century, and the changes in drinking behavior during that time make a mockery of the one-time-only analysis of the WHO.

Finally, this whole issue undervalues the fact that, as alternative examples, both the USA and Canada also have states and provinces with partial or complete government ownership of alcohol retail. This is mentioned in the report as an alternative to Prohibition but not elaborated upon; and it hardly differs from the Nordic countries.

For Canada you can read: Alcoholic drinks in Canada. For the USA, you can read Alcoholic beverage control state, which lists the relevant states:

Alcoholic beverage control states, generally called control states, less often ABC states, are 17 states in the United States that have state monopolies over the wholesaling or retailing of some or all categories of alcoholic beverages, such as beer, wine, and distilled spirits.

Mind you, the United States continues to be the top global market for wine consumption, and for the USA there is pressure on the current retail situation:

Retailer DtC wine shipping: the time has come
Poll: NYers want wine in grocery stores

So, WHO’s anti-alcohol campaign seems to have led to some mis-understanding about the real situation among the countries of both Europe and North America. Unfortunately, they may not need to continue their campaign for long, because APC has been decreasing in many markets worldwide, no matter what the retail structure (What’s driving wine’s structural decline?). Nevertheless, Current medical evidence says that wine is not harmful in small doses.

Wine price variation within the European Union

The International Organisation of Vine & Wine usually publishes their State of the World Vine and Wine Sector report in April each year. The 2023 report was pretty depressing in many ways, showing a decline in global wine consumption starting in 2018 and increasing after 2021. The 2024 report is not expected to show anything much different.

Similarly, the Silicon Valley Bank just released its US Wine Industry Report 2025, which noted that “the wine industry is undergoing a significant reset, marking the first demand-based correction in three decades ... While painful to experience now, these shifts may result in a healthier industry with more accessible bottle prices that will attract new consumers tomorrow.” I hope so.

In addition to these reports, there are the upcoming tariff portents of the new US president. These may have global effects in the not too distant future, although perhaps “tariffs on imported wine and spirits are more likely to harm American businesses than businesses abroad” (How Trump’s tariff threats will affect the wine and spirits industry and consumers).

So, as a change from all of this, now might be a good time to have a look at the past and present prices of wine among the states of the European Union (EU), and a few of its allied countries, rather than the USA. The situation is not quite as simple as we might expect or like. ¹

Let's start with a simple look at recent EU wine consumption, as shown above (Annual wine consumption in the European Union). As you can see, it varies quite a bit, but the general trend has been slightly downwards — the 2024 value was only 90% of the 2016 value. The average across the nine years was 100 million hectoliters (2,200 million gallons.

There was a distinct dip during the main years of the Covid-19 pandemic (2020–2021), suggesting that a lot of the consumption occurs in public places such as bars and restaurants, which were being avoided at that time. The unique rise in 2022 looks like a reaction to being safely allowed back into public drinking again. (Compare the USA: Alcohol consumption rises sharply during pandemic shutdown.)

Moving on to the different countries, we can look at the alcohol prices for 2020, as shown in the second graph (How alcohol prices vary across the EU) — this is simply a standardized measure with the EU average set at 100. Once again, these values vary quite a lot, with the Hungary price being only 38% of that of Finland.

Of the highest countries, the values for Finland and Sweden include a lot of spirits, which may also be true for Ireland. The wine-producing and consuming countries (eg. Portugal, Italy, France, Germany, Spain) are mostly in the centre of the price list.

The three countries to the right of the main graph are members of the European Free Trade Association, which is why there are data for them. The high price data for Norway and Iceland match those for two of the other Nordic countries (Finland and Sweden), but not the fifth one, Denmark (which matches Switzerland, instead!).

Moving on specifically to wine, we have Eurostat data for changes in price since 2015, as shown in the table above (Food price monitoring tool). The data refer to Wine from Grapes, showing a Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices, with 2015 set to 100. The data allow us to calculate the change in price for two periods of 5 years each (2015–2019 and 2020–2024 inclusive).

The EU average is at the top, with the countries then in alphabetical order. Note that there are the same 27 EU countries, plus Norway and Switzerland (but not Iceland), and the UK for the first period (when it was in the EU, before Brexit).

Note that there was a much greater (average) price increase in the past 5 years compared to the first 5. I think we all know that prices increase through time at an increasing rate. However, it is worth noting the two decreases in price during the first 5 years (Ireland and Cyprus) – lucky them!

Note also that the top 6 countries in the second list are more than double the average — this is pretty serious. Indeed, the top 10 countries are in eastern Europe (plus Czechia, which is way down). In particular, the poor situation for Croatia has attracted discussion (Croatia ranks first in Europe for wine price increases), although quality is another matter (How this power couple is trying to make Croatian wine world class), as is historical significance (How a 150-year-old grapevine is helping California producers adapt to climate change).

The countries from northern Europe discussed above (Sweden, Norway, Finland) are actually in the middle of this list — as I noted, these are wine prices only, not spirits prices. Also, Ireland, Switzerland and Italy are doing very well (see this video for Switzerland: Countries are struggling to contain inflation, but not Switzerland). Austria has not done much worse in the second 5 years compared to the first, which is unusual within the list (see: Austria bucks (some) trends; however: Austria’s wine exports to fall back in 2024).

It seems unlikely that things are going to get much better. It is, of course, the younger people who are the future, on all continents, but it has been observed that wine is very traditional. So, it has been noted (Leveraging wine sales in 2025):

Amid falling overall consumption in several countries, there is also ongoing debate about how to attract more Millennial and adult-Gen-Z drinkers to wine. Sustainability cues could be important; IWSR research showed a greater proportion of regular wine drinkers in Gen Z and Millennial generations in the US associated organic wine with high quality.

So, there is cause for optimism, if we can just see the potential areas of growth. However, The Wine Economist (Mike Veseth) once noted Kenneth Boulding’s historical point that when the future eventually rolls around it never matches the predictions, it is always unexpected (The future of wine?). So, we shall see what we see.

---

¹ The European Union currently consist of 27 countries. The United Kingdom was in the European Economic Community from 1973, which became the European Union, but then withdrew from the EU via Brexit in 2020 (along with Greenland, an autonomous province of Denmark, way back in 1985). Norway, Switzerland and Iceland have submitted membership applications in the past, but subsequently frozen or withdrawn them; they are, however, members of the European Free Trade Association. Turkey is a candidate EU country (and a member of the OECD along with North America and Australia).

Why does the world have Three-Tier systems for alcohol supply?

The United States of America has a Three-Tier alcohol distribution system, so that each commercial bottle of wine has a producer, a distributor and a retailer; and I cannot see why it is compulsory to have the distributor. Why can’t the producer sell directly to the retailer (or even the consumer), and thus save the consumer a lot of money? It seems to me that the distributor is not absolutely necessary, except to make money.

Now Sweden, where I live, also has a Three-tier system, but people in the USA usually describe it, disparagingly, as having a “government-owned retail monopoly”. Here, there is a freedom of choice for the producer and an importer / distributor, but not for the retailer — the latter is a national chain called Systembolaget, which is wholly owned by, and operated on behalf of, the Swedish government. However, the producer cannot sell directly to the retailer, any more than they can in the USA. So, the two systems are pretty much the same, in practice.

The US system is thus worth looking at here, from the perspective of its similarity to Sweden, and the European Union in general.

Now Sweden (and the rest of Scandinavia) and the USA actually created their Three-tier systems for effectively the same reason. Most of the US states (Three-tier system):

chose to become alcoholic beverage control jurisdictions after Prohibition. In these states, part or all of the distribution tier, and sometimes also the retailing tier, are operated by the state government itself (or by contractors operating under its authority) rather than by independent private entities.

By contrast, in Scandinavia the national governments took control of the retail Tier, on the claimed basis of public health with respect to the previous cultural tradition of binge drinking (Why are there wine monopolies in Scandinavia?). So, the influence of the Temperance world was at the root in both cases.

This does not mean that there is much wrong with wine availability in Sweden, almost all of which has to be imported (because of climate constraints), and where there is thus an importer by default. I have noted before that Sweden has a good wine selection (Wine monopolies, and the availability of wine), and that Systembolaget operates without profit motive, so that the wine is relatively cheap (Why is wine often cheaper in Sweden than elsewhere?).

Mind you, beer is freely available in the supermarkets, but not wine or spirits (Sweden is not actually restricted to a government alcohol retail monopoly). In the USA, by contrast, there are apparently 10 states that ban wine sales in supermarkets and 3 that ban beer (Maryland lawmakers clash over lifting ban on beer and wine sales in grocery stores).

It is also worth pointing out that, between countries within the European Union, receiving alcoholic drinks by mail or courier from online shops is perfectly legal (Eurosender). So, I can bypass Systembolaget when I want to, and I have occasionally done so. On the other hand, me sending alcohol as a private individual is another matter, which can depend on the circumstances.

Now, as I have hinted above, I cannot understand the US Three-Tier System for alcohol, as I cannot believe that Americans see this system as free trade. It clearly favours large retailers over smaller ones, as they get bulk discounts; and it also favours large wholesalers / distributors. The only exception to this, called Direct to Consumer, apparently accounts for less than 5% of sales by dollar, and almost all of these sales are for domestic wine (see also: DtC wine shipping in 2024: a year-in-review). [Note: Sweden is allowing farm sales of alcohol from June 1. Hurray!]

In the case of US wholesalers, there has been a major consolidation over recent decades. It has been noted (America’s incredible shrinking wholesale landscape):

The current wholesaler landscape is far different than it was 25 years ago. In 1995, at the beginning of the US wine boom, there were about 1,800 U.S. wineries and some 3,000 wholesalers. In 2023, there were almost 12,000 wineries and only about 1,000 wholesalers. That translates to staggering market share numbers, according to the annual Impact Databank report (which includes spirit sales, but doesn’t include beer): No. 1 Southern Glazer’s and No. 2 RNDC with a projected 53% of the market in 2024, and the top 10 companies with a projected 81.5%. That compares to some 72% for the top 10 in 2017.

This situation has all sorts of consequences. For example in politics (Follow the money: alcohol campaign contributions the last election cycle):

Wine, beer, and spirit wholesalers contributed over $17,000,000 to state-level candidates and causes in 2023 and 2024. This is more than double the entire rest of the alcohol industry combined. The explanation for why alcohol wholesalers contributed far and away more than the rest of the industry is explained by the fact that wholesalers, supported and protected by the three-tier system, have the most to lose through reform. The entire goal of wholesaler giving is to block any and all reforms to the three-tier system, and keep the alcohol flowing almost exclusively (and by legal mandate) through the wholesalers in each state.

There is also the problem of staff concentration (Giant US distributor sheds staff):

The news that Southern-Glazers (SGWS), the biggest wine distributor in the US, with a market share of over 50%, has laid off around 3,000 of its staff, including a large proportion of its fine wine and craft division, has sent shock waves through the US wine industry.

Clearly, consolidation can ultimately cause the actual market to shrink, as well, because of decreasing customer choice (Adapt or fade: the critical turning point for wholesalers).

Moving on to retail, non-Swedes sometimes rant about the fact that Sweden has a single government—mandated national alcohol retailer. But Swedes clearly get a better deal than the American system of two large wholesalers controlling nearly 50% of the alcohol market, because Systembolaget acts as both a large and a specialist retailer, simultaneously, since it does not act out of any form of profit motive (as described above).

In the US case, we would expect the wholesalers to rely, for volume sales, on a handful of big supermarket chains and a very few other big retailers. In particular, we would expect that the wholesalers would extend significant discounts to those gigantic chain retailers that buy large volumes of wines, beers and spirits. Indeed, the existence of this situation has recently been tackled by the US Federal Trade Commission, which is claiming in a lawsuit that this violates the Robinson Patman Act of 1936 (The Fed's lawsuit against wine wholesalers can’t fix the problem). With a legal outcome either way, it has been pointed out that You’re about to hear more about the evils of big alcohol, because alcohol harms are primarily a consequence of the alcohol industry pursuing profit.

We would also expect some sort of alignment between the biggest wholesalers and the biggest wine brands. In this case, it has been reported that the US wine market is clogged with thousands of brands that are proving hard to sell (US distributors awash with wine).

Finally, there is this business of on-line sales. Apparently, we need to understand Why Gen Z isn’t buying wine online. Clearly, these people are the future of US retailing, and the Three-tier distribution system is showing its limitations. The younger people apparently prefer strategic influencer partnerships and precision–targeted marketing (Investing in social influence: 44% of Millennials and 52% of Gen Z were influenced by social media when it came to wine purchasing). This may represent a paradigm shift, particularly with Gen Z and Millennials gravitating towards non-alcoholic drinks.

Finally, I cannot believe that US states still differ in whether Americans can buy from within other states than their own. [Note: Canada apparently has the same issue between some provinces.] As I noted above, I can buy from anywhere in the European Union, equally, which is between countries (the so-called Schengen zone). The European Union apparently is more united than the United States! So, it is good to see that just released was the: First-ever white paper on interstate wine retailer shipping.

As far as wholesale is concerned in the USA, Southern Glazer’s operates in only 45 states plus DC, while both RNDC and Breakthru Beverage operate in only 34 states plus DC (these are the top three companies by dollar). To a European this seems rather limited. Furthermore, there are still states that continue to block DtC shipping of wine (Where DtC wine shipping is still limited in 2025).

I should end by noting that the US is not necessarily alone in its behaviour. For example (Devil’s Advocate):

If you want to sell in the UK, there’s a limited number of importers, agents and wholesalers who rely, for volume sales, on a handful of big supermarket chains and a very few other big retailers.

Under-age alcohol drinking in the modern world

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the health effects of alcohol in wine, based on the amount consumed, which is a hot topic at the moment (Current medical evidence says that wine is not harmful in small doses)

However, there is another aspect to this topic, which is the age at which you start that alcohol consumption. Most countries set a minimum age limit, and wisely so, for basic health reasons. I will look at this topic here, because it has enormous potential consequences for young people and those responsible for them.

I started going to the pub (Australia = tavern or saloon) at age 17, which was my last year of high school (1975). In Australia, the legal minimum age for alcohol consumption is 18 years, but we looked 18 and no-one ever asked us for ID. My mates drank beer, sometimes getting drunk and hanging out the back of a station wagon groaning. I drank non-alcoholic lemon squash, because I was driving my mother's car (yes, I could get a driving licence at 17), and I knew the consequences of drink-driving — my home state of NSW had a blood-alcohol limit of 0.08 for drivers (it was dropped to 0.05 in 1980, and random breath testing began in 1982; see: A long and bumpy road to RBT).

Now, worldwide, 18 years is the most common minimum age for alcohol consumption (see: Legal drinking age, which has a table and a map). By contrast, the United States of America sets 21 years, instead. This potentially makes things very difficult for them, if regulators and community groups want to do something about ensuring that this limit is adhered to.

Now, places like Australia and the USA have been very different from places like France. We are told that (20% of French teens have never tasted alcohol):

   In the mid-19th century, French adults probably drank a bottle of wine a day, and in the 1950s, eight-year-olds were served a small glass of wine with lunch in some school canteens.
   However, drinking wine is no longer à la mode in France, or at least not like before ... Older people are likelier to drink wine than younger generations, who drink less anyway. In 2002, 4.5% of French 17-year-olds had never tasted alcohol, but by 2020 that figure had risen to 20%.

Things have also changed in a similar way in Australia as well (Gen Z shapes future of wine innovation):

   In Australia, the drinks analyst firm found that the proportion of legal drinking age (LDA) consumers up to the age of 24 who consumed wine on a monthly basis halved between 2010 and 2023.
   Not only are Gen Z consumers exploring non-traditional wine formats, but their consumption habits are also significantly different to earlier generations, with their moderation of alcohol consumption driving no- and low-alcohol (NoLo) growth.

So, if we are considering young people and their drinking of alcohol, then we do need to concern ourselves about under-age drinking. After all, we are told that alcohol is the most common “drug” used by people younger than 21 in the United States (About underage drinking) (and their wine suppliers would therefore be “drug pushers”!).

If you want some statistics about this topic in the USA then you can consult:

• Underage drinking in the United States (ages 12 to 20)
• Get the facts about underage drinking

Indeed, there is currently lots of activity in the USA. The Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking (ICCPUD) has just released the second of its two reports, Scientific Findings of the Alcohol Intake & Health Study — this has not been without severe criticism (New U.S. alcohol report tainted by bias, conflicts). Furthermore, the National Association of Wine Retailers has released a proposal for new guiding principles (Modernizing Alcohol Regulation).

So, if we are going to discuss alcohol consumption among younger people then we could focus on Preventing underage drinking with community strategies. This reference notes that there are plenty of proven strategies that help young people, with less pressure to drink, and the support of their family and friends.

However, it is online sales that seem to be potentially an increasing problem in the USA and elsewhere (Wine e-commerce market to grow by USD 15.18 Billion (2024-2028), driven by rising online shopping preference):

   The market is estimated to grow at a CAGR [compound annual growth rate] of 9.46% during the forecast period. Increasing preference for online shopping is driving market growth, with a trend towards increase in purchases of alcoholic beverages by minors.
   The global wine e-commerce market faces a substantial challenge with underage purchases of alcoholic beverages, which can negatively impact market growth. According to the International Alliance for Responsible Drinking, underage drinking is a major public health concern, affecting over 200 million youth globally and costing the economy over USD400 billion annually.
   In the US, around 30% of online wine retailers lack age verification procedures. To mitigate this risk, wine sellers and retailers are implementing age verification software and third-party services. However, these solutions can be costly, making it a significant challenge for smaller producers and retailers. Therefore, addressing underage purchases is crucial for the growth of the global wine e-commerce market.

On the other hand, it has also been reported that under-age drinking has actually dropped recently (Direct-to-consumer shipping and underage consumption):

   Underage drinking across all demographics has fallen to historic lows, according to the 2022 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, as described by the anti-underage drinking advocacy organization Responsibility.org. Per the survey, rates of 12th graders reporting that they consumed alcohol within the last month declined 35% since 2014, and those reporting consuming any alcohol within their lifetimes declined 20%. Since the 1990s, these rates have decreased by much more.
   Yet, opponents of DtC shipping of alcohol, including neo-prohibitionists and wholesaler trade organizations, continue to allege that underage consumption will increase if DtC is at all expanded.

So, the basic issue is apparently direct-to-consumer alcohol sales. After all, it was way back in June 2005 that the U.S. Supreme Court’s Granholm v. Heald decision opened up direct-to-consumer wine shipping, which is now legal in 47 states.

Furthermore, Alcohol advertising is now allowed on TikTok in the USA, which could be very important (How TikTok could transform the wine industry):

   TikTok is an important — if not the most important — platform for the next generation of buyers ... According to Backlinko, 25% of TikTokers are aged 18-24, while 30% are 26-35. That makes it the perfect platform for anybody who wants to engage emerging wine drinkers who have reached legal drinking age ... And there must be no targeting of underage drinkers.

Mind you, TikTok is hardly in the favor of US politics just at the moment (Supreme Court says TikTok can be banned in the US).

So, while in markets like the USA, the United Kingdom, and Australia, it is Millennials (currently 29—44 years old) who have been the most engaged demographic, driving  demand for organic wine for example (natural wine is no longer just a passing fancy), it is Gen Z (currently 16—28 years old) who are the future.

This is not looking too good for the wine industry in the USA (Young, sober, and ready to party: the rise of Gen Z's booze-free nightlife). As Jeff Siegel noted (being interviewed by Tom Wark): “the younger consumers surfing the Internet don’t look for wine the way their parents and grandparents did. They aren’t interested in wine, so they don’t look for reviews and scores and so forth ... There are just a lot of older people, mostly men, writing about wine on-line, and who are read by a smaller and smaller audience.”

However, if Gen Z backs off on alcohol consumption (Alcohol consumption increasingly viewed as unhealthy in U.S.), then there is little social impetus for under-age people to consume it either. So, there may be one good thing about declining alcohol consumption, after all.

Are community wine scores what they seem?

Last week, a scientific paper was published (Crowdsourcing the assessment of wine quality: Vivino ratings, professional critics, and the weather) that generated some wine-media attention (Vivino’s crowd reviews gain credibility in Cambridge study). As a scientist, the paper raises some questions in my mind, and I will discuss them here. I am not claiming that there is necessarily anything wrong, but merely some things that I think are worth looking into.

The published paper basically touts the idea that community wine scores are a valuable source of information regarding wine quality. It does this as follows: “We assess the validity of aggregated Vivino ratings based on two criteria: correlation with professional critics’ ratings and sensitivity to weather conditions affecting the quality of grapes”. This is pretty straightforward, and not necessarily problematic.

The issue that I have is that community scores are not necessarily what they seem to be at face value — they can be biased by the people providing them, perhaps deliberately. That is, the scores and reviews provided on sites like Amazon and eBay are well known for being fake and / or biased (see below). So, why not community wine scores?

My point here is NOT that the wine scores are necessarily “gamed” in any way, but simply that the authors of the published paper appear to have made no attempt whatsoever to assess them — they have simply taken the scores at face value. This is very naive (in spite of 6 authors). The authors have perhaps assumed that the sheer volume of scores will overcome any issues of bias (39,035 ratings for 371 wines ≈ 105 scores per wine). This may actually be true, but it is still a naive assumption.

So, the authors are dealing with “crowdsourced ratings from large communities of wine consumers on platforms such as Vivino and Cellartracker” ... and Wine-Searcher”. The authors make only these sorts of comments about the scores: that the provision of the scores “potentially creating the conditions for crowd wisdom to be accrued”, and “the judgment errors of different individuals tend to cancel each other out”.

However, there is no reason to think that any crowd-sourced scores are any better than any others until they are shown to be so. As Tom Cannavan has explained:

The current thinking seems to be that the “wisdom of crowds” (CellarTracker, TripAdvisor, Amazon Reviews) is the most reliable way to judge something; but that thinking is deeply flawed.

The authors focus on the subjectivity of the scores, not on their possible systematic and deliberate bias by the people providing them — “using consensus as the sole arbiter for evaluating the validity of a judgment”. The providers of the scores are not selling wines directly, but their scores could be worth biasing, because people will use them to make their own wine-buying decisions, and therefore the ultimate sellers will benefit if their scores are systematically raised.

The authors note that the: “Vivino ratings correlate substantially with those of professional critics, but these correlations are smaller than those among professional critics. This difference can be partly attributed to differences in scope: Whereas amateurs focus on immediate pleasure, professionals gauge the wine’s potential once it has matured.”

So, the authors do come up with one main explanation for the discrepancy between the community scores and the professional scores. My point is that it could also be partly attributed to biased community scores, in some way, and the authors have not addressed this possibility.

Indeed, the highest correlation that the authors find for the community scores is r=0.50 (with Wine Advocate) which is only 25% of similarity. However, the authors consider this to be “substantial”. What about the other 75%, eh? This is not “substantial”.

Anyone who has doubts about the issue I am raising here does not have to spend long investigating the reviews provided on sales sites like Amazon and eBay. Amazon had a commitment to authentic reviews from the start, but it has been plagued by fake review brokers (i.e. people who will provide the fake reviews for you, if you pay them); and has been involved in lawsuits to deal with these people:
    Inside the underground market for fake Amazon reviews
    How Amazon takes action to stop fake reviews
    Amazon and Google file parallel lawsuits against a fake review website

On auction sites, the basic problem is shill bidding rather than fake reviews:
    How eBay's review system is promoting fake, counterfeit and even dangerous products

There are also plenty of Youtube videos discussing the issue over the past few years, and telling you how to spot the fake reviews:
    Amazon and the problem of fake reviews (Financial Times)
    Why Amazon has a fake review problem (CNBC)
    Fake Amazon reviews are more prevalent than you think (CTV News)

I myself have discussed, in quite a few posts in this blog, the issues of bias and subjectivity with wine quality scores (note in particular #6 in the list):
    Biases in wine quality scores
    Are there biases in community wine-quality scores?
    Are there biases in wine quality scores from semi-professionals?
    Are the quality scores from repeat tastings correlated? Sometimes!
    Awarding 90 quality points instead of 89
    CellarTracker wine scores are not impartial
    Do community wine-quality scores converge to the middle ground?
    Why comparing wine-quality scores might make no sense
    Are wine scores from different reviewers correlated with each other?
    How bad are wine scores, really?
    Be wary of "Second Chance Offers" on eBay

If I had evaluated this paper (all professional research papers are evaluated by at least one expert before publication) then I would have sent the authors back for a re-write. One possible way forward might be to compare the Vivino, Cellartracker and Wine-Searcher scores for systematic differences and similarities.

As a final note, I have pointed out that I rely on professional reviews for my own wine purchases, as described in this post:
    Calculating value for money wines
I have, however, also bought some quite nice older wines (from 1945—2000) on eBay, in the past. Buyer beware!

Current medical evidence says that wine is not harmful in small doses

As we have all presumably noticed recently (Wine needs a fresh start in 2025):

Decades of allowing the possibility of some positive health effects enjoyed through moderate drinking have been replaced by a more draconian, prohibitionist view. The weakening of consumer demand appears to have been accelerated by the resurgence in anti-alcohol health messaging.

This is therefore a topic worth addressing in a blog about wine, which is a very nice alcohol-containing beverage. I have already started with my very recent post: There is one diet that actually recommends wine.

First, we need to get a few things clear. I have been a professional scientist all of my adult life (see ResearchGate). I have those fancy research qualifications like a PhD, so that I can be called Doctor Morrison. I have taught at universities, both undergraduate and postgraduate students, and done scientific research there.

I am a biologist by specialization, and I have written 107 research papers about that topic, funded by government agencies, and written 28 review articles, as well as contributed to 5 books. According to Academia, my work has been cited >11,000 times (this always amazes me!).

This means that I can read all of those complicated research publications about human health, and actually understand those incredibly long words describing what was done and to whom. Furthermore, I can draw my own conclusions from the data presented there. Therefore, I feel qualified to write about this topic.

Now, there may well be a reason to be skeptical about some of the previous experiments on the effects of alcohol (What’s the truth about alcohol’s benefits and risks?). However, it is my own conclusion from looking at the current primary medical literature that there is no evidence that alcohol is harmful to human health, if taken in relatively small doses. For wine, those low doses are currently taken to be 2 standard glasses or less per day for men (or large women), and 1 glass or less per day for women (or small men) (eg. Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2020–2025).

Therefore, the current stance being taken by some of the official health organizations seems to be extreme to me. They are actively claiming that wine is harmful (Pour one out). Indeed, The U.S. could soon declare alcohol unsafe, since it is contemplating new 2025 Dietary Guidelines and alcohol consumption recommendations. Further, as noted by Harry Eyres:

Medical squadrons are in the vanguard of the attack. The Chief Medical Officers of the United Kingdom now advise that men as well as women should not exceed 14 units of alcohol per week. Don’t be surprised if the recommended level drops further. Much more ominously the World Health Organization warns that “no level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health.”

How can the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Surgeon General take this official stance, when there is little actual scientific evidence for it? In fact, quite the contrary, as I noted above. See also: Are the Surgeon General’s alcohol risk calculations correct?], which points out that the Surgeon General’s explanations of risk are based on a single study (from Australia) with calculations that “make no sense.” Note that my conclusion goes further than my previous post on this topic (There are no scientific experiments saying: don’t drink alcohol); and that earlier claims about a causal relationship between alcohol and cancer have previously been dispensed with elsewhere (A glass of wine with dinner is fine after all, study finds).

From this latter perspective, it is a relief (to me) that all of the most recent research publications put it in black-and-white that wine turned out to be not harmful in their experiments. As evidence, I have listed a few of the papers from December 2024, linking an introductory web page for non-experts (plus a link to the original scientific paper):

• Drinking wine does not raise risk of cancer or death in healthy older adults (original experiment: Alcohol consumption patterns and mortality among older adults with health-related or socioeconomic risk factors)
• Occasional wine with Mediterranean diet may lower cardiovascular disease risk (original experiment: Wine consumption and cardiovascular health: the unresolved French paradox and the promise of objective biomarkers)
• Study using more reliable measure of wine consumption finds protective effect for low to moderate drinking in people at risk of cardiovascular disease (original experiment: Urinary tartaric acid as a biomarker of wine consumption and cardiovascular risk: the PREDIMED trial)

There is also a recent overview article:

• NASEM report affirms benefits of moderate drinking (original review: Review of evidence on alcohol and health)

It could be that some of the current cohort of medical bureaucrats just don’t “get” wine; and that is, of course, fine, at a personal level. However, it is not fine for them to then actually attack wine, aggressively, as many of them are currently doing (The Barbarians are at the gate). Equally importantly, an crucial public omission has been noted: Wine needs support from doctors, if a neo-Temperance (not neo-Prohibition) outcome is to be avoided.¹

If anyone needs a justification for consuming wine, other than the buzz from the alcohol, then this presentation by Harry Eyres provides a very good one (Is there any justification for wine?):

Wine, like other artforms, has purely sensuous, emotional, intellectual elements, and can be appreciated at all those levels. Above all, it is, or can be, part of culture, not merely a gluggable route to anaesthesia or oblivion ... [Furthermore,] hobbies need no justification beyond the pleasure one derives from them. ²

So, being alive has risks, and our activities (such as driving a car, or drinking wine) potentially increase those risks to one extent or another. We should therefore not take unnecessary risks (such as driving too fast, or drinking too much). This latter is taken to be regular excessive alcohol consumption or, at the extreme, binge drinking (at one time: women = 4 or more drinks, men = 5 or more). ³

Nobody needs wine, unless they are an alcoholic; and we do not have to get drunk in order to drink wine. Importantly, however, you could consider this young-person comment to the oldies (Rediscovering the fun in wine):

Why don’t you guys talk about how much fun you have when you drink wine with your friends at dinner? ⁴

---

¹ The National Prohibition Act of 1919–1933 (aka the Volstead Act) prohibited the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcohol within the USA, but not its consumption. So, the wine media needs to change its headlines, since the current pressure solely concerns consumption.
² Bill Ireland, my wine mentor (Some personal anecdotes), once wrote (Picking a winner): “Unless you have multiple bottles of the same wine, a particular wine can only be enjoyed once. That’s why I think wine is the most cruel of all the arts.”
³ If a couple share a bottle of average-strength wine, then they will consume c. 3 drinks each.
⁴ See also my recent post: Wine quotes, ancient and recent, to cheer you up.