The Resistance is Here

Fighting back against The New Prohibition

Last weekend, two articles published online shed light on the situation wine lovers face with what I’ve called The New Prohibition — the effort by anti-alcohol forces to change our public policy discussion from moderate, responsible drinking to abstinence and potentially prohibition. One article carried the force of a sledgehammer, while the other was the proverbial iron fist in a velvet glove.

I’ll start with the sledgehammer. Tom Wark, one of the wine community’s most forceful and plain-spoken advocates, posted a full-throated warning on his Fermentation Substack about “The Nannyism Project.”

Substack’s AI image generator actually came up with this when I asked it to “scold someone for drinking wine.” Tom Wark has greater AI skills than I do.

“If the industry of wine, along with the rest of the alcohol beverage industry, is to be diminished and sequestered in the corner alongside tobacco, then it must be put in a position where punishment is deserved,” Wark writes. “This is the goal—and always has been—of the anti-alcohol Nannyists. One way this group intends to accomplish this is by convincing everyone, including policymakers, that the blame for alcoholism and excessive consumption should not be placed on the individual, but rather on the industry.”

Wark points out that the New Prohibitionists are shifting the focus from individual responsibility for our actions (drink in moderation, don’t drink and drive, don’t make a fool of yourself or take advantage of others) to blaming alcohol producers for peddling an addictive substance (addiction, and therefore Prohibition). I might quibble with his use of the word “nannyism,” as I think of a nanny as scolding me. Wark’s argument is that we as individuals are being absolved by these anti-alcohol crusaders as innocent and helpless victims who have fallen prey to insidious Big Alcohol, much as cigarette smokers with Big Tobacco or fentanyl addicts with Big Pharma. He’s complementing the work of Felicity Carter in Drinks Insider.

“If the alcohol industry can be blamed for all things and personal responsibility laid in the dustbin of history, then all things are possible where punishing the alcohol industry is concerned,” Wark writes. And of course the “industry” at fault includes not just wineries, breweries and distilleries, but also restaurants and retailers.

The iron fist in a velvet glove came from Devin Parr, founder of The Vintner Project website. In an article titled, “In Defense of Drinking, Revisited,” Parr rebels against the idea that enjoying a drink is dangerous.

“Lately, it feels like enjoying a glass of wine has become a radical act,” she writes. “The public conversation around alcohol — wine included — has taken a turn for the dire, steeped in zero-tolerance rhetoric and framed by what often amounts to nutritional nihilism…. You’d be forgiven for thinking that the mere act of swirling a glass of Pinot has become an act of self-destruction.”

I traveled with Parr last year in Burgundy for a week during Grands Jours de Bourgogne. She’s petite and blonde with a radiant smile and a generous character. And she was limping a bit, on her first wine trip since breaking her leg in a martial arts class. Clearly not someone to be trifled with or taken lightly. That character comes across in this piece.

“I’m not interested in living forever it it means never again sipping a perfect glass of Barolo,” she writes. “You would have to pry the corkscrew from my cold, dead hands to get me to give up wine without a concrete medical diagnosis, because the current headlines aren’t going to do it for me. If that makes me some kind of addict, then fine. I’m addicted to the joy of living fully — and the small, calculated risks I take to protect it.”

Parr applauds efforts like Come Over October and Share and Pair Sundays, which emphasize the community of wine. But she wants more. “While joyful storytelling is essential — so is truth-telling,” she writes. “If we want wine to remain culturally relevant and commercially viable, we need to defend it not just with touchy-feely notions of community, but with facts, science, and unapologetic honesty.” That puts her in the same camp as Laura Catena with her In Defense of Wine website.

Of course, Parr and Wark are preaching to the choir. So am I with this essay and my screeds about The New Prohibition. We need a message to the general public — but at least, understanding what the nannyists and naysayers are saying will help us formulate that counter-message.