1 week Ago By Max Darrow
Americans are changing their attitudes on alcohol and drinking, and it's having a big impact on Wine Country. A new poll from CNN shows growing public concern about the impact of moderate drinking. It found half of U.
S. adults now say even moderate drinking is bad for your health. That's more than double the number from two decades ago.
This comes shortly after the U.S. Surgeon General called for warning labels on alcohol about the increased cancer risk.
As general manager of William Harrison Vineyards and Winery in St. Helena, Rod Santos keeps a close eye on everything – from the barrels to the books, the wines to the vines, and the people who keep his winery in business. "They may be a little more cautious about how much wine they consume," he said.
He thinks that may happen because of a recent advisory from U.S. Surgeon General Dr.
Vivek Murthy, outlining what he called a direct link between alcohol consumption and increased cancer risk. "Moderation is something that we need to continue to strive to educate people about," Santos said. The Surgeon General is calling for an updated warning label on alcoholic beverages to include cancer risk to go alongside the existing warning for pregnant women.
Santos says while changing the label would be an expensive process, he does believe it may be necessary and that transparency is important. "This is his job. He's got to let people know what potential health risks there are out in the everyday environment," he said.
"After 37 years, it's probably a little outdated. So, if it needs to carry an additional warning about cancer, specifically, so be it." However, he believes that transparency is a two-way street.
He says people should also be aware of research into positive health benefits of wine when consumed in moderation. "Wine has also been proven by many, many research studies over the last handful of decades that it also has cardioprotective benefits," Santos said. While the announcement came as somewhat of a surprise, it wasn't all that alarming to Santos.
But that wasn't the case throughout the wine industry. "Wine has played a positive role in society and culture for 8,000 years," said Karen MacNeil, the author of The Wine Bible , the best-selling wine book in the United States. "In wine communities all over America, people were so despondent.
That seemed so frightening." An advisory from the Surgeon General is reserved for a public health concern in need of urgent awareness and action. "It was alarmist," MacNeil said.
"Hundreds of research projects, hundreds of doctors, who say that moderate wine consumption can be a part of an overall wellness and healthy lifestyle." MacNeil believes the advisory could threaten an already hurting industry that employs millions of Americans. "More than 90% of all of the 10,000 wineries in the United States are small, family operations," she said.
"It's not just the negative story is now being told, it's also that wine's incredibly positive story isn't being told enough." She points towards a recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that paints a different picture than that of the Surgeon General's advisory. "They could say that a moderate amount of alcohol reduced mortality from all causes of potential deaths, including all cancers, with the exception of one, which was breast cancer," she said.
Santos believes industry-wide collaboration and transparency will prove to be key moving forward. "We as an industry need to come together and be prepared to discuss it, because the health concerns of alcohol are real," he said. "One more label on a bottle of alcohol is not going to – I don't think it's going to change the industry much.
I think it'll just be a little stronger language than we put on that label 37 years ago." While it may change some habits, he doesn't believe the appetite for wine will wither. "For thousands of years, it's been well regarded," he said.
"As long as we can educate people about consumption of quantity, they will be able to continue to appreciate it without too much risk to their health.".
