Rules about wine

Really did EU WHO say to reduce the amount of wine in Europe? Well, they didn’t.

The fact: the European section of the WHO (World Health Organization) has provided indications to reduce alcohol consumption by 10% by 2025. The final document, approved by all delegations, including Italians, is entitled “European framework for action on alcohol 2022–2025”

To do this, according to the WHO, it is necessary to act on a decrease in advertising, the indications on the label, an increase in taxation.

These indications, reported an article by Il Sole 24 Ore, are in contradiction, with a May document, produced by the European Parliament’s Cancer Plan commission (BECA), which rejected the concept of ‘no safe level’ for wine. Actually, the document says just that, but this point wasn’t approved by EU Commission. According to this principle, there is no minimum level that is not harmful to health. Among other things, the WHO document doesn’t mention wine but simply alcohol, and therefore all the drinks that contain it: beers, alcoholic drinks, spirits and of course wine. So the first piece of news to put back in the right place: the WHO has not attacked wine and wine-producing countries, it is giving indications to push to reduce the consumption of alcohol.

It is not a trivial distinction, but here in Italy we only see wine, and therefore we write that the WHO is against wine and against Italy.

Again a syllogism that leads to completely wrong conclusions.

Then, the second and mostly important argument: it is true that alcohol is bad for you, but as always it is a question of doses: the quantity of alcohol contained in a 13% bottle of wine is, in fact, 13% of 0.75 liters, and therefore 0.0975 liters, or 9.75 centiliters. To sum it up, 1 liter of wine contains 13% of 100 cl, that is 13 cl of alcohol. A glass of wine contains from 10 to 15 cl of wine, and therefore between 1.3 and 1.9 cl of alcohol. This quantity corresponds to 1 Alcoholic Unit, which is equal to 12 grams of ethyl alcohol (ethanol). The recommendations of the Veronesi Foundation tell us that it is better not to exceed 2–3 glasses per day for men and 1–2 for women: this difference depends above all on the average weight, which for men is (in average) higher than that of women.