It’s become popular to refer to recommendations to drink less wine and alcohol in general, or to stop drinking altogether, as the advance of “neo-Prohibitionism.” As Marx and Engels might have written, “a spectre is haunting the vineyards of the world, the spectre of Prohibition.”
It’s a spectre conjured up by alarmists who simplify the complex issue of declining demand for wine, and attribute it to organizations such as the World Health Organization and various public health authorities that they believe wish to impose ‘neo-Prohibitionist’ policies on everyone. But these commentators wield the term ‘Prohibition’ like a blunt object, as if Prohibition were a single phenomenon, apparently unaware that there were many ‘Prohibitions’ applied to alcohol, all with different target demographics, purposes, and practical implications.
The history of Prohibition
I suspect the idea that there was only one form of Prohibition results from the fact that to most people, ‘Prohibition’ means National Prohibition in the US between 1920 and 1933. But look at the many other Prohibitions before and since.
The most extensive in geographical terms was imposed on Muslims a millennium and a half ago, although it was not nearly as dogmatic, comprehensive, and universal as often thought. Then, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, some French, German, and British colonial administrations in Africa forbade indigenous peoples to drink alcohol. In the 1800s, the federal governments of the US and Canada did the same to their indigenous peoples, and these prohibitions lasted until 1953 and 1985, respectively.
Then, some Mexican states applied Prohibition after the 1910 Revolution, and Russia adopted Prohibition at the start of World War One in 1914.
After the 1917 Revolution, Lenin, then Stalin continued Prohibition until the mid-1920s. During and after World War 1, several north European countries (such as Iceland and Finland) adopted Prohibition for varying periods of time. Prohibition was also a popular policy among national liberation movements in Africa and Asia from the 1950s because alcohol was seen as a means by which Europeans had controlled colonized peoples. Prohibition was written into India’s constitution, and it is currently law in four states.
Although all these examples of Prohibition were based on the belief that alcohol is bad – for individual or public health or for the religious, moral, or social order – they were all qualified.
Although all these examples of Prohibition were based on the belief that alcohol is bad – for individual or public health or for the religious, moral, or social order – they were all qualified. Historically, despite an apparent blanket ban, alcohol was permitted in much of the Muslim world, as it is today. White settlers in Africa, Asia, and North America drank freely while keeping alcohol from their subject populations. Prohibition in Russia was initially implemented only as a time-limited measure to help the war effort. And while the production and sale of alcohol – or some types of alcohol – were forbidden in most countries under Prohibition policies, drinking alcohol was not.
From Prohibition to Temperance
Prohibition, then, has been many things, and I don’t recognize any of them in today’s discourses on alcohol – even in ‘neo’ mode, whatever that means. What I do see now is something akin to the temperance movement of the 1800s. Temperance was radically different from prohibition in that it was not coercive but aimed to persuade people to moderate their drinking or to abstain altogether. People were told that alcohol was bad for them – for reasons that varied by time and place – and they were urged to reduce their levels of drinking or to stop altogether.
Temperance was radically different from prohibition in that it was not coercive but aimed to persuade people to moderate their drinking or to abstain altogether.
That, surely, is the force of public health guidelines that suggest limiting drinking to so many standard servings of beer, wine, and spirits per day or per week, and to statements that no level of drinking is safe. We may choose to follow or ignore the advice, just as people did historically in societies where Prohibition policies were not imposed. Call it ‘neo-temperance’, if we must, but references to ‘neo-Prohibition’ reflect a misunderstanding of history.
There are two things going on these days. One is a decline in alcohol consumption, especially among the younger demographic groups, and the other is more prominence being given to alcohol by public health authorities. But they are not necessarily linked.
Alcohol consumption has been declining in many countries for many years, especially in previously high-consumption places such as France and Italy. So has a decline in alcohol consumption among young people.
Alcohol consumption has been declining in many countries for many years, especially in previously high-consumption places.
These trends pre-date the more concerted attack on alcohol by public health organizations, and they are based on changing attitudes towards health, sociability, and gender. As shown by preferences for the ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ – even though these are problematic terms – people seem to be increasingly concerned about what they consume, and many believe that alcohol has a negative impact on their physical and mental health. This is especially true of younger people, who are more concerned about their future than earlier generations. The growing popularity of alcohol-free periods (such as ‘Dry January’) and non-alcoholic beverages speaks to this.
Changes in social behaviour
As for patterns of sociability, aging populations increasingly socialize at home rather than in bars, as shown by the decline in the number of public drinking places everywhere. Although there were concerns about elevated alcohol consumption when mobility was restricted during the Covid period, alcohol consumption at home at other times is probably lower than in bars. And shifts in gender expectations mean that men today are less likely than in earlier generations to go drinking with their mates at the end of the day, and then go home to a meal prepared by their spouse. (I would add, “and the children in bed,” but there are many fewer children to go home to these days.)
The decline of wine consumption is not driven by announcements by the WHO or other public authorities, but by changes in everyday life in many countries.
The decline of wine consumption, and alcohol consumption more generally, is not driven by announcements by the WHO or other public authorities, but by changes in everyday life in many countries. No doubt, official warnings about alcohol reinforce individual decisions to reduce alcohol consumption, but to think of a concerted drive towards ‘neo-Prohibitionism’ as the problem is to miss the point entirely.
So are ideas such as enlisting celebrities to endorse wine, portraying wines as part of a healthy diet, or promoting wine as an artisanal product that has a sense of place. Proposals such as these strike me as desperate, and they remind me of the ‘drink more wine’ campaign in France in the early 1930s. Faced with bumper harvests and limited export markets, the French wine industry urged the French to up their already substantial consumption.
Responsible marketing
‘Drink a barrel of wine a year’ was one idea, and we can only hope it was nothing bigger than a barrique – 225 litres of wine a year would have been more than twice the prevailing per capita level of wine consumption. Other bright ideas including giving children wine at recess, having cyclists in the Tour de France drink wine and flourish the bottles as they sped by, and harnessing the more-than-compliant French medical profession to stress the health-benefits of wine.
This campaign came to nothing. French wine consumption didn’t move. I expect that having celebrities endorse wine, using YouTube, TikTok, and other media to reach potential young drinkers, gamifying wine, and the other ideas put forth to increase wine consumption today will be just as successful. The wine industry is faced with a sea-change in attitudes and consumption patterns. Wine might not be heading the way of the whaling, coal, asbestos, and tobacco industries, but it would be better to figure out ways to adjust to the changes rather than to raise spectres of non-existent threats such as ‘neo-Prohibitionism’ and indulge in fantasies about recovering lost markets.
Rod Phillips is a professor of history at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, and wine writer and author. His books include A Short History of Wine (Penguin UK, 2000), Alcohol: A History (University of North Carolina Press, 2014), French Wine: A History (University of California Press, 2016), and Wine: A Social and Cultural History of the Drink that Changed our Lives (Classic Wine Library, 2017). He is currently writing a book on Cabernet Franc around the world and on wine in the French Revolution. He contributes to The World of Fine Wine (UK), The World Atlas of Wine (UK), and guildsomm.com (US).
