Amy Winehouse,comments on the,Cheval Blanc 1962 vintage.
QUITE a paradox. Ernesto Hemingway reckons “good wine is the most civilised thing on earth”, yet the fine product of the vine has to bear the brunt of those wishing to warn the world against the evils of excessive drinking.
Of course alcohol is a doer of offensively huge social, physical and psychological harm. And it is a good thing that alcohol advertisements and bottles be forced to carry warnings to highlight this. But in the South African context, it would appear that wine is the most evil liquor of them all.
Examples? Let’s take Marie Claire, the monthly journal of the working and fashion conscious multi-orgasmic female.
In its August issue, Marie Claire gets all heated up about findings of a study that a drink leads to breast cancer. (This was before the recent news posted by another study stating that women who do too little housework have a bigger chance of the same affliction than those ladies who commit themselves to domestic duties, but we digress.)
Marie Claire then went and asked three advertising agencies to create advertisements warning women of the dangers of drinking. Which is all fine.
But when looking at the advertisements the agencies came up with, all three seemed to communicate the fact that the dangers of alcohol are confined to the consumption of wine.
In one advertisement, a woman holding a glass of red wine had blood on the breast area of her white dress. The next showed a row of surgery tools ready for operations, with the one tool being a cork screw. And the third one warned against the dangers of drinking during pregnancy by depicting a foetus inside a wine bottle.
Once again, let’s not beat about the bush and deny that alcohol can be a serious health hazard. BUT why only pick on wine? Would beer, whisky or vodka have been to challenging for the agencies?
Then there is the radio advertisements where a kid asks his mother about the baby in her stomach.
Yes, she says, there is tube that feeds the baby in her stomach, she tells her son.
So everything you eat, the baby eats, the kid asks.
When the mom replies “yes” the kid asks: “And the wine?”
Once again, pick on the wine industry. And the damage this one-sided look does to the health of the wine industry….
Who talks about that?
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Perhaps the reference to the word “wine” has been used liberally, and has been referred to in the general context in the articles/publications mentioned in your article.
Have all those references to wine perhaps not meant to include other alcoholic beverages, e.g. brandy, whiskey, rum etc.
I enjoy wine, am healthy, (definitely not pregnant) and believe that anything done in moderation is perfectly fine. Those who over-imbibe …. well …. what can we say?
How about the wine industry challenging those advertising companies on this issue?
Great comment, Dee. It would be unfortunate if the wine industry has not been successful in profiling itself on a different plateau to those other drinks. The current perception, and the flagrant use of “wine” to perpetuate a generic negative perception of alcohol is most unfortunate.