Wine detox

Posted on 7 September 2011

I’ve spent the last two weeks of August on a wine detox. I try to do that every year: a couple of weeks with no alcohol. I do that more for hygiene than out of any serious health concerns: my wine consumption is pretty moderate, and I’m not prone to excess.

Still, this year’s detox has really had me thinking. The physical and mental effects were fairly significant. I slept better, and needed less sleep (even two hours less per day, on average). Mental performance was enhanced: I tend to work quite a bit late in the evening, and that went definitely better with no wine in the glass. Gone was the occasional migrene. Even my digestion appeared to be a little better.

Mentally, I felt every bit as good, or better. The first two or three days of a detox are difficult. As every drug, alcohol is mildly addictive, and there is a bit of chemical resistance from the body when the supply is cut off. Nothing too serious, and these symptons faded away quickly. What I mostly missed was the fun, the buzz, the intellectual and sensory impulse of good wine. A glass of vibrant Grüner Veltliner or fleshy Côtes du Rhône is just a life-enhancing experience, and it’s chiefly for that that I gladly came back to wine in a week or two. The first couple of days after detox have also been a challenge. I had three glasses of Champagne on day 1, and got quite sick. It’s only after three or four days of regular small doses that I reverted back to normal. Alcohol is really a poison, and the body needs time to adapt and develop low-threshold tolerance.

What is actually moderate consumption of wine? There are various health recommendations related to wine, including from these regional bodies. The established wisdom seems to be three units of wine per day for men, and two per women. That’s about 300ml of wine per men, or two medium-sized glasses.

I’ve long considered these guidelines to be underestimated. Doctors’ recommendations are necessarily cautious, and for reasons of public health, it’s better to play safe here. But I think for anyone seriously engaged in wine – wine tasters but also winemakers, marketers and avid wine drinkers, most people consume more than 300ml. One glass with lunch (and I’ll typically also have aperitif or a glass when cooking) and two with dinner already puts you above the official guideline. And isn’t it more typical to have three or four glasses with dinner?

It’s interesting how people think about their own consumption. I’ve asked many wine professionals how much they drink, and virtually nobody said it was much. I don’t want to sound punitive here, and I’m sure on a personal scale people know their limits exactly. But that a community of regular wine drinkers would define itself as underdrinking does strike me as self-indulgent. Only one female colleague responded to my query with a detailed catalogue of intake that showed she was cruising at about double the recommended allowance.

It also strikes me how many wine writers are ingenuous about drinking and driving. There are no criminal drunkards in this community but that’s exactly why it’s important to be careful about the thin lines. I’ve owned a breathalyzer ever since I took my licence (very late at age 33) and some of the observations are scary. Even when you do spit at organised wine tastings you’ll be above most countries’ legal limit after a flight of thirthy Cabernets. Have a small aperitif afterwards and you should take a 3-hour rest.

Is alcohol a major problem for wine tasters? No. Most of my kin are self-conscious people with healthy diets and reasonably active lifestyles. There’s no binge drinking here. But it’s also true that few people pay attention to alcohol. As long as there’s no serious excess and no damage is done, it’s considered to be safe. I’m not sure it’s quite as rosy as that.