The Public Health Lobby Is Coming For Alcohol. This Gambit Won’t Help

Some in the wine industry embrace a failed tactic

Just as they’d finished celebrating New Year, alcohol professionals got hit with the worst possible news. Dr Vivek Murthy, America’s Surgeon General, declared alcohol a carcinogen and called for cancer warning labels on alcohol.

There were lots of possible responses, from doing a deep dive into the science to considering the legal and marketing implications.

Plenty of people did any or all of these things.

Some wine professionals, on the other hand, did something different.

The “do it to Julia!” gambit

Suzanna Hamilton and John Hurt as Julia and Winston in the 1984 film adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Did you read Orwell’s “1984” in high school? Towards the end, Winston gets a cage full of rats strapped to his head. He’s told that as soon as the rats are released, they’ll eat his face. Winston screams “Do it to Julia!”

The moment he betrays her, he gets his reprieve.

Which is the tactic some wine professionals embraced. They launched social media and blog posts about how outrageous it was…