There was an article posted yesterday in the Belfast Telegraph about a proposal to add health warning labels to wine in the UK, to the dismay and disapproval of many. The government feels that putting these labels on wine will help crack down on the drinking abuse that is quite bad in the UK right now.

I have to agree with Matt Skinner, a sommelier who works closely with Jamie Oliver on this one. Skinner commented that there are far worse offenders to your health than wine, like soda and potato chips, but you do not see warning labels on these products. He agreed (as do I) that drinking irresponsibly is a problem to a person’s health, but he also posed the question as to whether the UK Government would also promote the health benefits of anti-oxidants found in wine on the same labels.

The US has been putting warnings like this on alcohol and cigarettes for almost 20 years now and personally I don’t think it makes much difference, and neither does Jancis Robinson, a writer for editor of The Oxford Companion to Wine. People don’t even notice the labels, “…people just get used to them after a month or so,” she states.