In Wine Drinking, Europe and America Trade Places A recent article in Newsweek bemoaned that Italians, particularly younger Italians, are drinking less wine today than they did five years ago. Fifty years ago, they consumed about twice as much annually. All this, even though no country makes more wine than Italy (which exports a great deal of it, especially to the United States). Among the historic wine cultures, Italy is not alone. Earlier this year, a BBC News article highlighted the decline of wine consumption in France. The Spanish, too, are drinking a lot less. Meanwhile, the United States consumes more wine than any other country. But this is largely because the American population is roughly five times the size of France's or Italy's. In 2011, according to figures from the Wine Institute, a trade group in California, Americans drank about 10.46 liters of wine per person; Italians, 37.63 per person; and the French, 45.61 liters. Even France trailed the good people of Luxembourg, who consumed 49.11 liters per person, to say nothing of the Vatican, population 836, each of whom accounted for 62.20 liters. Per capita, wine drinking in the United States trails Ireland, Iceland and Canada. Still, wine drinking is rising among Americans. The Wine Market Council, a trade group that tracks consumer behavior, notes that while baby boomers still account for the greatest percentage of regular wine drinkers, the huge millennial generation, those 19 to 36 years old, show an increased interest in wine compared with the generation that preceded them. Certainly, millennials are more conversant with wine than baby boomers were at their age. What does this all mean? It represents both the enormous benefits we gain from globalization and the costs. Americans who are embracing wine live in the greatest era in wine history, when more fascinating wines are readily available than ever before and in a greater diversity of styles from more different places. But travel to Europe and what do you see? Europeans behaving more like Americans, working longer hours and taking shorter lunch breaks, as well as grabbing dinner on the go rather than gathering as a family. In Italy, the Newsweek article reports, young Italians are entranced by a boom in artisanal beers. After spending a week in Rome recently, I can attest to this interest personally, and to the high quality of many of the beers. Italians are also showing nascent interest in cocktail culture. Wine is often considered to be for older people. At the same time, the quality of Italian wine has risen tremendously in the last 25 years. This is true all over the historic wine-drinking world. Much of the wine consumed in the 1960s and "70s by Italians, as well as by the French, Spanish, Greeks and others, was not very good: thin, wan and acidic. Not all the wine, but much of it. So if Europeans are drinking less wine now, they no doubt are drinking better. Partly, this is because everybody's world has become so much bigger. About 50 to 75 years ago, most Europeans outside of big cities drank only the local wine. It was all that was available. You bought a barrel for the year, or refilled your demijohn at the local cooperative. Even 10 years ago on a trip to Campania, I met wine consultants who knew nothing of Barolo. Why should they? They were from Campania! Such narrowness would be unthinkable today. The market for cheap bulk wine has disappeared. Most people have too many better, cheaper choices, including imported wine, beer, soda and bottled water. When younger people drink wine, they are confronted with a far greater selection than their parents and grandfathers were. How do they know which bottles to buy? They consult wine guides and experts, who write scores and notes, just like the Americans. Of course, the American system of rating wines was based on British methods. England, lacking vineyards of its own, instead fetishized wine connoisseurship. Not impelled to drink a local wine, they studied all of it and pursued the best. Americans refined and democratized connoisseurship. Now, people all over the world for whom wine is not a local custom are learning the same way. And paradoxically, so are many Europeans, who are no longer confined to what their grandparents drank. The benefit is better wine and more pleasure for all who are interested. The costs? Homogenized cultures and hyper-competition for the historic benchmark wines that puts them largely in the hands of the ultra-wealthy. While I am somewhat sanguine about the fall in consumption in the European countries, other changes, particularly in France, are disturbing. Historically, wine has always been considered part of the French cultural heritage. More and more in the last 15 years, this has changed, to the point that government officials often lump in wine with other alcoholic beverages as a threat to public health. The French crackdown on drunken driving has resulted in even a couple of glasses of wine with dinner threatening the legal limit. Beyond that, a neo-prohibitionist attitude looms over even ordinary discourse about wine. France is currently debating raising taxes on wine and restricting wine discussions and advertising on social media and the web. Health officials say the intent is to combat rising alcoholism. The wine trade contends that alcoholism is more a result of increased consumption of spirits and binge drinking. We've learned a great deal from the French about the pleasures of life. Now they are learning from us about the policing of it.