To Your Health : Vintner Fights Ruling Against Advertising Benefits of Wine

The owners of tiny Leeward Winery in Ventura don’t like to think of themselves as a David going up against a giant, but they do reluctantly acknowledge that it sure looks that way.

Goliath, in this case, is the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Treasury Department agency that enforces regulations governing the alcohol industry and that, among its other powers, can yank a winery’s permit to operate.

The dispute began last month when the bureau warned that Leeward’s spring newsletter to its customers violated regulations on advertising because it cited studies concluding that wine can be healthful. Leeward agreed to stop distributing the newsletter and, as far as the bureau was concerned, the matter was closed.

But Leeward’s owners, Charles Brigham and Charles F. Gardner III, have decided to fight the bureau over its hard-line stance on advertising, and have hired a well-known industry attorney to advise them. And much of the California wine industry is tensely awaiting the battle.

That’s because, wineries and insiders say, the issue concerns more than a small vintner’s newsletter; it goes to the future economic viability of the wine business. Although many wineries and wine industry organizations throughout the state support Leeward’s position, the big wineries have carefully staked out a sidelines seat for this battle--declining to take on the powerful bureau and at the same time wrangle with product liability questions raised by the dispute.

The controversial newsletter featured an article, written by Leeward’s winemaker, Brooks Painter, summarizing studies and reports--including a segment aired on “60 Minutes” last November--that contend that daily moderate consumption of red wine can reduce the risks of heart disease. Winemakers have long been frustrated by their inability to capitalize on the positive aspect of such studies, some of which date back two decades.

Federal regulations prohibit advertisements from making claims about curative or therapeutic effects of wine if the claims are false or misleading. The bureau does not say the specific health claims are false, only that they are misleading because they do not present the potential negative effects of alcohol consumption, such as addiction and potential birth defects.

“We’re not saying it (wine) can’t have beneficial effects, but that’s only one point of view and it needs a lot of study,” said Thomas Hill, a spokesman for the agency.

Winemakers say that in order to comply with bureau standards, advertising would have to include “the whole laundry list of militant anti-alcohol activists’ objections.”

In the first days after the CBS broadcast of “The French Paradox” show on red wine consumption and health, sales of red wine in this country soared. Within the first month after the broadcast, sales of popularly priced red wines jumped 44% at supermarkets, according to the Gomberg-Frederickson Report, a San Francisco publication that tracks wine sales at supermarkets. Although the initial flurry of wine buying has subsided, wineries report their sales are still up as much as 25% from a year ago.

The sales spurt was a welcome relief to the wine industry, which has been in the doldrums for nearly a decade. Industry experts attribute the decline, in large part, to changing consumer attitudes about consumption of alcohol--pushed along by vigilant anti-alcohol activists, continuing studies about the negative effects of alcohol abuse and government-required warning labels.

“We want to be allowed the opportunity,” said Leeward’s Brigham, “to present the scientific evidence. And the preponderance of evidence shows there are some health benefits.” Winemakers insist that they lead the alcohol industry in stressing moderation in drinking and in supporting programs that warn against abuse.

Immediately, wine makers and sellers seized on the “60 Minutes” broadcast. They saw the report as a way off what some in the industry call the “tobacco road”--a path leading to a view by society of their product as evil, to ever-increasing regulation and to still-lower sales.

Winemakers began devising ways to use the broadcast as a promotional tool. The Wine Institute, a major trade organization for California wine makers, bought 2,000 video copies of the program and began distributing them to its members, wholesalers and others in the industry. The California Assn. of Winegrape Growers made bumper stickers proclaiming “A gift for your heart . . . Enjoy a glass of red wine.” Wineries began preparing advertisements and promotions based on the contents of the report.

And then the ATF bureau stepped in. Its first target was the Food & Wine Institute, a New York-based organization sponsored by the government and wine industry of France. The bureau asked the French group to stop running newspaper advertisements claiming that French wine was beneficial to health. The group ran no other ads.

Wineries, including the prestigious Napa vintner Robert Mondavi, immediately pulled back on marketing campaigns featuring the health studies. Large wineries such as Mondavi fear that promoting wine’s benefits to health exposes the winemakers to potential product liability lawsuits. A small winery such as Leeward, which sells about 12,000 cases of wine a year, is less likely to become a target of a product liability suit.

Despite the signals from the ATF, Leeward’s owners prepared the newsletter because, they said, they do not believe that their newsletter is advertising. It is sent to about 1,800 customers.

More importantly, Gardner said, the newsletter is not misleading and winemakers should have the right to present results of scientific tests. Leeward’s attorney, John Hinman of Hinman & Carmichael, a San Francisco-based law firm, said the winery will seek, through administrative procedures, to overturn the bureau’s narrow interpretation of the regulations on advertising.

If they are spurned by the bureau, the next step will be a federal lawsuit. Leeward said while it doesn’t have the resources to bring such a suit, it hopes that the Wine Institute and other segments of the industry would support such an action.

But the degree of support is a large unknown. The industry is so edgy about this issue that a San Francisco public relations agency refuses even to acknowledge that it is forming a group, to be called Wine First, to campaign for industry rights to cite health studies in promotional materials.

Heartening Report

Sales of red wines such as Cabernet Sauvignon surged following a Nov. 17, 1991, report on CBS “60 Minutes” that highlighted studies saying that daily moderate consumption of red wine can reduce the risks of heart disease.

Percent change in supermarket sales volume of Cabernet Sauvignon versus the same period a year earlier.

Four weeks ending:

10/12, 1991: 10%

11/17: 13% (“60 Minutes” report airs)

12/15: 45%

1/12, 1992: 32%

2/9: 54%

3/3: 49%

Source: Gomberg-Frederickson Report