No, no, no. I told the AI site Leonardo that I wanted an old-style painting of Bacchus spurning a servant trying to refill his glass with wine at a party of cohorts. What I got here was just the opposite, a seemingly well-lubricated Bacchus with a glass of wine in each hand, not exactly the model for wine in moderation.

Again, and again, the phrase popped up at the recent Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento: “Wine in moderation.”

Never within my earshot, however, did anyone say what that means, or if “wine in moderation” were to materialize what it would mean for grape growers and winemakers.

The phrase has been around for decades. The late Robert Mondavi urged it often. He came close to defining it in his introduction to the book “Soul of the Vine: Wine in Literature,” which he published in 1988: “When used intelligently, wine feeds not only the body but the soul and spirit, stimulates the mind, making life happier and more creative.”

That’s a start. Intelligence is involved.

Actually, the concept of “wine in moderation” goes back to at least the Book of Sirach, 31:27-29 to be precise: “Wine is as good as life to a man if it be drunk moderately. What life is there then to a man that is without wine? For it was made to make men glad.”

Pliny the Elder, a first-century Roman author, and a veritable Vesuvius of pithy wisdom for all the epigrams attributed to him, cautioned: “Nothing is more useful than wine for strengthening the body and also more detrimental to our pleasures if moderation be lacking.”

Close behind came Athenaeus, a third-century Greek grammarian: “Among the Egyptians of ancient times, any kind of gathering was conducted with moderation…They dined while seated using the simplest and most healthful food and only as much wine as would be sufficient to promote good cheer.”

Now we’re getting somewhere, “wine in moderation” seeming to mean just enough to promote good cheer, not a drop more. A loose definition, true, yet constructive.

Better. Bacchus, presumably the figure right foreground, looks to be miffed that a servant is enjoying a glass of wine but he isn’t, or he could be rebuking him for tempting him with another glass after he had reached his two-glass limit. Generated by the AI site Microsoft Bing.

A quick online search to find guidelines to help someone drink wine in moderation led to several practical and long-standing recommendations:

• Consume only familiar amount recommended for years by health officials – no more than two five-ounce pours a day for men, one for women.
• Drink an equal amount of water between each glass of wine, a suggestion meant to help imbibers stay hydrated as well as give pause so they can monitor their intake (a common European practice not observed as much in the United States is to put on the table a bottle of mineral water for every bottle of wine).
• Eat while you drink, which helps to get you full while also slowing the body’s absorption of alcohol.
• Beware of being pressured to drink more than the limit you have set for yourself at the start of a party.

Here are a few more that could be added:

• Recognize that wine enthusiasts no longer are shunned when they drop a cube of ice or two into their glass, whether the wine be white, pink or red, and whether the intent is to chill, dilute or temper the wine.
• When you order a glass of wine in restaurant or bar, order the most intriguing, regardless of price, though there’s no guarantee that the most enthralling wine need be expensive. That extra expenditure, however, could prompt you to enjoy the wine more slowly and deliberately. It could be so exhilarating that one glass could be enough.
• Go ahead, try one of those pointedly low-alcohol or non-alcohol beverages showing up with increasing availability on the market. Granted, most no-alcohol wine has a way to go to come close to mimicking the flavor and texture of real wine, but brewers long ago mastered truly refreshing and interesting low-alcohol and no-alcohol beers, so there’s hope. Cocktails made with spirits with the fire removed can be surprising and gratifying in their creativity, complexity and compelling flavor.

Europe looks to be far ahead of the United States in urging residents to moderate their intake of alcohol, and this on a continent with a longer history of ambitious and economically significant winemaking.

As one speaker at the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium noted, Brussels is home to a formal organization devoted to the tricky task of urging citizens to moderate their consumption of wine while also helping the wine industry sustain itself.

Aptly named Wine in Moderation, the association, underwritten by wine-trade groups and wineries, including Moet Hennessy, Pernod Ricard and Ruffino, was founded a few years ago to inspire healthy dietary habits, encourage responsibility and moderation in drinking, and reduce alcohol abuse and its related harm.

The organization’s standard for “low-risk” consumption of wine is a bit more liberal than the advice commonly urged in the United States. According to Wine in Moderation, women can drink up to two glasses of wine a day (defined specifically as up to 200 milliliters of wine with 12.5 percent alcohol), and men up to three glasses of wine a day (300 milliliters). Regardless of gender, drinkers should limit their intake to no more than four drinks on any one occasion, the group recommends.

The organization’s most prominent and succinct definition of what it means to drink wine in moderation: “Avoiding excess and dangerous behaviors; avoiding drinking if you drive, you are underage or pregnant; understanding the drinking guidelines.”

More like it, Bacchus shrugging off his lack of wine at some sort of soiree. Details in the rest of the scene, however, are even more weird. Generated by the AI site Dream Studio.

At latest count, 14 regional wine organizations had gathered under the Wine in Moderation umbrella. During 2022, the most recent year for which the organization issued an annual report, it took its message to numerous trade fairs in Germany, Portugal, Italy and France, including such high-profile gatherings as ProWein, Vinitaly and Vin et Société. In Spain, Greece and France, it teamed up with universities for projects aimed at educating wine professionals about sustainable wine tourism and social responsibility, including a module on drinking wine in moderation.

One member, the Association of Wines and Spirits of Portugal, whose member wine producers and distributors generate some 600 million euros in annual revenues, this past fall launched a slick series of breezy television and social-media videos whose pithy message simply urges viewers to enjoy good food and fine wine up to a congenial point. The campaign looks to be operating under the premise that a repetitive if nebulous message about drinking wine in moderation can have beneficial impact. (Wine in Moderation did not respond to my request for an interview.)

Regardless of how “wine in moderation” is specified, Americans look to be getting with the program without much urging. As became clear through numerous panel discussions and slide shows during the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium, appreciation of wine is swooning. This is an alarming development to the grape growers, winemakers and others among the 11,000 members of the trade to attend the conference.

Consumption of alcoholic beverages is down across the board in the United States, though more sharply for wine than for beer and spirits. (During the past year, sales of wine in restaurants in the U.S. fell 10 percent, while they were off 4.3 percent for beer and 5.3 percent for spirits, according to tracking by trade groups.)

All kinds of other grim statistics were dragged before audiences to demonstrate the dire straits in which the wine trade finds itself: The average price for a serving of wine is $3, more than double what it is for beer, spirits and ready-to-drink alcoholic beverages. The number of fine-dining restaurants where wine long has been a staple of the table is down sharply, while the number of casual-dining restaurants where wine rarely is poured is up.

This discouraging news for the wine trade continues in the wake of the conference, and it is global, not limited to the United States. Earlier this week, the wine-trade platform Meininger’s International posted back-to-back articles about the sorry state of the industry in France and China. In Bordeaux – Bordeaux! – growers are about to pull out about 10 percent of their vines in a costly effort to narrow the gap between supply and demand, Meininger’s reported. “The French have never consumed so little wine,” said a representative of one group tracking drinking habits.

Consumption of wine in China also is down, nearly two-thirds over the past five years, with imports falling 25 percent last year alone, reported Meininger’s.

The reasons given for wine’s fall in favor, regardless of country, are many and varied. Inflation, global turmoil, less disposable income, competition from other mind-altering products, the bland similarity of so many wines, a new commitment to well-being especially among younger people, and even the deaths of 50,000 persons a week in the American demographic still enthusiastic about wine – people older than 65 – all were mentioned as accounting for wine’s anemia in the market.

Still, the number of wineries in the United States continues to grow, now up to 11,620, but one insider cautioned that for the first time in the modern wine era that total is expected to drop this year, and recent sales and consolidation of wineries underscore that prognostication.

Another industry insider, a specialist tracking vineyard development, said California’s approximately 570,000 acres of wine grapes needs to be cut back to less than 540,000 acres before some sort of supply and demand is in equilibrium.

In the near term, the abundance of wine on the market should translate into great buys for consumers.

Even in the long run, once the industry gets through this difficult realignment – fewer wineries, fewer vines – consumers could benefit by finding more interesting wines on the market; the old “less is more” consequences.

Which leaves “wine in moderation” where? A worthy consideration, however defined, and no threat to the wine culture when lined up alongside the industry’s other challenges.

To find where you can get a copy of my book “The Signature Wines of Superior California: 50 Wines that Define the Sierra Foothills, the Delta, Yolo and Lodi,” please visit my website SignatureWines.us.