Jonathan Adler notes:
Wine makers are pleased that evidence demonstrating the health benefits of moderate wine consumption continues to mount. Yet, ... wine makers can't tell you about it. ... Ann Althouse notes that winemakers have been reluctant to litigate in defense of positive wine labels or advertising.
Others have not been so passive. Several years ago, the Competitive Enterprise Institute sued the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms for its de facto ban on positive health claims about alcoholic beverages, arguing that consumers would benefit from learning more about the helath benefits of moderate consumption.. (See the details of their case here and here.) The case was dismissed as unripe, but I would not be surprised if CEI took another shot.
I'm no First Amendment scholar, but as an oenophile and quasi-libertarian I've long thought that government restrictions on advertising the health benefits of wine violate the spirit of the First Amendment. To be sure, the Supreme Court has allowed regulators greater freedom to regulate so-called commercial speech than other forms of speech. But why should wineries have less freedom of speech than publishers of virtual child porn?
