I was about to post the same thing. A glass of wine with dinner, for example, can enormously enhance the experience without any of the downsides that he mentions. Not that I care if people don't drink, but several of the arguments were pretty spurious.
> A glass of wine with dinner, for example, can enormously enhance the experience
Can you explain how exactly? Is it just greater social ease as the author suggests in the article? I'm intrigued, I don't drink wine and hardly ever have a beer while eating.
Its a southern European culture - wine goes well with some tastes and since wine vapours a lot it delivers taste also to your nose. Beer is usually used only with fatty/heavy foods as it helps to dissolve them and stimulates stomach to work harder (that would be mainly German/Irish kitchen).
