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Civilising Intoxication: Wine Licensing and Drinking Cultures in England
| This paper will explore the history of State legislation in framing wine consumption in England. As an imported commodity, wine has always occupied a complex position within English drinking cultures. Wine-drinking has tended to signify both cultural and economic capital: demonstrating not only affluence, but also connoisseurship, taste and a cosmopolitan familiarity with continental cultural practices. This paper will consider how licensing legislation has both reflected these cultural values, but also how it has been used to try to foster ‘continental’ patterns of consumption as an antidote to traditional drinking practices perceived as encouraging drunkenness. It will consider a number of consequences which have flowed from such legislative interventions. Firstly, how efforts to ‘civilise’ drinking behaviours through the promotion of wine have tended to expose presuppositions about class and gender which have historically framed debates over drunkenness in England. Secondly, how the promotion of a domestic wine market has produced long-standing conflicts within the drinks industry, especially between ‘on’ and ‘off’ trades. Finally, how rising levels of wine consumption since the 1960s have shifted attention away from conventional concerns over drunkenness and public order, towards a new concern with domestic drinking and long-term health impacts.
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