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France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Sweden are the European countries where alcohol is mainly consumed as wine. These countries have the lowest consumption of beer and spirits as well as the lowest alcohol consumption overall in Europe. Wine is the predominant alcoholic beverage here and is consumed regularly and often with meals - but rarely to the point of drunkenness. In these countries, the mortality rate associated with alcohol is the lowest in comparison. This is the conclusion of the study"Classifying national drinking patterns in Europe between 2000 and 2019: A clustering approach using comparable exposure data". Scientists from four European countries and Canada were commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO) to analyse the development of alcohol consumption patterns in Europe between 2000 and 2019.
According to the results, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia and Spain are characterised by high beer consumption and low spirits consumption. This drinking behaviour, also known as "Central and Western European", is characterised by the fact that beer is the predominant drink and alcohol is often consumed without meals. Compared to the Mediterranean style, people are drunk more often. In addition, a lot of alcohol is consumed by tourists in these countries.
Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia have high levels of beer and spirits consumption. In the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, it is mainly spirits and other alcoholic beverages that are consumed, but wine is consumed the least, as is the case in Ukraine, Bulgaria and Cyprus. However, most teetotallers live in these three countries. Mortality rates as a result of alcohol consumption are highest in Eastern Europe.
In 2010, nine countries were still among the main wine-drinking nations. In addition to the current five, these were Malta, Spain, Iceland and Norway. However, the inhabitants of the wine nation Spain have turned into beer drinkers. The Swedes were wine drinkers in 2010, beer drinkers in 2015 and became wine consumers again in 2019. In 2000, Sweden, together with Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Greece, Malta and Iceland, was still one of the countries with low consumption. By 2010, there was no longer a country in this category. Luxembourg, which was still a wine-drinking country in 2000, joined Ireland, Finland and Iceland in 2019 as a country where people do not drink regularly but drink a lot on certain occasions.
(al / source: Addiction)