“WINE CAN BE CONSUMED CONSCIOUSLY AND WITH PLEASURE; DRUGS ARE ONLY FOR A HIGH. THE REAL PROBLEM IS NOT WITH WHAT BUT WHY”. A TALK WITH ANDREA MUCCIOLI WHO, AT SAN PATRIGNANO, SAVES LIVES AND MAKES AN EXCELLENT WINE

“Certainly, today, wine but, above all, other alcoholic substances and hard liquors are used increasingly by youth in search of a high, so it all becomes a ‘drug’”. These are the reflections of Andrea Muccioli, who has long run the rehabilitation community of San Patrignano (which was founded by Father Vincenzo) in a recent interview with www.winenews.tv on the theme of the increasing abuse of alcohol among young people.
But Muccioli is also a producer of fine wines at San Patrignano, and wanted to clarify that, “This does not mean that there isn’t the possibility of a pleasurable and conscious use of alcohol, in particular, that of wine, but this implies an educational path that must create some limits”. Cuccioli is, in fact, in agreement with the recent proposals made by the Italian government to, “strongly limit the diffusion of alcohol, especially among minors, and to severely punish those who don’t respect these rules”.
“But” – emphasizes Cuccioli – “wine is very different from drugs because they are used only to get high, while wine offers the possibility of a responsible use, as is testimony the experience at San Patrignano, where the kids have become excellent sector operators: becoming sommelier, learning to treat wine with responsibility, with culture, history, and the traditions of this art”. The measures that have been adopted to control the problem of abuse, however, do not try to resolve the problems at their root, or rather, why, today, there is this growing need to get “high”.
“From this point of view” – notes Muccioli – “I do not make distinctions between wine and all other substances, in the sense that the problem is not with what one gets high, but the reasons that increasingly push the young to get high”. It is a problem that is deep, of growing up, of maturation, solitude, and the lack of reference points for youth within their families and groups of friends”.
“Adults” – concluded Muccioli – “must re-appropriate their educational role, they must return to teaching the young what is right and what is wrong, and they must learn to say ‘no’ even to themselves”.
Federico Pizzinelli