Alcohol companies -- especially the wine industry -- would love to advertise recent research showing possible health benefits from moderate alcohol consumption. But a slew of state and federal laws stand in their way, the New York Times reported Nov. 25.

"Yes, we'd all like to make hay of [the health research], and we'll do what we can, but we are very constrained," said Michael Mondavi, founder and president of Folio Fine Wine Partners. "It is blatantly against the law for any alcoholic-beverage producers to make any health claim regardless of the facts or the accuracy. Until that regulation is changed or modified in some way so that we can talk about the positive health aspects that are proven, we have to sit on our hands and wait for others to pick up the story."

The industry has benefited from news reports on the health benefits of red wine, from a 1991 "60 Minutes" report on the so-called "French Paradox" (many French have a fattier diet than Americans but have fewer heart problems, possibly because of red wine) to recent studies showing that a substance called resveratrol, found in red wine, increased energy and lifespan among lab mice.

The French Paradox study helped drive a sustained increase in red-wine sales in the U.S., up from 17 percent in 1991 to 42 percent of all wine sales in 2005.

Industry observers expect the resveratrol study to increase sales even further, even though people would have to drink barrels of wine daily to get to the dosages given to the mice in the study. "The aging population reads this and thinks, 'Maybe I should be drinking more red wine rather than something else,'" said Jon Fredrikson, a wine industry analyst for Gomberg, Fredrikson & Associates. "I'm looking for a real spurt here in the last quarter of the year."

However, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) quickly squelched past attempts by the industry to capitalize on the French Paradox findings, and the Wine Institute also advised members not to tout wine as a health food. "We actually resigned from the Wine Institute because we wanted to come out and say wine is healthy and good for you," said Mondavi. "We put on a back label that wine is healthy and recommended in the Bible. The (ATF) sent us a cease-and-desist letter and made us change the label, even though we went back to Washington and showed them the scientific evidence and read them the Bible passages."

Today, fear of litigation and industry consolidation helps keep health claims off wine labels. "The French paradox actually found positive effects in humans drinking moderate amounts of wine, but these resveratrol studies are about an isolated compound given to laboratory animals in high concentrations," said Thomas Matthews, executive editor of Wine Spectator magazine. "I think this is a thinner reed for any vintner to lean on."