Gene Ford, 77; Wrote About Health Benefits of Moderate Drinking

Gene Ford, 77, a wine writer and educator who wrote extensively about the health benefits of moderate drinking, died June 10 of complications from heart surgery at a hospital in Seattle.

Ford was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and graduated from Catholic University in Washington, D.C. He first got interested in wine when he began working for a wine producer in the mid-1960s. He educated himself on wine and later wrote several books on wine and drinking, including “The French Paradox & Drinking for Health” (1993) and “The Science of Healthy Drinking” (2003).

The latter book argued that, as Ford told an interviewer in 2004, “the healthiest people on the face of the Earth are people who drink moderately.” Although he acknowledged that bingeing, alcoholism and drunk driving were serious problems, he said he believed that 15 million to 20 million people in the U.S. could derive benefits from drinking as long as they did not overdo it.

“Drinking is not for everyone, but those who exercise moderation and discretion can reap significant health benefits,” he wrote in a recent essay for the Catholic University magazine.