Let the young be young

One name missing from the ever-rolling credits of "those to blame" for the crisis of our drinkin', bingin', crunked-out-of-their-bonce yoof is Margaret Mead. A mildly controversial American cultural anthropologist, her Coming of Age in Samoa: A Study of Adolescence and Sex in Primitive Societies was an early classic in the field of ethnography - the study of peoples and cultures.

Like much ethnographic work it can be accused of voyeurism, focusing on the exotic practices of a people utterly unfamiliar to us civilised folk in the West. Yet the focus on the exotic obscures the fact that we're not so different.

Today's coverage of young drinkers shares this exophobia. Moralising Desmond Morrises look on "the young" like a different species: a herd of rutting bath-dodgers pursuing Tequila jellies with the same zeal zombies bring to hunting brains.

Yet they conveniently forget that today's young are indistinguishable from teenagers in the 80s, 70s, 60s and 50s - and so on. A timid mass of agonised introspection and wide-eyed curiosity. Only in baggier jeans.

Three weeks ago I hosted the inaugural meeting of a 6th Form Wine Tasting Society at a school in Lancashire. Thirty students tasted three wines. They all asked intelligent, incisive questions about each wine before very politely and warmly thanking me for my time and efforts.

We can't just look at young people from a tent on our (metaphorical) desert island, noting their queer behaviour and tutting. If you want young people to drink sensibly you have to go and drink sensibly with them. The debate about when to introduce young people to alcohol seems to come down to: Do we throw occasional glasses of wine into their cage when they're young or chuck in bottles of vodka when they're eighteen? Is it surprising that neither works?

Andrew Gordon-Brown (oh the irony), the deputy headmaster at Stonyhurst College who organised the school's Wine Tasting Society, should be applauded for offering this gold standard in good alcohol education. Yes, this is a private school. But if you're thinking it wouldn't work in an inner city comprehensive, it's worth remembering all teenagers belong to  the same species.

Joe Fattorini is a trade sales manager at Bibendum as well as a journalist and wine writer.

• Harpers Says...