Drinking wine in southern europe with every meal, and drinking beer in northern europe with every meal, has been embedded in culture for thousands of years.
So much so that even 4 year old kids were given wine or beer with each meal during the last thousands of years.
Reason?
Water was almost always contaminated with pathogens. Water has been safe to drink only since the 1960s.

The side-effect of this: European people can “handle” alcohol somewhat better than Asian people, due to evolution.

Nowadays there is no reason to give your kids any alcohol. Or for yourself to drink alcohol while working. But there is a reason why Columbus stocked hectolitres of Port wine on board when he set sail to discover America.

So Longtimer, apart from being in the staff restaurant and standing in the front galley regularly as wine was brought to the cockpit, what are your other connections to Swissair?

Flew 26 years for SR short haul, long haul et al .
never saw this, so yes you could say I was there !

whereas you were in a staff restaurant, and may have, as a passenger, seen a standard “ tray” with a small bottle of wine attached, passed to the flight deck .. I assure you this would never have been consumed by the pilots .. at least as far as my 26 yrs experience
mid concerned ..

Dangerous to jump to conclusions old boy !

It was there but never consumed and indeed quite rare for the cockpit to receive a standard pax tray, on most flights first class catering was offered, no plastic trays or plonk. No one felt the need to virtue signal by having it taken away, why would you ? why were you so concerned about what others may think ? you didn’t drink it so that was that

I suppose people were were less interested in what others may do or say and were overall far less judgemental, everyone was pretty grown up about such things .. pre social media days .

In France, once, I was offered wine with dinner. I declined, politely, saying that I do not drink. The host incredulously replied "but this is not drinking, this is wine".

I see your point .. glad you kept it for later ! All I can say is that in SR alcohol consumption in the cockpit on duty was forbidden and this rule was adhered to by everyone I ever flew with ... crew meal trays had no wine bottles, pax trays had them and were sometimes offered if they were more appetizing than the crew meals but the vino was ignored ...

That phrase has been used so often, although I’ve never actually heard a Frenchman ( or woman ) say it, that it belongs in the hackneyed phrase almanac. That said, at the French base at Cazaux, where their ‘force de frappe’ guys were based, wine was available on tap at lunchtime, and regularly imbibed by the guys on QRA, in their goon suits. As it was at L’Orient and Landivisau. The mess at Nîmes-Garons has its own domaine and this was served at lunch and dinner. And bloody good it was to. So it was part of the culture then, mid 80’s or so. Suspect long gone.

Jumping to conclusions isn’t a good idea on this forum... In 72 I joined SR. The rules were that the only place one could drink in uniform - after flight nota bene - was in the Staff restaurant or in the Crew House - SR‘s own crew hotel in GVA.

I never saw alcohol consumed either before flight or in a cockpit, short or long haul. There was an eight hour bottle to throttle rule, which might be a bit lenient these days - was the same as in the RAF.

Went to some IATA meetings in GVA by the way to observe freight prices being fixed. Could it have been with you?

Good idea Mike!
But when something like that happens, drawing comparisons is to be expected.
The Air France story was a widely told myth and on that score I have no knowledge.
Was however in Seoul once for a sim ride. Check pilots smoking in the box despite request to stop etc.
There was an evident attitude that might was right throughout my visit there.
Could well explain the peanut rage and this case too.