A population based cohort study investigates the association between alcohol intake and mortality from all causes, coronary heart disease and cancer. The design is prospective with baseline assessment of intake of beer, wine and spirits, smoking habits, educational level, physical activity, and body mass index and a total of 257,859 person-years follow-up on mortality. A total of 4,833 participants died, of these 1,075 from coronary heart disease and 1,552 of cancer. Compared with non-drinkers, light drinkers who avoided wine, had a relative risk of death from all causes of 0.90 (0.82-0.99) and those who drank wine had a relative risk of 0.66 (0.55-0.77). Heavy drinkers who avoided wine were at higher risk of death from all causes than were heavy drinkers who included wine in their alcohol intake. Wine drinkers had significantly lower mortality from both coronary heart disease and cancer than did non-wine drinkers (p = 0.007 and p = 0.004, respectively). In conclusion, wine intake may have a beneficial effect on all cause mortality that is additive to that of alcohol. This effect may be attributable to a reduction in death from both coronary heart disease and cancer.