India's First Wine, Food and Hospitality Website, INDIAN WINE ACADEMY, Specialists in Food & Wine Programmes. Food Importers in Ten Cities Across India. Publishers of delWine, India’s First Wine.
 
 
Skip Navigation Links
Home
About Us
Indian Market
Wine & Health
Wine Events
Hotels
Retail News
Blog
Contact Us
Skip Navigation Links
Wine Tourism
Book Review
Launch
Winery
TechTalk
Photo Gallery
Readers' Comments
Editorial
Media
Video Wall
Media Partners
Ask Wineguyindia
Wine & Food
Wine Guru
Perspectives
Gerry Dawes
Harvest Reports
Mumbai Reports
Advertise With Us
Classifieds
US Report on Indian Market Released
Top Ten Importers List 2015-16
On Facebook
 
On Twitter
Delhi Wine Club
 

Posted: Saturday, 11 September 2010 11:07

Blog: Choosing Wines for Health

Several readers ask me which wine to choose for health. Although several studies show red wine benefits heart and other body parts there is no one grape, wine or region that can guarantee maximum benefits and my advice is to drink what you like the best, but avoid the really cheap wines which have hardly any anti oxidants.

Click For Large View
One reader has gone to the extent of asking which particular brand of wine he should drink. My answer is simple: go according to your budget and pick wines that you like-it does not matter if they are Indian or imported, red or white or pink, still or sparkling. It is slightly more helpful if you drink red wine although some recent studies indicate that white wine may be as effective.

Several studies have shown that daily consumption of up to 2 glasses of red wine prove beneficial to the heart. Although the real reason is still not very well known, it is attributed to antioxidants present in the skins, pips and stalks of the grapes. Resveratrol is the all-important chemical that is considered beneficial for the heart and many wine drinkers like to know which wine they should drink where the content of this positive chemical is highest so they can drink for health.

Unfortunately, it is also a fact that when the wine is made and the colour is extracted from the grape skins, the level of resveratrol extraction is never on the mind of the winemaker. In fact, only a small portion of the available amount is extracted through a technique called maceration.

Dr. Andrews Waterhouse is the Professor of Enology at the University of California, Davis Campus. He is a wine chemist who specializes in phenolic compounds and their effect on the taste of wine and their health effects. I have met him on a couple of occasions at the international Heart and Health Conference in Napa. He says that a maximum of about a third of resveratrol is extracted from the grape- usually even less. Tannat grape variety (found mostly in southwest of France and Uruguay) has perhaps the highest resveratrol level; Cabernet Sauvignon is known to be so rich in the chemical that once Chile claimed that their wines were the healthiest because they use a lot of this grape in their wine. But in actual practice, it is extracted much less; otherwise it would be too tannic, dry on the palate and nearly undrinkable.

Dr. Jim McCord is another wine chemist in San Francisco with whom I discussed the issue since he and his wife Lesley who have worked for Gallo for a decade, focus on the phenolics and flavours in wine. He laughs it off by saying that if you are looking for resveratrol, you need to drink 10 liters of wine a day-you are probably better off taking the resveratrol pills that are available in the market. Of course, these pills don’t give the pleasure that wine does and the medical opinion is still divided on their usefulness.

The most honest opinion would be to drink two glasses of wine a day (ok…maybe three, though the increased alcohol could be harmful for other organs), preferably red (you might look at Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon or Nebbiolo, if you like the flavour). Don’t worry about the label and brand though I would recommend staying away from the cheap wines-not only are you missing out on good flavour and pleasure, but the cheaper ones have much less anti-oxidants due to a higher juice/skin ratio and generally have more chemicals like Sulphites infused to keep there flavours going off.

Focus more on the quality, flavour and your palate and pocket… And of course, limit the quantity of daily intake.

Cheers,

Subhash Arora

 

 
Want to Comment ?
Name    
Email       
Please enter your comments in the space provided below. If there is a problem, please write directly to arora@delwine.com. Thank you.
 
Captcha
Generate a new image

Type letters from the image:


Please note that it may take some time to get your comment published...Editor

Wine In India, Indian Wine, International Wine, Asian Wine Academy, Beer, Champagne, World Wine Academy, World Wine, World Wines, Retail, Hotel

     
 

 
 
Copyright©indianwineacademy, 2003-2020 |All Rights Reserved
Developed & Designed by Sadilak SoftNet