“Drink two glasses of red wine and call me in the morning”

In the 1950’s jingle, Chiquita Banana told us that “Bananas taste the best and are the best for you.”  Who knew that she could have said the same thing about red wine? As I travel around entertaining corporate audiences about the wonderful world of wine, I am increasingly asked about articles appearing in the general press regarding the health benefits of drinking red wine. These reports, occurring with increasing regularity, are not to be ignored. Not being a doctor but always being a promoter of wine consumption (in moderation of course), I decided to look into the subject.  The amount of literature on the health benefits of red wine is astounding!  The accompanying box on page 3 does not begin to demonstrate the volumes that have been written not only in the general press, but in learned journals of research and medicine.  The range of benefits ascribed reads like the claims of patent medicine hawkers of years past but underneath it all is a consensus that a glass or two a day should be part of your lifestyle and, despite our puritanical aversion to saying anything nice about alcohol, probably should be prescribed by your physician as well as by me, your Wine Diva. Reading the journals on this subject is a tough slog.  These articles are a perfect storm of medicalese and vino babble (e.g., ”Cis-resveratrol levels were comparable to those of the trans-isomer.”) so I have taken on the assignment of translating the substance into plain language, cutting through the jargon (a Wine Diva specialty). Here is my take on red wine and health.

The rationale offered for red wine’s health benefits rests on several chemical compounds not found in white wine or other types of alcoholic beverages (whiskey, beer, etc). 

Red wine has polyphenols (a.k.a. antioxidants) found primarily in the grape skin and seeds which give the wine its color and taste (you’ll find a list of these wines at the end of the article).  Simply put, the deeper the color of the wine, the more antioxidants.  So Cabernet, Bordeaux and Syrah are “healthier” than Pinot Noir.  If you are really into the science of all this you might also consider where the wines came from.  A new study provides evidence that grapes grown at higher altitudes produce more antioxidants and are therefore “healthier” than lowland grown grapes. (The box on page three lists these wines.) Thus grapes grown in the foothills of the Andes, higher elevations in California, and a few other locales are arguably more beneficial than their lowland counterparts. More studies need to weigh in on this, so I wouldn’t give up your Napa Valley Cabernet just yet! That’s the good news.  The bad news, or in medical vocabulary, a side effect, is that higher levels of antioxidants mean higher levels of tannins. Tannins are preservatives found naturally in red wine, and play an important role in the graceful aging of red wines. But tannins are also the culprit in “red wine headaches” which affect a sizable minority of wine drinkers.  As wine ages, the effects of tannin fade along with the color of the wine leaving old Burgundies with that most lovely of all wine shades, brick red.  Alas, the health benefits also diminish, so if you are drinking for health reasons, drink young (wines less than five years old) and drink Cabernet, Bordeaux and Barolo.  These wines are also the ones that benefit in taste most from aging.  My advice?  Drink young wines as your daily meal accompaniment and break out the old stuff for special occasions. Red wine headaches, by the way, can be “treated” with ordinary antihistamines taken an hour beforehand.  If that does not do the trick, then the amount of tannin is the culprit.  If so, switch from Cabernet to Pinot Noir, or to wines with even less tannin like Rioja, Chianti, Barbera and Beaujolais-Villages.  Not as healthy perhaps as the big wines, but no headaches either. Drinking plenty of water also helps, as does eating while you are drinking. There may be more to the story of red wine as the new “health drink” as science continues to explore the health virtues of wine.   But enough about science and wine.  I am a booster for the pleasures of wine, and so to quote the sage advice of Benjamin Franklin, “Wine should be a laugh, not a lecture.”

A Brief History of the Benefits of Red Wine 

When — Who — Benefits

400 BC — Hippocrates, physician — Antiseptic, sedative

1800’s — Louis Pasteur, scientist — General health and hygiene

1926 — Raymond Pearl, biologist — Longevity                          

1980-present — Hundreds of longitudinal vascular clinical studies — Reduce risk of heart/ disease by almost 50% in men, 38% in women 

2005 — Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle — Reduce risk of prostate cancer by 50%

2005 — lnternational Society for Bio-Medical Research — Reduce risk of cataracts by 50%        

2005 — Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Boston — Lower risk of kidney dysfunction

2005 — University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease — Flu prevention                             

2006 — American College of Rheumatology — Reduce the pain of arthritis                              

2006 — University of Michigan — Hearing loss prevention

Reds That Do More

Name of wine or grape   From

Aglianico — Italy

Barolo — Italy

Bordeaux — France

Cabernet — Chile, mountainous areas of California

Malbec — Argentina

Tannat — Madiran region in Southwest France

Tempranillo — Ribera del Duero, Spain

Touriga Nacionale — Duero, Portugal