In a competitive market,any slant is good to garner mind share.
A glass or two of wine a day… keeps the doctor away”! That interesting twist to the old aphorism (which was about apples) reinforces what’s has always been known in India, where Ayurvedic preparations abound with potions made using munakka (large black raisins or Sultanas).
It’s a fact that grape skin contains liberal amounts of an antioxidant called resveratol, which helps guard against a plethora of ailments ranging from cholesterol to blood pressure, diabetes, cancers and sundry other bodily disorders. Red wines contain a lot more resveratol than white wine, since making red wine entails soaking the skins in the juice to leach the colour (which is in the skin) into the wine. And black grapes like Pinot Noir grown in cool climates like Oregon, Burgundy or Central Otago (New Zealand) tend to have higher concentrations of resveratol than grapes grown in warmer regions.
To get the full benefit of resveratrol in wines, we are told to sip slowly — due to inactivation in the gut and liver, most of the resveratrol in imbibed red wine does not reach the blood (where it does the most good). However, when sipping, absorption via the membranes in the mouth can result in up to around 100 times the blood levels of resveratrol.
This supports what wine gurus have been saying all along: drink good wines, savour the quality of the wine by swirling the liquid in your mouth, drink in moderation.
The French, of course, know a lot about the health benefits of red wine. In a 1980s study it was found that red wines delivered a greater health benefit than white wines due to their higher level of antioxidants. This was broadcast in November 1991 on the US TV programme 60 Minutes as the ‘French Paradox’, showing that in France people have a lower incidence of heart disease (than those from the USA and UK) due to their higher consumption of red wine. Such is the power of the media that in the next year sales of red wine in the US rose 44 per cent!
Of course, few people drink wine for its health benefits alone (although I know of one gent who ‘took’ a rationed 60 ml of red wine a day, one bottle hence lasting nearly two weeks!).
Wine is a social lubricant, a lifestyle, a fashion statement, something to be enjoyed in the company of like-minded people, an ocean of aromas and tastes. What’s terrific is that it’s all this, and healthy to boot.
Something that one Indian wine company seems to have taken to heart at the recently concluded Bangalore International Wine Festival. The Kinvah stall was festooned with cutouts of red hearts with the slogan ‘Wine is Good for Your Health’. In a marketplace becoming increasingly competitive, this is as good an angle as any to garner attention and mindshare.
Wines I’ve been drinking: Now that the results of the Concorso Enologico Internazionale at Verona are out, (www.vinitaly.com/iwc) I won’t have to kill anybody to keep secret the names of the best wine I tasted there — an Amarone della Valpolicella 2004 from Corte San Benedetto, Negrar (which received a Grand Gold medal). The wine is a deep, dark red, with a luscious aroma of fruit and berries, and a full-bodied, smooth taste that lingered on. Would that it becomes available in India at an approachable price (decent Amarone wines cost about 20 euros or more in Italy)!
Ciao.
[Alok Chandra is a Bangalore-based wine consultant. The views expressed are his own]
