Red wine and its health benefits

I have always wanted to learn more about wine and its health benefits and last Thursday's lecture inspired me to do a little research.

Studies have been done to confirm a direct correlation between red wine and many powerful anti-aging benefits. Choosing the correct wine makes a big difference. When it comes to the active ingredient necessary for anti-aging benefit, it can be produced in high concentration only by traditional production methods. Wines from Southwest France and Sardinia are known to contain this ingredient. When wines from these regions were tested, the concentration was found to be 5 to 10 times higher than in wines from New World countries. The reason for that is the way that the beneficial compounds are extracted, which is more efficient when the traditional production methods are used. Full extraction methods are used to process traditional wines. Procyanidins, a class of flavanols, were found most abundantly in red wine than white wine.

The selection of grapes based on the ripeness, the amount of time that seeds and skins are in contact with the fermenting juice and any filtration processes performed are some of the factors that have been identified as directly affecting the procyanidins content in wines. Procyanidins have shown direct benefits on arterial function in blood vessels. The author of the article states that polyphenols have been determined to have a protective effect on the vascular system to the point where they improve the endothelial cells that line the arteries.

Usually, approximately one month is the time that traditional wines are fermented for, which results in the full extraction of procyanidins. On the other hand, the fermented time for more modern wines is usually only a few days, which is only enough time for the color to be extracted from the grape skins. A wine with less procyanidin content and higher sugar content is the result of using overripe grapes. Also, a red wine that has higher alcohol content and that is more sweet has much lower procyanidin content. So the best wines to choose from are wines from Southwest France.



link to article: http://www.naturalnews.com/025034.html