Health Benefits of Red Wine in Older Men

When you envision partaking in a glass or two of red wine, the idea of increased balance and motor skills likely isn’t the first thought that comes to mind. In fact, most of us would probably assume that red wine might cause a person to be perhaps a little unsteady on his or her feet. However, scientists have now discovered that the opposite might, in fact, be true.

Earlier this year, the 244th meeting of the American Chemical Society took place in Philadelphia. During that meeting, the results of a study on the effect of resveratrol – a compound nicknamed the “miracle molecule” – were presented to the group of more than 14,000.

In their study, the scientists fed mice a diet that included reservatrol and later tested their ability to navigate a balance beam. During the course of the study, older mice began to improve and perform on the same level as their younger counterparts. The researchers responsible for the study believe that the results might be applicable to older humans who have issues with balance and mobility. The study results could possibly indicate that reservatrol might be beneficial in preventing falls in older adults.

At this point, you might be wondering, “What is reservatrol?” Although for some, the name is familiar. This natural plant compound has made headlines in the past with reports touting its purported anti-aging properties, among other health benefits.

Reservatrol is an antioxidant found in fruits with dark skins: red grapes, cranberries, and blueberries, to name a few. It is found in some products produced from those berries, such as red wine and grape juice, and it’s also present in some types of nuts.

The recent study focused on the possibility that this compound might aid in decreasing mobility problems among older adults. If that could be realized, it would stand to reason that increased mobility might lead to fewer falls among older men and women. At first glance, that might not seem incredibly important, but falls can lead to hospitalization and even death in the older population. Preventing falls could certainly lead to a greater quality of life, both in terms of fewer hospitalizations and greater mobility and independence in later years.

While all of this sounds promising, researchers still aren’t sure exactly how reservatrol works in the human body. The researchers also believe it would take impossibly large amounts of red wine to reach significant levels of reservatrol. Research continues on the mechanics of reservatrol within the human body, as do studies of engineered compounds designed to produce similar effects.

For now, we will have to wait and see whether further research confirms the results of this study and the possible benefit of reservatrol in fighting balance issues in older men and women.

Author Bio:

Jezebel Lake is a blogger who enjoys writing about health and spending time
outdoors with her dog. She is currently promoting Six Nutrition. If you’re a man
looking to improve your health, Six Nutrition offers vitamins for your needs.

Red or White? The Health Benefits of Wine

Moderate wine consumption may keep you heart healthy. At least, that’s the message from studies of red wine. It’s not exactly news to wine drinkers. Anecdotal evidence has long suggested the connection. France, for instance, has relatively low heart disease rates and is one of the world’s largest consumers of red wine.

Science backs up the link between heart health and red wine. But what about white wine? Are you shortchanging your heart if you opt for a Riesling over a Merlot?

Red Wine

Most clinical studies focus on red wine’s heart benefits. Red wine contains flavinoids, a type of polyphenol antioxidant thought to slow the aging process and prevent disease.

One particular antioxidant, resveratol, occurs in the skins of grapes. Resveratol is thought to protect the heart’s blood vessel lining by increasing levels of so-called “good” HDL cholesterol and reducing the artery damage caused by “bad” LDL cholesterol. Resveratol may also lower the risk of dangerous blood clots.

Mice and Men

Most of the evidence that resveratol improves health comes from clinical studies on lab mice. These studies found that mice given resveratol gained some protection against both diabetes and obesity.

Before you raise your glass in a toast, however, be aware that researchers administered huge amounts of resveratol to the mice. To ingest an equivalent amount of resveratrol, you would have to drink almost 16 gallons of red wine a day.

White Wine and Resveratol

Red wine gets most of the clinical attention because it contains more flavinoids than white wine. The difference lies in winemaking methods. During red wine production, grapes ferment in their skins longer than during white wine production.

As a result, a glass of red wine produces more health benefits than white wine, much as using contractor accounting software is more effective than doing the paperwork by hand. If you’re worried about your heart, choosing red may be the better option.

This doesn’t mean moderate white wine consumption lacks health benefits; it only means that science has yet to examine white wine’s health promoting qualities.

Moderation and Wine Consumption

Despite evidence that red wine may improve heart health, organizations such as the American Heart Association avoid recommending moderate wine consumption. The reason for this reluctance is obvious; excessive alcohol consumption causes significant health problems, not only addiction, but kidney and liver damage and serious heart conditions.

Medical experts define moderate wine consumption as an average of two glasses a day for men and one for women. Men can drink more red wine because the male body contains more alcohol metabolizing enzymes than the female body.

Anything above this limit can lead to alcohol-related health problems. Taking up drinking wine isn’t suggested as a solution for heart disease. However, for those of us who enjoy a glass with dinner, knowing wine may help our hearts is reassuring.

Author Bio: Michelle is an aspiring writer with a passion for blogging. She enjoys writing about a vast variety of topics and loves that blogging gives her the opportunity to publicly voice her thoughts and share advice with an unlimited audience.

Why Does Wine Contain Sulphites?

If you have ever been sitting around the dinner table after a delicious meal and a few glasses of wine with friends or family, there is a good chance that you picked up the wine bottle and glanced at the label on the back. Those of you with an inquisitive mind and a thirst for knowledge have probably read the words “May Contain Sulphites” and wondered to yourself, what are sulphites.

Sulphites are a chemical ingredient that is added to wine during the wine making process that cleans and sterilizes the equipment. This is called potassium bisulfite. If the equipment was not properly sterilized, harmful bacteria would get into the brew and destroy it. Well, not destroy it completely, but it would end up as vinegar, which would be disastrous to any wine maker that is trying to be profitable.

Sulphites in wine are also a preservative. Wine without sulphites in them have a much shorter shelf life. Some winemakers prefer to not use sulphites during the fermentation process but instead will wait until their wine is complete to add them as a preservative.

Another use for this chemical is to stop the fermentation process. Adding it to any batch of wine or beer will kill off the yeast that is necessary to convert sugar into alcohol. This creates a sweeter wine that is more commonly known as a dessert wine.

Wine with sulphites in it is not dangerous to healthy people, it can however, be harmful to people who are allergic to it. Generally the amount of it is so low that any allergic reactions to sulphites are not life threatening.

Wine makers are required to add the “Contains Sulphites” warning whenever the sulphites in their wine are over 10 ppm (parts per million), which is an extremely low amount.

Some people are more taste sensitive than others and will generally avoid wines with sulphites in them because it tastes more like a freshly struck match than they would like.

One common myth is that red wine contains more sulphites and causes headaches. The truth is that red wines contain less than their white wine and dessert wine counterparts. What causes headaches while drinking red wine is the tannins that are present. Tannins are found in the skins and seeds of the grapes that are left in during the wine making process. Tannin causes the dry feeling on your tounge while drinking red wines.

If you are looking for wines without sulphites, you can always ask your local wine merchant. They will most likely have a vast knowledge about the subject and be able to lead you in the right direction. If not, it is time to find a new wine merchant.

Winter Wine Making – What To Make And How To Cope

So you are getting yourself ready for a long, cold winter. Your wines are safely stored and ageing nicely but what do you do now? Perhaps you should get yourself a winter hobby, or maybe you could keep creating wines while not freezing your butt off in the frozen, leafless outdoors.

First things first, lets talk about ice wine. Ice wine is made with grapes that have been allowed to freeze on the vine before they have been harvested. This makes and excellent wine and does not require much more work than making regular wine. If you are fortunate enough to get your hands on some of these prized grapes, then you can make a fine ice wine for yourself.

Ice wine is only one thing that you can do during the long months of winter when you should be hibernating. Another fine wine related activity that you might want to consider while you are trapped indoors by all of the snow and ice is to do more reading about your favorite subject. I think that it is safe to assume that your favorite subject is wine making and if that is true you don’t need to worry, because there is an absolute mountain of information on the subject. You can easily find some great info about the subject at your local book store or even better than that, you can compile all of the Internets best content and absorb it all to ensure that you are going to be a better winesmith next year.

Once you have mastered the art of making ice wine and read everything that you can about the subject, you may find that it is time to find something new to occupy your time. Once you have hit this level of wintery boredom, you are going to want to consider making wine from kits. Kit wine is really not as horrible as some of the wine snobs claim that it is. I’m taking a sip of kit wine right now and…

…PLBBBBGT!

Yummy. I promise. Just joking. It is really good if you know what you are doing. I assume that you took my previous advice and you have read every scrap of information about making wine so by this point in the chilly season, you should have also mastered the art of making kit wines. So get to crafting and you will entertained for the rest of winter.

So, if you are a proper wine nut you know exactly how you are going to spend your winter and you don’t need me to tell you anything. If however, you find yourself with out inspiration, and need of a pick me up, you can just go tobogganing . It has nothing to do with wine, unless you make it have something to do with wine.

Cork vs. Screw Cap – The Debate Rages On

Ever since modern machines have had the ability to create a screw cap for bottles there has been debate whether or not wine bottles should stick with the tried and tested method of corks to seal in their deliciousness or use the more modern screw top to preserve their whiny deliciousness.

Corks have been around since the first century BC. Proof of this discovery was found in Ephesus, where an ancient amphora was discovered sealed with a cork plug and still managed to contain wine. This means that for the past 2000 years corks have been doing a marvelous job of keeping wine safe and sound.

Cork is a natural material and comes from the bark of trees. There are many farms around the world dedicated solely to producing corks for the wine industry. This has led many environmentalists to declare that using cork, which is a renewable resource, is much better than a screw cap.

Screw caps in contrast have only been commonly used since the 1930s. They have been around much longer, but not used as much because of the cost associated with manufacturing them. Screw caps are generally made of metal and plastic which provides a seal that is not only comparable but often better than the seal which a cork stopper provides.

Although cork has been around for a couple of millennia now, many people have been affected by the effects of cork rot. This means that corks can rot through due to damp conditions and affect the wine inside the bottle. Many collectors have gone to their cellars only to find that a rotten cork has emptied the contents of a prized bottle all over their floor.

You can still find cork stoppers used extensively throughout the world on many high-end wines. This is due to the fact that many wine connoisseurs are traditionalists and don’t want to change their favorite product at all. Screw caps are also found around the world but mostly on less expensive brands of wine because of the inexpensive nature of the screw cap.

Now I am not going to pretend that I know which method of sealing wine in the bottle is better, but what I am going to say, is that either one will work perfectly fine. If you are a wine drinker then you probably have a preference already and nothing I can tell you will change your mind.

Author Bio: This article was written by Justin Lock. He is an amateur wine maker and writer, which leads to combine these two loves into this wonderful website about making home made wines.

Wine Making 101: A Guide For The Amateur Wine-Maker

If you are wondering about how to make red wine, you have landed on the right place. The process of making red wine is described in detail, yet in a very simple way in the following points:

1. The foremost step for making red wine is to ensure that you harvest red wine grapes at the right time in order to get the right balance of acids and sugar from them for making the wine. For this, the grapes have to be perfectly ready to be plucked which means that not only should they contain enough sugar level to be considered as being ripe, they should also have the desired amount of alcohol content as well as acids.

2. The next task is to de-stem and crush the grapes so as to expose the fruit juice to the yeast for the process of fermenting. In addition to this, the grape skins should also be put into the mixture as they would do their part of imparting colour to the wine. All of this is to be done in the primary fermentation stage.

3. For the fermentation, a process of around 3 to 4 weeks, the mixture should be placed in a fermentation vat where a specific type of yeast can be added into it so as to convert the sugar of the grapes into alcohol.

4. It is totally upon the wine maker to decide the amount of time that has to be allotted to the mixture of grape juice and solids to sit, pick up flavour, colour, and tannin. A very long fermentation period would make the wine bitter, while too little time would make it thin. The temperature set during this stage also plays a crucial role in affecting the wine’s colour and flavour.

5. It is important to push down the fermentation proceeds (skins and other solids) that float up during the fermenting stage so as to build on the wine’s colour and flavour. Once the desired colour of the red wine is obtained, the fermentation can be brought to a stop. It also has to be ensured that the completed wine settles down at the end of this stage and is free of any residual
sugar.

6. The next step is the aging process of the wine which can range from 9 months to 2 years. During this phase, the wine is stored in barrels to entice it with the right amount of zest and flavour.

7. Once you get the desired flavour of red wine, the aging process is to be stopped and filtering of the wine should be started in order to purify the liquid from any unwanted residuals.

8. Lastly, the wine is to be bottled and stored appropriately. Although red wine should preferably be stored for several years or a minimum of six months before drinking, there s no harm in indulging it without waiting for so long. However, the taste of the wine is likely to get finer with time.

Author Bio:

Laura Brown is an excellent winemaker who has studied and experimented with several different types of home made wines for more than two decades. She resides with her husband on a farm in the rural south where they grow much of the ingredients they use to make their home made wines. She tells of her home made wine making journeys in the published book “Make Tasty Wine” which is a “great read” for anyone who wishes to make their own flavorful and delicious wines.

Is My Wine Ready to Drink?

A common misconception about wine is that if it’s older, it must be better. In all those films and TV programmes about decaying aristocratic families between the wars, whenever wine is featured, it comes out of an ancient cellar, in a bottle covered in dust to be decanted by candlelight. You just don’t see them drinking the latest Beaujolais Nouveau on Downton Abbey.

But in actuality:

1. The vast majority of wine (over 95%) is made to be drunk within two years of bottling.

2. Of the remaining 5%, just as much is drunk too old as is drunk too young.

The 95% Rule

As far as the 95% category goes, this includes all rosé, virtually all dry white and the vast majority of reds. In fact, if you’re one of the overwhelming majority who would very rarely, if ever, spend more than £15 on a bottle of wine, for all practical purposes it includes everything.

Hardly any wine under £15 a bottle will benefit from ageing for more than a couple of years, and in most cases it will only get worse. Rosé is a classic example. Always buy the freshest rosé you can get, checking the vintages on every bottle. This is wine that is supposed to taste fresh, fruity and lively, so the latest vintage is released just a few months after the harvest. Right now (July 2012) you should be drinking 2011s from the Northern Hemisphere and, in a few months’ time, the 2012s from the Southern Hemisphere. Rosé that is more than a year or two old will have turned brown and lost its fruit flavour, and the same goes for all those whites and reds that are made for early enjoyment. If what you’re looking for is fruit and freshness (and it usually is) you should choose youth over age.

The Age-Worthy Wines: Is it Worth It?

A wine made for ageing is a completely different product, made in an entirely different way and to a different end. Here, the object is not to create something with primary fruit flavour that can be enjoyed immediately, but to make a wine with the foundations and structure to change and improve over time. The bottling of the wine marks only the end of one stage of the making of it and the beginning of another. When young, many of the world’s great wines will be almost undrinkable, because they are loaded with the high tannin and acidity levels that will help them survive and develop over many years. In short, they are simply not ready, and this is the cause of many a disappointment as the inexperienced wine drinker forks out his or her hard-earned cash on something really special, only to find the drink impenetrable.

Of course, the reason wines are made like this and the reason they command the highest prices is because when they do come around, after many years, when the various elements have mellowed and combined to create a harmonious whole, the result is a drink of complexity and depth that cannot be rivalled. These wines, properly stored and drunk at just the right moment in their evolution, are the wines which change people’s perception of what wine can be and make them into fanatics. For these moments it is worth the effort, but you’ve got to choose carefully and know when to drink them. Don’t wait too long. Even the best will decline, albeit slowly, and when a wine is at its peak you shouldn’t be afraid to seize the moment.

Wines to Age: An Incomplete List

Generally speaking, only the best, most expensive wines are really age-worthy. But, as a guide, here is an incomplete list of classic wines for ageing:

· The best red Bordeaux
· The best red Burgundy
· The best sweet whites
· Vintage Port
· The best Champagne
· The very best white Burgundy
· The best German Riesling
· The very best reds from Italy, Spain, Australia, California…

Author:

Ben Greene blogs about fine and rare wines and has worked with wine merchants for the past 10 years. When he’s not online or at a tasting he enjoys cricket, cooking and the occasional deviation from wine to beer.

Choosing The Best Water For Making Wine

It is a common thought that the most important ingredient in making wine is the grape, but it is not. The absolute most important ingredient in your wine is the humble water that you choose to make your wine with. This is even more true when you are making your home made wine from a kit. Most kits will require you to add water to the prepared ingredients.

Water can be flavoured with whatever it come into contact with quite easily and this can lead to a change in its taste that might be disastrous when it comes down to the final tasting of your completed product.

There are several different sources of wine that you can choose from when you are making wine. Tap, distilled, bottled, spring and well water.

Tap water is clean but it has also some added ingredients such as chlorine that will ruin the flavour of your wine.

Well water comes from a deep hole in the earth and you might think that it is clean but it could carry many harmful contaminates like bacteria and iron that will ruin your final wine product. If there are farms or dumps nearby you might just be poising yourself and anyone else that drinks your brew.

Distilled water comes from any source but the process of distillation removes absolutely everything except H2O from the water which means that the minerals that yeast need to live will not be there.

Bottled water is a good choice for making wine because it has been purified but still contains some essential minerals. The down side of bottled water is that it is the most expensive source of water.

The final and best source of what that you can choose from is spring water. Spring water is the best choice because it it contains no human added chemicals like chlorine and it has been naturally filtered by the earth. The best water that I have ever drank in my life was from a Chinese food restaurant in New Brunswick That had its own natural spring out back. Spring water also is less expensive if you are buying it, but you need to read the labels carefully because some companies say that they use spring water while they are actually only using tap water. Some of my Ontario friends have noticed that a certain brand name of water has been bottled is Toronto Ontario. I personally would not trust water from a spring in the middle of a major metropolis.

So no matter what source you choose to draw from to make your wine you should know that your water should be as clean as possible to ensure that your final product can compete with any of the major producers of fine wine. If you need to filter, boil or distil your water there are many great ways to do so and you can even make home made equipment to do so.

Making Wine in a College Dorm

Oh, college. We did some pretty dumb things back in those days, didn’t we? When we first started, back when we were surrounded by parties and waves of alcoholic bliss, it seemed like the fun would never end. The one major roadblock, however, was our age – we weren’t 21 just yet.

Besides asking our RA’s to drive us to the corner liquor store to purchase the booze for us, we decided making wine in our dorm rooms would be a pleasant experiment. After all, you can buy all the ingredients in wine legally at any age – the fermentation and consumption is the only issue the state has.

So we did, basing our recipe off a type of wine called “Pruno,” or prison hooch, because it’s made in jails. The recipe is pretty simple – double bag some black plastic bags (easily stolen from the prison kitchen) and pour warm water, some fruit or fruit juice, tomatoes, raisins, yeast and all of the sugar that you can get your hands on. One of the hardest things in prison is to find yeast, as it’s blacklisted. Prisoners will use slices of bread, the moldier the better, but not dried and thrown into a sock for easier straining. We were civilized, so we just bought yeast packets.

Next, tie the bag off and let a tube stick out the top so it won’t explode whilst it gives off carbon dioxide.

Trust me, this tube part is important. A friend of a friend forgot this step, throwing his ingredients in a giant pickle jar and the thing exploded on him. His kitchen was completely ruined.

Anyway, the next step (if you’re in prison) is to hide the bag somewhere and wait at least three days. A week is plenty.

We threw all these disgusting things together into a bucket, covered it with a plastic tarp, inserted a tube we ripped out of a vending machine and waited two weeks. Then, we poured our pruno into a bunch of glasses and served it up at this birthday party for this kid we didn’t like very much.

None of us really drank that much – it tasted pretty foul, no matter how many packets of Splenda we stirred into it. But the other party guests were either too drunk to notice the taste or had burned off all their tongues by smoking. They drank gallons of the pruno, until they started puking all over this kid’s apartment. It was hilarious.

We never made pruno again because it was obviously not very safe, but my interest in home brewing had just begun. The next time, I bought myself a kit and did things in a sterile environment. I soon began bottling red versus white wines, merlots versus zinfandels. I’ll always raise a glass and toast my wild and reckless college days for introducing me into a cultured and respectable form of home brewing. Cheers.

Author Bio: Jimmy Kane holds a Ph. D in molecular science and happily travels the globe spreading his seeds of wisdom.

Top 5 Places to Find the Best Deals on Wine

If you were to pick the best places to get the best prices for wine, what would your list look like? How would you pick the “who is who”, and what would you consider before putting together your list of the top 5 places to find deals on wine? Not an easy task, but what needs to be done has to be done. Here is a list of the top five places to look out for when you are searching for the best offers on wine.

1. K&L Wine Merchants: With a reputation of serving wine lovers for over 30 years, K&L Wine Merchants are in both brick and mortar and online markets. They offer you the most competitive prices for wines sourced from across the globe. You can also find out from K&L how many bottles of your preferred wine or any other wine for that matter is still in stock. This way, it’s pretty easy to stock up on what you need in the next few weeks.

2. Appellation America: Appellation America is an online store that sources its wines from over 120 wineries. It doesn’t get better than this! If you are looking for any fine wine, this is the place to visit. Merlot, Sauvignon, and any other, you can be sure that Appellation America have it in stock. And the prices are good too.

3. Brown Derby International Wine Center: If you are looking for great wines like the Diebolt-Vallois de Blancs Champagne and Copain Syrah, you can get great offers from Brown Derby. Brown Derby sources its wines form around the world and operates both brick and mortar and online wine stores. So, if you are in Missouri, you can get very good bargains on Californian wine from the Brown Derby International Wine Center. Note also that majority of the best and fast selling wines have been marked so that you know how many bottles are in stock.

4. Avalon Wine: For wine lovers looking for the best wines from Washington and Oregon, Avalon Wine is the place to get them. With wines from great producers like Beaux FrÈres and Leonetti Cellar, this online wine shop stocks only the very best. The better news is that Avalon Wine also stocks amazing wine from budding producers who are not yet well known. This leaves you spoilt for choice! You can also join the Avalon wine clubs to get even better bargains on the best wines.

5. Twenty Twenty Wine Merchants: These wine merchants have the reputation of finding the most difficult to find brands of wine. With both brick and mortar and online operations, Twenty Twenty Wine Merchants will find the exotic Cabernet, the 1995 Dennis Mortet Clos de Vougeot and similar fine wines just for you.

Well, that’s my list. And yes, it’s very tough to pick the best. But sometimes, you have to focus on what you are looking for and shut everything else out. Never mind that every store online or brick and mortar, is positioned to serve a particular niche. As it is, even though there are millions of reputable wine shops where you can find great wine bargains, we have only 5 slots to populate with the best wine merchants. Of course, you agree. Don’t you?

Author bio: Berito Gichimu writes on various issues, including food and wine. He contributes to websites, blogs, print and other media around the world.

Wine Making Equipment

All of the equipment and instructions that you are going to need to start making your own wine at home.