During my month-long trip to Italy in October, I had the pleasure of meeting with Sarah Frasier, editor of the Tuscan Magazine. I join British, Canadian, Irish, German, and Italian writers as their sole American journalist. It's a privilege.
Sara and her husband, Richard are Brits who have relocated to Lucca, Toscana, Italy and are the authors of Tuscan Living: From the Yorkshire Moors to the Tuscan Hills. I have featured their book in my Amazon.com "I Recommend" section.
To get a glimpse of this wonderful English-speaking publication of Tuscany, go to:
http://tuscanlivingmagazine.com/\
My article appears on Page 40 of the Body and Soul section of the on-line version. " Have a Healthy Wine: Healthy Italian Wines, the Difference is Skin Deep". For a reprint of the article, write us at: [email protected].
We're grateful for our nation and all its blessing this Thanksgivings. Have a Healthy Wine!
Page 40: the Tuscan magazine
It has long been realized that red wine brings to our bodies a group of organic chemicals that can serve as clot-inhibiting, bad cholesterol reducing, antioxidant-enriching properties. How do the wines of Italy stack up in delivering these benefits?
The latest studies on red wine have been truly amazing. The health effect of wine drunk in moderation are not just the anti-atherosclerotic (anti-plaque in vessels), antithrombotic (anti-clot formation), but also are the angiogenic (inhibit the production of blood vessels) properties against tumors. Many new therapeutic cancer-fighting drugs work on the premise that the prevention of growth of new blood vessels inhibits the growth of tumors. These tumors need new blood vessels to grow.
Red grapes, dark chocolate, blueberries, garlic, soy and tea are some of the ingredients that starve cancer while feeding our bodies.
Dr. William Li, M.D., Medical Director and President of the Angiogenesis Foundation, Cambridge, MA, USA, was recently covered by Wine Spectator Magazine for his presentation at the TED Conference, a small non-profit where the world’s thinkers and doers gather for “Ideas Worth Spreading”, in February 2010. Dr. Li says,
“By examining the potential of antiangeogenics in food, we will find answers to cancer all around us…In our groceries, in our food, and in our glasses”.
Resveratrol, a polyphenol found in the skin and seeds of red grapes, is one of the agents that can inhibit cancer-feeding blood vessels. It has gotten much of the credit for healthy benefits. The other important agents are called OPC’s (Oglimeric proantho- cyanidins). OPC’s are the other antioxidants in the grape seeds and skins. In his book titled, The Red Wine Diet Roger Corder says it is the OPC’s not resveratrol which are suggested to be the real longevity factor in red wine. Roger Corder, BSc, MSc, PhD, MRPharmS
Professor of Experimental Therapeutics, is a scientist at the William Harvey Research Institute, London. The author studied locations such as Ger, France, where the citizen population over 90 is twice that of France. He then studied the OPC content of most of the world’s grape varietals.
The good news is that Italy’s native grapes have very high OPC rankings along with the tannat grape of Ger, France. Here is the list of Italy’s OPC Top 10:
OPC Five Star Italian Wines
1. Sagrantino di Montefalco Collepiano, Arnaldo Caprai, Umbria
2. Rosso Superiore del Mandrolisai, Cantina del Mandrolisai, Sardegna
OPC Four Star Italian Wines
3. Barolo Ciabot-Berton, Piemonte
4. Langhe Nebbiolo De Forville, Piemonte
5. Dolcetto di Dogliani, Luigi Einaudi, Piemonte
6. Palazzo della Torre, Allegrini, Veneto
7. Morellino di Scansano, Le Pupille, Toscana
8. Morellino di Scansano, Lohsa, Toscana
9. Poggio Bestiale, Fattoria di Magliano, Toscana
10. Aglianico Contado, Di Majo Norante, Molise
Many other Toscana wines are close behind.
What makes the difference in these wines? According to Dr. Corder,
"Although differences in the amount of procyanidins [OPC’s] in red wine clearly occur because of the grape variety and the vineyard environment, the winemaker holds the key to what ends up in the bottle. The most important aspect of the winemaking process for ensuring high procyanidins in red wines is the contact time between the liquid and the grape seeds during fermentation when the alcohol concentration reaches about 6 percent. Depending on the fermentation temperature, it may be two to three days or more before this extraction process starts. Grape skins float and seeds sink, so the number of times they are pushed down and stirred into the fermenting wine also increases extraction of procyanidins. Wines that have a contact time of less than seven days will have a relatively low level of procyanidins. Wines with a contact time of ten to fourteen days have decent levels, and those with contact times of three weeks or more have the highest."
Dr. Corder points out that deeply-colored reds are more likely to be richer in OPC’s. The debate continues on whether it is the agents of the wine, the way the wine is made, the way the wine is consumed, or how we live our lives that is most responsible for the long healthy lives of many wine drinkers. However, the evidence seems clear that regular, moderate consumption of red wine is beneficial to your health. So here’s a toast to your health! Salute!
An have a Healthy and Happy Thanksgiving!
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