A glass of wine a day keeps the doctor away!
What if we told you that wine isn't just tradition, celebration and joy? What if we told you that the perception that wine is harmful to the body is, speaking of course of moderate quantities, totally wrong?
Recent scientific research has in fact clearly shown that, in the vast majority of healthy individuals, a few glasses of wine a day, especially red wine, preferably consumed during meals, is not only not bad, but is even recommended for maintaining and improving health and psycho-physical well-being.
Good news, no?
But first things first... let's see what the benefits of this delicious nectar and the fruit from which it is derived are.
That wonderful fruit called grapes
In addition to wine production, grapes are consumed as fresh fruit, dried, pressed to obtain grape juice and grape-seed oil can be extracted from its seeds.
But what are its properties? Let's find out together.
A 150 g portion of grapes is a good source of water, simple sugars (glucose and fructose), organic acids, vitamins (especially vitamin C), minerals and phenolic compounds.
It is an extremely digestible fruit with numerous therapeutic properties:
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Wine: keeping healthy with taste
Before we get into the heart of the matter, we would like to make a premise. As Paracelsus said:
«Omnia venenum sunt: nec sine veneno quicquam existit. Dosis sola facit, ut venenum non fit»
Namely
«Everything is poison: nothing exists that is not poisonous. Only the dose ensures that the poison does not take effect»
Our invitation is therefore to read this article with a view to moderate consumption. The benefits of wine are in fact inversely proportional to the quantity consumed and by exceeding the amount of 2/3 glasses per day, ethanol cancels out the beneficial effects of wine.
In recent months, there has been a great controversy following the EU's authorisation, for the Irish market, of a label defined as misleading because it equates the consumption of wine with that of spirits and even cigarettes. This issue has found particular opposition from the scientific world.
Various experimentally supported research over the years has in fact shown that moderate wine consumption benefits human health, both physically and psychologically.
Curious? Then let's see together what the benefits of moderate wine consumption are.
The benefits of wine
It is important to emphasise that the benefits of wine are proportional to its quality. At the Delea winery, we have always worked with great passion and great attention to production standards, from the vineyard to bottling, precisely in order to be able to guarantee the market a wine with all its valuable organoleptic properties and health benefits.
Let's start by saying that wine differs from other alcoholic beverages due to the massive presence of vitamins (A, group B, K and J) and minerals (including potassium, magnesium and calcium).
Its peculiarity is the presence of polyphenols, chemical compounds from grapes of which it is one of the most effective means of intake, capable of providing multiple benefits to the immune system. Wine, in fact, thanks to the presence of tannins, phenolic acids, anthocyanins, resveratrol and procyanidins:
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Thanks to the phenolic compounds contained in grapes, wine has been defined as a nutraceutical food, meaning that it "contains pharmacologically active compounds that can prevent or cure one or more pathological forms, and/or improve certain physiological and metabolic functions of the body".
What can we say, at this point all we can do is enjoy a good glass of wine, preferably red, and enjoy, in addition to the pleasant taste, all its benefits!