Category — Wine Articles

Anniversary celebrations are so special to couples. Their friends and family often wish to help them celebrate with a gift, and there isn’t a better anniversary gift selection than a bottle of wine. There are a great many choices for the right wine.

First, during the first few years of marriage, you can most likely find the identical wine that was served at the couple’s wedding reception. They were likely so busy with host and hostess duties that it is likely they didn’t get more than one taste of the wine at the reception. A bottle that they can share at their leisure will make a wonderful and very thoughtful wedding anniversary gift.

If the couple have been married for more than a few years, it isn’t likely that you will find a bottle of the wine that was served at their wedding reception at a price that you would be willing to pay. If this is the case, you can choose the same wine but of a later vintage, and it will still be a wonderful anniversary gift.

Another choice for an anniversary wine gift might be to have a special wine label made or make one yourself. If you choose to make the special wine bottle label yourself, all you need is a picture of the wedding couple, a pair of scissors, a marker, some glue, and a little imagination. You just design a label yourself and paste it over the label that is already on the bottle of wine. Don’t forget to put the name of the wine on the label unless the couple really likes surprises. There are many companies both online and off that will make wine labels for you.

An anniversary gift of wine is a wonderful way to help the happy couple mark another year of wedded bliss.

The wine toast, “To a long life” might just have a good solid scientific basis. Mostly because the French (who consume a great deal of wine) always have lower cholesterol, and fewer incidences of heart disease and cancer than the rest of the world, scientists have been compelled to find out what causes this phenomenon. And they have traced that cause to wine consumption — specifically, to the compounds that are found in red wine.

The French consume more red wine than white wine, and there are more of the cancer-fighting properties in red wine than in white wine because these properties are mostly found in the skins of the grapes. The skins remain in contact with the juice in the production of red wine much longer than they do in the production of white wine.

I don’t want to get “technical” on you, but the compounds that the scientists have deemed responsible for these health benefits are biologically active phytochemicals. Polyphenols like catechins and resveratrol are believed to have antioxidant or anticancer properties.

Reveratrol is a kind of polyphenol called a phytoalexin. Phytoalexins are a class of compounds produced as part of a plant’s defense system against disease. These compounds are produced by plants to ward off fungus, stress, injury, infection, or just too much sunlight. The skins of grapes contain very high levels of these compounds and, thus, red wine contains high levels of these compounds. High levels of phytoalexins are also found in raspberries, peanuts, and other plants.

The studies being conducted into the cancer-fighting properties of red wine are in their early stages. Your doctor isn’t likely to prescribe a glass of red wine to fight cancer, but the implications are truly fascinating and certainly promising. A toast! To a long life!

The French drink red wine. They drink red wine, and they eat those wonderful creamy pastries. They drink red wine, and there is an entire dinner course of cheese. They drink red wine, and they eat those buttery croissants with added butter, cheese, or nice big pieces of red meat or pork sausage. The French drink red wine and, even with all of the rich cholesterol-producing foods that they consume, their cholesterol levels are lower than those in the rest of the civilized world. Do you see a pattern here?

Scientists have determined that the saponins found in red wine are what cause the health benefits that are apparently brought about by the consumption of red wine. Andrew Waterhouse, Ph.D., Professor of Enology at the University of California at Davis and an expert in wine chemistry, says, “Saponins are a hot new food ingredient. People are just starting to pay attention to it. The Saponins’ presence in wine adds to the mounting evidence that red wine really may make a difference in lowering your cholesterol.”

Wow! Red wine as medicine! Who knew? Saponins have been found in a lot of other foods, too, like olive oil and soybeans. Desert plants like the yucca and quillaja have even higher levels of this beneficial chemical. Scientific studies have proven that saponins affect the inflammation pathways. This is really medically exciting news, since it could have implications in heart disease and cancer.

Remember that the magic (saponins) is in red wine. They aren’t in white wine in anywhere near the levels of red wine. Champagne isn’t rich in saponins, either. Red wine! The next time that you are sharing a bottle of wonderful red wine with your friends, tell all of them that you are collectively fighting high cholesterol and maybe heart disease and cancer as well.