Wine, like woman, has a tag or intrigue and mystique associated with it. Wine has the power to seduce and engage wine drinkers by permitting you to peer within, yet keeping itself aloof and a little out of reach.

The bouquet of complex aromas, the rich colors, the soils and climates of where the grapes are grown all contribute to the nuances associated with wine. The well know traditional rituals of wine tasting such as swirling and smelling the wine, and all things associated to it has helped wine cultivate a rich vocabulary and the very many nuances contribute to this mystique.

And it has engaged the attention levels of the occasional drinker as much as it has involved the serious and professional wine maker. Even though wine is found in mall shelves good wine has always kept this veil of mystique intact.

And every well known wine label has deliberately contributed to this mystique by highlighting these nuances, and pertinently teasing our senses. The global wine drinking population is increasing day by day primarily owing to it being marketed as a health promoting natural beverage, when consumed in appropriate quantities.

It is a documented fact that wine drinkers have the highest levels of protective antioxidants in their blood and that both dietary levels and blood serum levels of antioxidants are linked to cardio-vascular function. Unlike alcohol, wine is removed from the guilt which accompanies conspicuous consumption. Wine is the new-age drink of the masses which is cool with mild intoxication and comes without any of the guilt associated to drinking.

Till recently, Champagne is the only alcoholic beverage you can drink for breakfast and risk not to be stared down by those at the table as it contains less than 20% of alcohol in content. Having said that, in the Cognac region of France, a farmer’s daily breakfast usually starts with cognac mixed in glass of orange juice and their neighbors, the Italians, fire up their morning espresso with a little grappa. So why shouldn’t you try to integrate wine into your breakfast menu, at least for the weekends? The old rules of pairing reds with beef, whites with fish and poultry still has merits though the habit in practice is a falling fast behind.

Wine is the new drink for any time, table and occasion. Moving ahead with time, wine bottles too have come far from the traditional way of corking and uncorking the bottle, corks are being replaced with screw caps which would spare you from the spate of search for a corkscrew.

Even though buying a bottle of wine from the beverage counter is as easy as buying anything else, some do not enjoy it as much as buying their own fruits and fermenting their own wine at home before bringing it to the table to be shared. Home wine making is deceptively simple process, for the first timer as much as it is for the experienced wine maker.

All it takes is putting together either fruit or a concentrate and adding up a few other ingredients into an air tight container and leaving it to Mother Nature to work upon. Proper proportion, an environment that aids healthy fermentation and timely stage-wise checking is all that need to be done to make your batch of home made wine.

Red wine benefits are numerous and plentiful. Red wine benefits are generally good for you, but it is important to know the specifics of these benefits because you can then employ them to serve your body better. Further research and studies have also shown that the red wine benefits are abundant, however it should also be importantly noted that in order to make use of the benefits red wine provides, a healthy lifestyle must also be maintained in conjunction with drinking red wine.

Although red wine is not considered a cure all and certainly not a replacement for visiting your doctor, you can find some widely agreed upon benefits to drinking red wine. There are a great many benefits that red wine brings, such as its ability to help lower LDL or bad cholesterol with the body ; this is a proven fact. It is commonly said that wine can be good for our health, but it is important to understand what the specifics are of these benefits in order for us to ensure that we make best of them.

One example of this is that not many people are actually aware that this applies only to red wine and that only red wine offers these benefits, because of the certain flavnoids in the red wine that is not available in white wine. This however does not necessarily mean that white wine is completely unhealthy, rather it is the red wine benefits that we particularly look for when looking for benefits from wine. However, it is important to remember that these benefits are based upon moderation rather than heavy or binge drinking.

The red wine you buy does not have to be the expensive ones if your budget doesn’t allow for it as there are a great many bottles of red wine for sale that are nominally priced which will give you options and not necessarily make your move to enjoying the red wine benefits an expensive undertaking, what is critical is that you maintain a good healthy diet along with drinking red wine. When it comes to drinking red wine for its health benefits, Cabernet sauvignon is the clear leader of the flavoid pack. If you want to reap the benefits of something such as wine, then you should also be eating a healthy, well-balanced diet, drinking plenty of water and getting lots of regular exercise.

What are the benefits of drinking red wine:

The anti-aging property function which keeps your arteries healthy and aids in boosting the immune system.

It is well known that red wines are a rich source of flavonoids, especially of flavonols. Plenty of research and studies have shown us that the red wine benefits are plentiful, but it is also important to realize that you have to maintain an otherwise healthy lifestyle at the same time. As a matter of fact, most authorities consider that the red wine benefits are lost if wine is consumed to excess. With all of the recent news on the health benefits of red wine, there is more reason than ever to indulge in a glass each day.

While you sip your favorite red wine imagine all the benefits and then thank your lucky stars. More so if you are member of a wine club. Wine Clubs are a subscriptions in which members receive 2 bottles of wine each month, delivered to your door. Wine clubs are a great way to get to sample different types of wines picked by people who know about quality, vintages and what the labels mean.

Researchers have found that men who drink an average of four to seven glasses of red wine per week are only 52% as likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer as those who do not drink red wine, reports the June 2007 issue of Harvard Men’s Health Watch. In addition, red wine appears particularly protective against advanced or aggressive cancers.

Researchers in Seattle collected information about many factors that might influence the risk of prostate cancer in men between ages 40 and 64, including alcohol consumption. At first the results for alcohol consumption seemed similar to the findings of many earlier studies: There was no relationship between overall consumption and risk.

But the scientists went one step further by evaluating each type of alcoholic beverage independently. Here the news was surprising-wine drinking was linked to a reduced risk of prostate cancer. And when white wine was compared with red, red had the most benefit. Even low amounts seemed to help, and for every additional glass of red wine per week, the relative risk declined by 6%.

Why red wine? Doctors don’t know. But much of the speculation focuses on chemicals-including various flavonoids and resveratrol-missing from other alcoholic beverages. These components have antioxidant properties, and some appear to counterbalance androgens, the male hormones that stimulate the prostate.

Many doctors are reluctant to recommend drinking alcohol for health, fearing that their patients might assume that if a little alcohol is good, a lot might be better. The Harvard Men’s Health Watch notes that men who enjoy alcohol and can drink in moderation and responsibly may benefit from a lower risk of heart attack, stroke, diabetes, and cardiac death.

Q:  Is it true that red wine is good for one’s health?

A: As long as it’s not abused, red wine can, indeed, have a beneficial effect on your health. For a long time researchers were aware of the cardiovascular benefits of the flavonoids contained in red wine. More recently, they’ve discovered two other classes of antioxidants that further contribute to the well being of the drinker. The first, called saponins, act to prevent the absorption of cholesterol in the body while the second, resversatrol, is thought to inhibit tumor development in some cancers.

Flavonoids are antioxidants found in the skin and seeds of red grapes. They are known to reduce the risk of heart disease by lowering the levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, the so-called “bad” cholesterol, while boosting levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) or “good” cholesterol. There’s also evidence that flavonoids help keep blood vessels dilated and stop red blood cells from clumping together, thus diminishing the risk of heart attack or stroke.

The skin of the red grape is also the source for saponins. This cholesterol inhibitor is also found in soybeans and peas. Its concentration in red wine is 10 times higher than in white wine. Resversatrol also comes from the grape skin. As well as it’s potential benefits for cancer patients, this antioxidant appears to help in the formation of nerve cells, which makes it important in the treatment of such neurological diseases as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. There has also been some publicity to the effect that resversatrol may have an anti-aging effect. This is based on a Harvard study in which the life span of yeast cells was extended by 80 % when resversatrol was added to them. It remains to be seen whether the same benefits will result with human cells.

Another compound found in the skins of red grapes, polyphenol, acts to inhibit the chemicals in the body that make blood vessels constrict. This reduces the fatty streaks in the vessels, making them healthier which, in turn, makes their owner less likely to suffer a heart attack.

However, there is a negative side to counter all of this good news. It appears that just one glass of wine (red or white) per day is enough to increase a woman’s risk of breast cancer by 6%. As a result many health professionals are wary of recommending regular red wine consumption, despite the proven cardiovascular and other benefits. If you do decide to regularly partake for your health’s sake, keep it to around a glass per night.

American scientists and other health experts from around the world are puzzled as they try to discover the “secret” behind the French Paradox. The problem is that the French consume three times as much saturated fat as Americans and one-third less French people die from heart attacks. The French also have much less obesity than America and other Western countries.

The French eat rich foods high in saturated fats, such as cream, butter, pastry and rich cheeses. But they also consume red wine and olive oil. Researchers have found olive oil to be a heart-healthy source of fat. However, the olive oil the French consume does not rule out the high amounts of saturated fats they eat, and therefore does not properly explain the French paradox.

Red wine may be the reason. Some scientists believe the French habit of moderate red wine drinking with a meal is the key to French paradox. Studies show that people who drink red wine regularly have lower rates of cancer, Alzheimers, and heart disease.

Red wine and red grapes contain special flavinoid antioxidants called resveratrol, that can offset some of the effects of gluttony, say researchers at Harvard Medical School. Resveratrol is shown to help lower glucose levels, help your liver, and promote health benefits to the heart and blood vessels.

Red grapes are one of the richest sources of resveratrol flavonoids, which is why red wine is more heart-healthy than white wine, beer, or other spirits.

Resveratrol is known for its ability to protect plants from bacteria and fungi, and researchers are now finding out that it helps us by preventing the negative effects of high-calorie diets, and it has anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer potential.

Researchers are finding that antioxidants seem to trigger receptors in your upper intestine that tell your brain you’re full, researcers are finding. Lab animals fed the extracts also decreased their food intake by about 8%. This could explain why Resveratrol- a powerful antioxidant- seems to produce a weight loss effect that many people’s experience when they use it.

One recent study showed that resveratrol reverses the coronary and obesity effects of a diet high in fat and calories in mice. When large doses of resveratrol was given to lab mice, the mice ran twice as far on a treadmill than they had previously and also had a reduced heart rate. The mice also lived longer than mice who had not received the resveratrol.

The findings led to a marked increase in red wine sales in the United States despite the fact that the amount of resveratrol is very small in most red wines in the United States, because of the way that most grapes are grown and processed for wine.

If you are ready to add these beneficial nutrients to your diet, it’s important that you find a source that is powerful, natural and bio-available (easily absorbed and used by your body).

I found a great whole food supplement that includes these ingredients. It is called Genesis™ from Symmetry Direct. Each single ounce of Genesis™ is guaranteed to contain the health benefits of resveratrol equivalent to one whole bottle of red wine, plus the hydroxylated polyphenols found in one fresh pomegranate.