Superfoods: Red Wine

Abbey and I have been on a crusade to develop a lifelong menu plan that maximizes health benefits, but consists of genuinely tasty food. Emerging from the South Beach phase one, many foods once taboo are now allowed, many of them that feature prominently in lists of superfoods. Our research naturally led, eventually, to wine. Red wine is the single greatest source of reservatrol, an enzyme that may reverse the effects of aging (peanuts come in a distant second, which have about half the reservatrol). Red wines from Chile and Argentina have higher levels than red wines from France, which nonetheless rank a respectable third. The grapes that have the highest level of reservatrol are malbec, petite sirah, st. laurent and pinot noir.

There is a second benefit of red wine as well: flavonoids, which fight free radicals, thus having anti-cancer and aging benefits. The flavonoids known as Proanthocyanidins are especially abundant in red wines. OPCs (short for Oligomeric ProanthoCyanidins) are abundant particularly in wines made with malbec and tannat grapes.

I saw this as a way to learn more about wines that I have never considered. The criteria could simply be whichever wines offered the greatest health benefit. I steeled myself, resolving to have a daily dose of wine with high levels of OPCs and reservatrol, no matter how nasty they were. I just assumed I would not like them as I have had tannin-rich red wines that did not agree with me at all. I decided to focus on the OPC benefit and sample Argentinian Malbec and Tannat from the Madiran area of Southwestern France.

I was fortunate enough to find an Argentinian Malbec in the neighborhood, on the shelf at the local grocery store. I wish I had made a note of the vintage; it was quite good, surprisingly, rich but dry. Pleasantly surprised,  and determined to compare it with a tannat, I did some research and found an attractively priced Madiran tannat on the fantastic K&L Wines site; they rushed it right out, securely packaged in a custom-formed carton specifically designed for the purpose of shipping a single bottle of wine across the continent. This particular tannat is Domaine Berthoumieu Madiran, vintage 2006. We opened it tonight and Abbey and I were both impressed. It is a dry red, full of fruity flavor, complex, dark, delicious. I could easily drink a glass of this vintage every day- I'm currently trying to figure out how to budget for a case of it. Not that I plan to limit my exploration to this particular wine; but I am pleased to discover healthy wine can also be delicious. I plan on engaging in this healthy habit from now on.