We all know that drinking red wine is good for you and some of us have the hangovers to prove how healthy we are.
But now an Australian doctor has created what he claims is the world's healthiest wine which cleans your blood vessels even as you drink it, actively reducing your risk of heart attack.
Philip Norrie, a Sydney GP and former wine-maker has produced a wine with 100 times the amount of resveratrol, the antioxidant credited with giving wine its health giving properties, as normal wines.
Resveratrol, found in the skin of grapes, is widely known to combat heart disease but is usually found in relatively small quantities in wine - between 3 and 6 milligrams per litre in red wine, and just one milligram per litre in white wine.
But by infusing wine with 100 mg per litre of resveratrol, he has produced a "vascular pipe-cleaner", the ebullient doctor told The Times.
"I have wanted to invent the ultimate preventative medicine," he said. "Not only does this reduce your risk of heart attack, but you can drink less of it to get the same effect."
Over the last three years, Dr Norrie, an expert on the links between wine and health, has patented a method of extracting the anti-oxidant from the skin of red and white grapes and concentrating it before returning it to the wine in the bottling process.
He is now producing both a Chardonnay and a Shiraz, each with 100mg/L of resveratrol per bottle - as much as is contained in 70 to 100 bottles of standard white wine or 15 to 20 bottles of standard red.
"It doesn't affect the taste," he said. "It is entirely neutral in taste, bouquet and colour. A number of wine makers here in Australia have tasted it and can't tell the difference between this wine and others with lower levels."
There have been numerous attempts to increase the amount of resveratrol in wine recently, with varying levels of success. But never before has a wine maker been able to increase concentration of resveratrol to such levels.
Dr Norrie, who has written eight books on wine, is now talking to two of Australia's big four wine companies to use his methods in their wine making. He refused to name the companies with whom he is in talks but he confirmed it was any two of Constellation, Orlando, Penfolds and Fosters.
Professor David Colquhoun, a cardiologist at the University of Queensland who endorsed Dr Norrie's wine said: "Studies have strongly suggested that consumption of wine rich in resveratrol can lessen cardio-vascular disease, heart attack and stroke." --
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