A team of researchers has come up with a method to make white wine as healthy as its red counterpart

Jun 23, 2008 09:40 GMT  ·  By

Hands up, all you white wine lovers out there. Even though there's nothing like a hearty glass of red to keep our body and mind happy and load us with a cheerful dose of optimism, there's something about white wine that makes it a favorite with many of us ladies.

Whether it's the luxurious golden color, the fragrance or simply the taste and texture that delight us, the truth is that life without a glass of white wine would be a much lonelier place. However, despite their many beneficial properties (white wine is rich in both tyrosol and caffeic acid, two chemicals that have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties) white wines have always been seen as less health-friendly than their red counterparts - until now.

The main difference between red and white wine is that when the former is made, the skins of the grapes (which contain chemical compounds such as polyphenols and procyanidins, which act as natural antioxidants and help lower blood pressure and cholesterol) are crushed alongside the pulp; white wine on the other hand is made by separating the pulp from the skins and thus contains less beneficial substances than its red counterpart.

However, recent research carried out at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, indicates that there are ways to actually make white wine as healthy as the red - namely, by leaving the polyphenol-rich skins of the white grapes to ferment with the pulp for an interval of about 18 hours and subsequently adding a small amount of pure alcohol.

This ensures that the polyphenol content of white grapes is preserved in the resulting white wine. "Since many of us like white wine I thought I would try to produce one with all the goodies intact", says Michael Aviram, professor of biochemistry and medicine at the Israeli institute and leader of the research team. "The only downside is that it is sweet like a dessert wine because the added alcohol inhibits the ability of the sugar in the grape to convert to alcohol". Stay tuned for more news on this spectacular new brand of health-friendly wine.