Thursday, April 30, 2009

The Answers to Questions about Wine

From time to time, people will approach me with such questions as, “How many calories does wine have?” or “I don’t get how to you can taste all those fruits and stuff in the wine,” or “What are tannins?” or “What health benefits do you get from wine?” or “I just don’t understand how people love wine or like it for that matter.”

How many calories are in wine?
I’d like to answer those questions. First off, wine is very low in calories. There is approximately 85 calories per glass. Vodka alone has 64 calories per one ounce shot and that’s just the alcohol.

How do I taste all that “stuff” in wine?
Haha! That really is a good question. For some people, they just have a good palate and can taste everything in the wine. For others, it’s a technique that you acquire over the years from experience.

One way to tell what flavors are in the wine is by sipping and swirling the wine in your mouth for a period of a few seconds. Feel the wine and taste it. There’s a taste and smell technique that involves sucking in air through your mouth while wine is still present. This is how you sense the aromas and true flavors in the wine. In this process, you have to envision what you taste. Use your imagination. You may taste truffles, cherries, minerals from the soil it was grown in, and the type of barrels the winemaker used. For a first-time wine drinker, it can be a difficult task, but not impossible. It just takes time.

What are Tannins?
Another presence in wine is called, “tannins”. Tannin is a tannin-like polyphonic compound and ethyl-bridged flavanols which is found in wines and highly acidic fruits. This comes from the grapes tough skin, much like the skin on green apples. Depending on the degree of tannins, it can be very tart to the taste. The lighter the tannin, results in the lightness of the body and smoothness of the wine. The heavier the tannins can result in a bitter taste and even a sour result with a longer finish. This is what is described from many wine drinkers as a “taste that lingers.” Sometimes, you don’t want a wine that lingers too long.

What health benefits do you get from wine?
Red wine in particular is rich in antioxidants, which is good for good cardio-vascular health, and increasing good cholesterol and aids in the prevention of artery damage.

The main property in red wine that helps prevent artery damage is reseveratrol. Resveratrol is an polyphenolic compound (antioxidant) found in many red wine grapes and in Japanese knotweed. There are claims that reserveratrol is an anti-aging compound, but that is a claim that is not proven. Some studies have shown that reserveratrol can reduce the symptoms of inflammation and blood clotting.

White wine also has traces of resveratrol in the wine, but because white wine is not fermented as long, it is not as highly concentrated as red wines.

Why do people love wine or like it for that matter?
To be fair, I don’t know how to answer that. It’s a personal taste, I suppose. I can only answer this from my own perspective as to why I love wine, because everyone has a different answer for this question.

Maybe, it feels a bit more sophisticated to drink wine versus a glass of beer, which is more common with the average Joe with a beer in his hand. Sometimes, I do enjoy a glass of beer, but not as much as a enjoy wine. Wine is more relaxing after a long stressful day.

Other than a few occasions from wine tasting events have I ever been drunk from consuming too much wine. I drink wine in moderation with about half a glass per day.

Wine is an adventure and can be fun. Beer taverns or micro-breweries don’t typically cover miles and miles of massive beautiful parts of lands. Wine tasting is an adventure in itself. You get to venture in areas that are full of lush fields. It can be breath taking to leave the city and get a personal view of the wine fields and other parts of the countryside.

When you’ve taken a journey into these areas and you come back home, you tend to have a craving for a glass of wine that represents where you visited. When you’ve discovered a new wine, you want to visit that winery and discover why it is so great.

If you haven’t experienced a visit to a particular wine region, put it on your a “to-do” list.

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