By now everyone knows that red wine offers tremendous health benefits.  It promotes heart health, possibly fights cancer and slows down several aspects of aging, among other things.  The question is, how much do you need to drink to reap these benefits?  And is there a variety of red wine that is best from the healthy living standpoint?

Experts differ on the answer, and I think it’s because they really don’t know.  The ones who most cautious about drinking alcohol say that one glass per day is enough. But others recommend 2, 3, even 4 glasses.

Our answer is to go with what feels right to you, as long as you don’t make your daily dose of wine just an excuse for getting drunk.  One glass daily will provide you with most of the touted health benefits of red wine, so if more would not feel right to you, then limit yourself to just the one.  On the other hand, if you’re the type who likes to nurse a bottle all evening–sharing it with at least one other person, we hope–then go right ahead and drink 2 or 3 glasses.

The magic ingredient in red wine, everyone agrees, is resveratrol. It is has many anti-aging properties that are still undergoing much study.  But what’s known so far is quite positive, indeed. There are also other antioxidant chemicals in red wine that have been credited with a lowered risk of heart disease.  Furthermore, you get the benefits of a class of compounds called polyphenols (also found in tea, chocolate and fruit).

On balance, the red wine that is richest in all of these wonderful chemicals is Cabernet Sauvignon.  It is followed close behind by Petit Syrah and Pinot Noir.  So our recommendation is to select one of these varieties to get the most concentrated form of the “good stuff.”

P.S: Just saw in the news that an Australian scientist has succeeded in injecting red wine with 100 times the natural amount of resveratrol, without affecting drinkability.  It might be a while before a wine based on this breakthrough appears on the market, but we will definitely be among the first ones to get hold of it as soon as we can!

More people are learning of the health benefits of drinking a little wine each day, especially red wine.  Often, these are people who have never been wine drinkers, per se, and it’s unilikely they will ever want to sit down and drink an entire bottle in an evening or even more than one or two glasses. So, they are naturally interested in how to store a bottle of wine so that they drink it all over the course of several days and still have the last glass taste as good as the first one.

As one of these recent converts to wine drinking said it, “I know you shouldn’t put red wine in the refrigerator, and honestly cold pinot noir (my choice of wine) doesn’t sound appealing. I figure if I drink a generous-sized glass every day then it would take me three to four days to finish a bottle.  Would the wine be bad by the fourth day?”

The answer is that four days is about the limit for most red wine in a bottle that has been opened.  To keep it fresh that long, though, you should buy a Vacu-Vin or similar product. This device allows you to remove air from the bottle through the stopper, which keeps the air from oxidizing and going bad.  The bottle should also be kept out of the light as much as possible.  Sunlight is obviously bad, but even bright electric lights can deteriorate the wine, so storing the bottle in a cabinet (not over the stove though!) is a good idea.

By the way, this person’s instincts about not storing the wine in the fridge are excellent.  Red wine will keep a long time in the refrigerator, but, to our thinking, why would you want to drink a red wine that has been chilled?  Don’t do it!