Stella Rossa asked:


Red wine is a rich source of resveratrol, and contains significantly more resveratrol than white wine. This is because the grape skins are left in with the juice for longer when making red wine, and the skins are where most of the resveratrol is found. The resveratrol content varies considerably from one red wine to another, however. So, what are the best red wines for resveratrol content?

By far the highest resveratrol content (around 40mg/liter) is found in both red and white wines made from the thick-skinned Muscadine grape, which is native to Florida and other parts of the south-eastern United States. Muscadine wine is not widely available outside the US, however.

Other red wines typically contain between 2 and 12.5mg of resveratrol per liter. Of the more popular grape varieties, Pinot Noir produces wines with the highest average resveratrol levels. The Pinot Noir grape tends to thrive in temperate, damp climates which also encourage molds and yeasts that attack vines and other plants. In this humid environment, plants produce increased quantities of resveratrol to defend against oxidization damage from fungal growth and other external pressures. Scientists have discovered that resveratrol has similar antioxidant benefits for the human body.

Pinot Noir from its native Burgundy, France, as well as from Oregon, Washington State or New Zealand generally contains more resveratrol than the equivalent wine from a hotter, dryer area such as California or Australia. Levels will also vary significantly from one vintage to another depending on the temperature and rainfall during the growing period. You don’t need to restrict yourself to drinking Pinot Noir, though – other red wines from cool, damp regions of the world are just as likely to offer good levels of resveratrol. The key to picking a red wine that gives you a decent amount of resveratrol is therefore to know a bit of geography.

Harry J. Andersohn asked:


For years we’ve been told that drinking wine, and in particular red wine, was beneficial to your health. A lot of people assumed that it might be the alcohol in the wine that was providing the health benefits. But they couldn’t have been more wrong.

Recent trials and studies in the lab have pretty much shown conclusively that the health benefits we’re getting from that wine are from the antioxidants, the polyphenols, and above all else, the resveratrol.

By the way, in a second I’m going to show you why drinking wine in order to get the benefits of resveratrol is a dangerous way to go about things.

Down at the end of this article, I’ll show you how to get resveratrol into your system without having to do damage to your body by drinking massive amounts of alcohol. I can’t stress how important this is. So please stay tuned for that.

But first, let’s talk about exactly what resveratrol is, and its relationship to wine.

So finally we know what it is in the wine that is responsible for things like the French Paradox and other mysteries relating to how people who eat a less than ideal diet still manage to remain largely free of the kinds of diseases and health problems that afflict so many Americans.

It wasn’t known until recently just how powerful resveratrol actually is. We now know that it’s as much as 50 times more powerful than vitamin C, for example, and has been shown to do everything from protect against cancer to slow down — dare I say reverse — the aging process.

Pretty good stuff. Now, the only problem with resveratrol is the way most people get it — through that wine that we mentioned above. This is because in order to get sufficient quantities of resveratrol to get the maximum benefit, you have to drink many, many bottles of wine every day. While this may sound like fun, the amount that you have to drink would quickly lead to other health problems that even resveratrol couldn’t solve.

The bottom line is that the alcohol in the wine has the potential to largely undo the benefits of the resveratrol. Your body has to work extra hard to remove the toxicity associated with the alcohol you’re drinking. And when that happens, it’s pretty obvious that you’re probably doing more harm than good, even if you are getting a decent amount of resveratrol in the bargain.