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The healthiest wines to drink, according to a dietitian

30 May 2024 By James Evison

A dietitian has outlined which wines are the “healthiest” to drink in moderation, and the styles which exhibit the greatest number of benefits from their antioxidant content.

Research previously explored by the drinks business showed that drinking a glass of organic red wine everyday can give you clearer, younger-looking skin. Thanks to the high levels of antioxidants, wine can help protect your skin against the damage caused by free radicals, which cause wrinkles and fine lines.

One glass of wine a day has been shown to improve skin’s elasticity, especially organic dry red wines. Pinot Noir is considered the “healthiest” wine, as it is high in antioxidants and low in sugar. However, you should avoid overdoing it, as excessive amounts of alcohol can cause damage to your skin.

So, in moderation, it is well-known that wines have properties that can be good for the skin, but can they also be good for the gut?

Pinot Noir

Writing in a medically reviewed article for Health.com, dietitian Cynthia Sass outlined how wines such as Pinot Noir were “among the healthiest wines” but equally other styles and types, including white wine, orange wine and rosé, also contain antioxidants.

According to Sass, the healthiest to drink was “ruby red” wines, which contain more antioxidants than other varieties — up to eight times more. This meant there were a number of health benefits, as outlined previously on db, including heart disease protection.

In addition, the red wines can “decrease the levels of ‘bad’ cholesterol and boost the levels of ‘good’ cholesterol in your blood”. Studies have shown daily moderate consumption of red wine is linked to a 12% increase in such ‘good’ cholesterol levels.

Red wine can also increase your lifespan due to resveratol found in the skin of red grapes, with Pinot Noir being one of the most potent to have the chemical at levels up to 16 milligrams per liter (mg/L) of resveratrol. It has also been shown that there other health benefits to resveratol, including a reduction ion the risk of colon and prostate cancer, according to Sass.

Orange wine

This summer’s favourite TikTok trend, orange wine, was described as the ‘second healthiest’ wine after red wines by Sass. She said that due to the process of production, where skin contact remains to create the orange hue, meant that the additional antioxidants, polyphenols, stayed in the juice.

As a result, it had a similar antioxidant content to red wine, and “may offer similar health benefits”. Sass pointed to a study which highlighted how it can be beneficial to heart health and protect against heart disease.

It found that total polyphenol content in orange wines was 0.6 times of red wines and 4.6 times higher than white wines. Similarly, the antioxidant capacity of orange wine was 0.6 times of red wines and 2.3 times higher than white wines.

Another popular wine for the sunshine, rosé, also obviously included skin-contact time, but because it was shorter than red and orange wines, meant fewer antioxidants — but it was still more than white wine.

Whites

In terms of white wine, where there is no skin contact time and therefore little opportunity for the same protective properties to remain in the juice, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t still some benefits to drinking white wine, Sass said.

She said that dry whites, which have less sugar than sweet whites, were healthier, and therefore better than some of their other alcoholic counterparts including spirits and cocktails.

Also, as highlighted by db, the social element of drinking wine and its wonderful flavour, especially when paired with different foods, has been shown to be beneficial to overall health.

Alongside a discussion of different styles of wine, Sass also comments on organic wines, referencing how they are “better for the environment and avoid pesticide residues”, meaning that holistically they offer health benefits in terms of reduced chemical-usage and pollution.

She added that wine drinkers should “choose organic whenever you can”, although admitting that the full benefits are not yet known.

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