Red benefits in white wine

Aficionados of white wine can take heart.

Israeli scientists have devised a way to make white wine that boasts health benefits similar to red wine, which may help ward off heart disease.

Research published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry details a process that yields white wine rich in so-called antioxidants, much like red wine already is.

Traditionally, white wine is made without use of grape skins. Red wine is made by fermenting the juice from grapes along with the skins. The skins provide red wine with its colour and contain the highest concentration of polyphenols, which are potent antioxidants.

Researchers, led by biochemist Michael Aviram, of the Rambam Medical Centre in Haifa, Israel, developed a method to make white wine that exploited the grape skins.

Mr Aviram said oxidised cholesterol in the blood was deposited in the arteries and could cause blockages and heart attacks.

"To prevent this oxidation of cholesterol, we need to consume antioxidants, preferably natural antioxidants that you get from fruits and vegetables."

Mr Aviram cited what he called the French paradox.

"The people in southern France, even though they eat fatty food, get almost one-fifth the rate of heart attacks as, let's say, the Finnish people, who also eat fatty food. Studies demonstrated that it has to do with the consumption of red wine in southern France.

"Many people, including me, like white wine. So I said: 'How can I prepare white wine ... with this beneficial health effect on cardiovascular diseases?"'

Mr Aviram felt he could increase antioxidants in white wine by extracting more grape skin polyphenols during processing.

His research team used whole, squeezed grapes and incubated them for up to 18 hours in the presence of alcohol before removing the skins. This resulted in a significant increase of white-wine polyphenols, up to six times the normal level, and exhibited antioxidant activity similar to that of red wine.

The polyphenol content was still just a quarter of the amount in red wine. But Mr Aviram said the similar antioxidant activities suggested that the white wine contained polyphenols with higher antioxidant activity than those found in the red wine.

An interesting side-effect of the process was that the addition of alcohol to the fermentation process produced an increase in the sugar level of the wine, yielding a sweet, dessert-type white wine.

"I like this dessert white wine, but I'd like to get dry white wine which also will have a red-wine-like health property."

- REUTERS