“Wine is the most healthful and most hygienic of beverages.” – Louis Pasteur

I haven’t had any wine thus far this week, but I still felt like writing about something so instead of a rant about plastic/people/problems, here are 13 health benefits of wine:

1 Wine will help you live for longer: In a study over a 29-year period in Finland, wine drinkers had a 34% lower mortality rate than beer or spirits drinkers.

2 If you drink wine in moderation and suffer from a high blood pressure, you’re 30% less likely to have a heart attack than someone who doesn’t drink wine at all!

3 Wine is high in antioxidants, which you probably already knew. Antioxidants help fight off free radicals that can cause tricky health problems like cancer.

4 Wine could make you skinny, or at the very least, stop you from getting fat. Red grapes contain a compound called piceatannol which has the ability to block the process that causes fat cells to grow.

5 You’ll have better skin if you drink red wine (and apply Caudalie face cream.) Resveratrol is a potent polyphenol found in red wine that targets the free radicals guilty of loosening your skin’s elasticity.

6 Resveratrol also helps lower the levels of bad cholesterol in your body, improving heart health and boosting the levels of good cholesterol.

7 The darker the wine, the higher the antioxidant content in general. According to the University of California; Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Zinfandel, Syrah and Petit Syrah are the best ‘healthy’ wines. I’d probably include Tannat in there too.

8 According to a study carried out in Italy (laughs) – women who have two glasses of wine each day are likely to enjoy sex a lot more than women who don’t drink at all. Makes sense.

9 Red wine helps to boost levels of omega-3 fatty acids in plasma and red blood cells, so if you don’t fancy eating fish, reach for the red.

10If you suffer from type-2 diabetes; drinking a glass of red wine with your dinner modestly decreases carbiometabolic risk.

11 A long term study carried out by Loyola University Medical Center found that moderate wine drinking can reduce the risk of developing dementia.

12 We’ve already mentioned resveratrol, but essentially everything in wine that isn’t ethanol is a type of polyphenol. The most abundant are Procyanidins, the same condensed tannin found in green tea and dark chocolate that will help with keeping blood vessels nice and healthy among other things.

13 There are also studies that suggest red wine improves bone density, meaning we need to carry on drinking into our later years to stay nice and sturdy.