Posts are circulating around the blogosphere like crazy lately about new studies showing grape seed extract to kill leukemia cells. It triggers apoptosis, which essentially means the cancer cells commit cell suicide. Fascinating stuff. The significance of grapes… we’ve talked about resveratrol here a lot and the anti-oxidant healing powers of wine. This stuff is becoming quite the cultural phenomenon. Grapes? who would have thought

Read the rest of this entry »

To kick-start my new program I enjoyed the 2006 Gadais Pére et Fils Muscadet Sèvre et Maine from the Loire Valley. Something interesting was happening here, there was a sweetness on the nose of vanilla and chocolate chip cookie dough. When I tasted it though, there was a slight sweetness upfront, but then the dryness came out with a mild effervescence. On the palate I was picking up a gummy bear fruit flavor ending with sugar cookies. Sounds delicious, well it was, and this certainly has Wine Your Diet written all over it.

For those of you not familiar with Muscadet, it is a region within the Loire Valley in North West France. The grape is Muscadet, but if outside of this area will go by Melon, such as Melon de Bourgogne. This wine can be both white and red. Though the name is similar to Muscat, it is not related.

If you are looking to eat something with this, I would go with something light such as seafood. This is great wine with Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a little bit of Grape Thinking for you — it was just announced last week that University of Rochester medical researchers have showed for the first time that Resveratrol, the powerful antioxidant found in grape skins, helps destroy pancreatic cancer cells – Read more here. There is a lot of controversy over this topic and the researchers are calling it a very ’seductive’ area of study right now.

We love this because it’s one of the main influences in our brand name — we’re all about a healthy lifestyle and we think that wine is a vital component to healthy living. Read the rest of this entry »

This is such an important idea, that I thought it should be followed up with another post, especially just now seeing the cover of the most recent Wine Spectator.

Renewable energies, recyclable supply chains, organic growing methods, and healthy lifestyles are the wave of the future. We won’t just be driving hydrogen powered cars and have our electricity generated from photovoltaic solar panels and off-shore wind farms. Every aspect of human nature is going to change… our habits, our routines, and even our thought processes… systematic instead of linear. Waste management and recyclables will be integrated into every imaginable human system to promote efficiency and productivity, foods will be organic and healthy lifestyles will be promoted, and most importantly, our planet will be cherished instead of cut down, polluted, and destroyed.

And what’s a better place to help start this movement than wineries? They’re some of the most beautiful and aesthetically pleasing locations in the world (just look at the rise in wine tourism) and they create a product that is doctor recommended as good for your health, with red wine having the magical anti-aging component Resveratrol. Check out an old post about this: The Human Elixir

Aside from just being a Green evangelist, (although this revolution will absolutely make the world a healthier, happier, and wealthier place), green technologies and green marketing is something that wineries should certainly partake in. Not only will investment in green energy sources and eco-friendly farming methods make your winery more profitable and your product that much more natural and tasty, but having the ability to market yourselves as a Green winery will make you more attractive to your consumers.

When Al Gore released his movie “An Inconvenient Truth” last year, the trend tipped, making it more than a movement for treehugging hippies and Greenpeace activists. It’s now a movement that everybody is starting to get behind (other than Exxon and other special interested oil companies) all because of the overwhelmingly positive potential of its impact on our world. We’re hopefully about to enter another Golden Age of human civilization and wineries can help lead the way. It makes sense.

So lately I’ve been infatuated with the whole idea of wine’s health benefits. It just seems so righteous. Wine is consumed by all nationalities, ethnicities, races, and religions and has been around since the roots of civilization. It’s not surprising that it gives us a little more than a buzz.

In the Fortune article pictured left, it was discussed that wine, more specifically red wine, can slow down the aging process. It highlights Sirtris, a pharmaceutical company based out of Cambridge, that is working to synthesize the magical component in red wine known as Resveratrol, and hopes to deliver it in an anti-aging pill one day.

The process all starts right at the core of our life force… the energy producing components of our cells known as mitochondria, which convert sugars into energy and power the human body. Just like a coal plant produces energy and pollutes greenhouse gases that harm our planet, mitochondria also pollute in the form of free radicals that cause damage to our cells and our bodies. More so, these free radicals harm other mitochondria, causing them to become more inefficient and give off more free radicals, thus sparking the cell-degrading snowball effect that is thought to be the major cause of aging. Read the rest of this entry »