Always A Good Time For A Glass Of Wine

A good wine's quality is the result of a combination between a sandy soil and the hot and dry summer, besides the grape variety. The strain of yeast used in the fermentation process can also give particular features of a top quality wine, like smell, color and flavor.

Now, Australian chemists have come with the molecule that gives the red wine its peppery aroma, and which could allow wine producers to manipulate the bouquet of their productions. Black pepper aroma and flavor are crucial for characterizing some red wines, like those made with Shiraz grapes, but there was no method to determine during the fermentation process if the peppery aromas had been developed, as the chemical(s) responsible for this was not known.

Five years of research were necessary for a team at the Australian Wine Research Institute in Adelaide to search for the perfect fragrance and the Australian researchers discovered that just one chemical was determining the spicy smell. The grapes used for the investigation came from Victoria and South Australia. "Known as alpha-ylangene, that compound is so pungent that a single drop is enough to make an entire Olympic-size swimming pool smell peppery," said institute chemist Mango Parker.

"The finding could have major implications for the multi-billion dollar Australian wine industry, as Shiraz constitutes one-fifth of its output and is by far the most popular red variety. If you can measure something, you can understand its behavior and how to control it," said Parker.

"Winemakers might one day alter the pepper aroma in red wine the same way they now alter its characteristics with different yeast varieties or oak barrel fermentation. While scientific instruments such as a mass spectrometer were used to track down the aroma compound, which has a concentration of one part per billion, old-fashioned methods were the most effective. At the end of the day, a lot of people did a lot of sniffing throughout the research. Our noses were our most sensible and reliable detectors", she explained.

Red Wine an Efficient Weapon against Alzheimer's - The Pinot Noir wine is the most recommended By: Tudor Raiciu, World and Health News Editor

After discovering Bryostatin's benefic effects on Alzheimer's, the researchers announced that the red wine might also be an efficient remedy.

A new study shows that resveratrol, a compound found in grapes and red wine, lowers the levels of the amyloid-beta peptides, which are responsible for the disease.

"Resveratrol is a natural polyphenol occurring in abundance in several plants, including grapes, berries and peanuts. The polyphenol is found in high concentrations in red wines. The highest concentration of resveratrol has been reported in wines prepared from Pinot Noir grapes", explains study author Philippe Marambaud.

One of the characteristic features of Alzheimer's disease is the deposition of amyloid-beta peptides in the brain. Philippe Marambaud and his colleagues at the Litwin-Zucker Research Center for the Study of Alzheimer's Disease and Memory Disorders in Manhasset, New York, administered resveratrol to cells which produce human amyloid-beta and tested the compound's effectiveness by monitoring amyloid-beta levels inside and outside the cells.

They found that levels of amyloid-beta in the treated cells were much lower than those in untreated cells. However, the discovery doesn't imply that grapes alone constitute a remedy for Alzheimer's, the likelihood that the concentrations of resveratrol in the fruit are insufficient high.

Following up on their studies, Marambaud and his colleagues are trying to figure out how resveratrol exerts its effects in order to develop similar compounds to use in fighting Alzheimer's disease.

"Our long-term goal is now to elucidate the exact molecular mechanisms involved in the beneficial properties of resveratrol as a necessary prerequisite to the identification of novel molecular targets and therapeutic approaches", said Dr. Marambaud.

Why Does Red Wine Make You Sleep? - A sleep hormone may have been discovered in grapes used to make red wines By: Sci/Tech News Staff Scientists in Italy say they have discovered that the grapes used to make some of the most popular red wines contain high levels of the sleep hormone melatonin. Melatonin is naturally secreted by the pineal gland in the brain, especially at night. It tells the body when it is time to sleep.

The discovery of melatonin in grape skin could explain why so many of us hit the bottle in the evening to wind down after a day's hard slog. "The melatonin content in wine could help regulate the circadian rhythm [sleep-wake patterns], just like the melatonin produced by the pineal gland in mammals," says researcher Iriti Marcello at the University of Milan.

Until recently, melatonin was thought to be exclusively produced by mammals but has recently been discovered in plants. It is thought to have antioxidant properties. Iriti's study discovered high levels of melatonin in Nebbolo, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Sangiovesse and Croatina grape varieties.

Iriti's team has also shown that melatonin content can be enhanced in grapes by treating vines with a plant vaccine Benzothiadiazole.

However, other scientists, such as Richard Wurtman of the brain and cognitive science department at MIT, are unconvinced. Wurtman has said that further research is needed to determine whether the compounds discovered are indeed melatonin, or something very similar.

White Wine Gets a Healthy Makeover - A team of researchers has come up with a method to make white wine as healthy as its red counterpart By: Monica Gaza, Life & Style Editor Hands up, all you white wine lovers out there. Even though there's nothing like a hearty glass of red to keep our body and mind happy and load us with a cheerful dose of optimism, there's something about white wine that makes it a favorite with many of us ladies.

Whether it's the luxurious golden color, the fragrance or simply the taste and texture that delight us, the truth is that life without a glass of white wine would be a much lonelier place. However, despite their many beneficial properties (white wine is rich in both tyrosol and caffeic acid, two chemicals that have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties) white wines have always been seen as less health-friendly than their red counterparts – until now.

The main difference between red and white wine is that when the former is made, the skins of the grapes (which contain chemical compounds such as polyphenols and procyanidins, which act as natural antioxidants and help lower blood pressure and cholesterol) are crushed alongside the pulp; white wine on the other hand is made by separating the pulp from the skins and thus contains less beneficial substances than its red counterpart.

However, recent research carried out at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, indicates that there are ways to actually make white wine as healthy as the red – namely, by leaving the polyphenol-rich skins of the white grapes to ferment with the pulp for an interval of about 18 hours and subsequently adding a small amount of pure alcohol.

This ensures that the polyphenol content of white grapes is preserved in the resulting white wine. "Since many of us like white wine I thought I would try to produce one with all the goodies intact", says Michael Aviram, professor of biochemistry and medicine at the Israeli institute and leader of the research team. "The only downside is that it is sweet like a dessert wine because the added alcohol inhibits the ability of the sugar in the grape to convert to alcohol". Stay tuned for more news on this spectacular new brand of health-friendly wine.

White Grapes as Beneficial for Health as Red Ones - White and red are equally potent against cardiovascular disorders and both the skin and the flesh of grapes are beneficial for the health By: Alexandra Lupu, Health News Editor If until now red grapes were thought to be considerably more beneficial for our health, especially for the heart, a recent study showed that white clusters are just as good for the heart as their darker cluster fellows. A new lab study conducted by Italian and US scientists proved that white grapes and wine offer as much protection against cardiovascular disorders as red grapes and wine. Scholar Dipak Das from the University Of Connecticut School Of Medicine worked with researchers from the University of Milan and several other research institutes in Italy for completing the study.

The research carried out on mice also showed that grapes' skin is as healthy as their flesh. Contrary to the belief that the flesh is healthier, as it more nutritive compounds, the skin was found as beneficial for the health as the flesh. "The results indicate for the first time that the flesh of grapes are equally cardioprotective as skin, and the antioxidant potential of skin and flesh of grapes are comparable with each other despite the fact that flesh does not possess any anthocyanin activities," wrote researchers in the report published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

In the laboratory trial, researchers formed three groups of mice: animals in the first group received dietary supplementation with water only, those in the second group received grape flesh extract and those in the third group were administered grape skin extract. After a 30 day period, the team investigated all mice and found that those treated with grape skin and flesh extract were at lower risk of stroke and heart attack. However, no difference between the benefits of skin and flesh of grapes was noticed.

"On the basis of the findings that resveratrol and proanythocyanidins are present in the skins and seeds of the grapes, much attention has been paid to these parts and not the flesh. The present study indicates that several organic acids and polyphenols possessing potent antioxidant activities present in the flesh of grapes are also found in white wines," researchers noted.

Red grapes have been praised until now by nutritionists and medical experts for the natural pigments found in these fruits: the flavonoids. Flavonoids are red, blue or violet pigments that confer the same color to the plant or fruit, therefore they are found in red or blue-violet grapes, not in white grapes. The most two potent flavonoids found in grapes are: quercitin and resveratrol. Flavonoids are a class of naturally occurring plant compounds that function as antioxidants. They are plant pigments and even if they are not labeled as essential nutrients, they enhance the processing of vitamin C, which is itself a powerful antioxidant. Flavonoids are also needed to maintain capillary walls and protect against infections. Deficiency of flavonoids may lead to easily bruising.

Flavonoids are extremely potent anti-oxidants. Antioxidant properties of the natural pigments fight against molecular oxidation by the free radicals; this is why they are called anti-oxidants. In our body an infinite number of chemical reactions take place every day. Therefore, scientists Italian and US researchers have discovered that both white and red grapes are beneficial for the heart and also both the skin and the flesh of a grape have the same positive effects on our body. "Although further study is needed to identify the principle ingredients responsible for the cardio-protective abilities of the grape flesh, to the best of our knowledge, our study provides evidence for the first time that the flesh of grapes is equally cardio-protective with respect to the skins," scientists concluded.