Nice little plum:
“But honestly, whether science demonstrates the benefits of wine is largely irrelevant to me.
I drink wine because I love it, because it enhances food and conversation, it brings people together, it’s fascinating, occasionally contemplative and almost always delicious.”
All the lemmings are coming in asking for Cannonau now because apparently they read somewhere that it has the most antioxidants.
It’s become a thing where government/academia/industry collaborate to tell you the incredible health benefits of everything, wine, chocolate, olive oil, coffee, tea, every kind of fruit and vegetable, etc. My dad worked for the USDA for a portion of his career, and they appear to run one after another “research” project funded by farming or food industry groups, which inevitably conclude how amazing the item in question is for you, and generate an item for the news cycle to that effect (note: this is my opinion and observation, not his).
And that’s not to say that some of those things don’t have some health benefits when used in certain amounts, but mostly it’s just a new form of marketing and commercialism that I think you can just tune out. You aren’t going to turn your life’s healthfulness around by drinking more red wine, drinking more coffee, eating more chocolate, or whatever.
That was the first wine that came to mind here for me. I was in a Total Wine last month and overheard an exchange with a customer looking for Cannonau, wherein the customer was told they were sold out, and the clerk then mentioning everyone must have watched the same Dr. Oz episode. Curious, I did a quick search and learned that author Dan Buettner had linked the high polyphenol content of this wine to the exceptional longevity of the people of Sardenia. My personal belief is that reduced stress levels likely had more effect on the longevity of Sardinians than drinking a specific red wine with a comparatively higher polyphenol count. I would posit Sardinians could substitute any red wine (for their local Cannonau) and the longevity stats would remain mostly the same.
From a related Facebook page quoting Oz:
"People of Sardinia who drink this wine are 10 times more likely to live to 100. they have their first glass of wine about ten in the morning. Drink another glass of Cannonau Red Wine at lunch, another at happy hour and another at dinner.
Dan Buettner tells Dr Oz the best wine on the planet for longevity, “Cannonau Red Wine”. Cannonau wine has the highest count of polyphenols in the world. In his book, Blue Zones, Dan Buettner, in conjunction with National Geographic, determined that Cannonau wine does in fact play a role in the longevity of the Sardinian population. From this research and the known effects of flavonoids, it can be said that moderate wine consumption may increase life expectancy while also lowering stress levels.
People of Sardinia drink very small glasses of this Cannonau wine, which in toll may add up to two glasses of wine at the days end.
You can buy Cannonau Wine for about $15-$20 CLICK HERE for a selection of Cannonau Wine."
Would they get the same bang for their buck with any old grenache (which is what cannonau is)?
Henry,
You can definitely get better deals on Rhone or S. France Grenache, but Cannonau at the entry level is not exactly a bank-breaker.
Brent,
I was trying to comment on the silliness of the premise. As in “only THIS wine will save ya”…
Dr. Oz invested in Cannonau futures?
You do raise a fair point. I would be interested in seeing what the actual numbers look like relative to a broader selection of red grapes, in order to better judge how significant the polyphenol differences really are. One can claim a wine has “the most polyphenols in the world” and it be true, but relative differences can be easily overstated without any real understanding of the basis of comparison and absent the related supporting details. Can the author fairly claim Cannonau wine has most polyphenols, if for example, he only used data comparing a handful of grape varieties to reach this conclusion?
I would also be curious to know if the same grape variety could possibly differ significantly in polyphenol levels based on where it was planted. My SWAG would be no. I have read (* pg 112) that polyphenol levels can be affected by processing conditions (crushing, pressing, sulphite additions, skin contact, oak aging), which could suggest any measurable differences in polyphenol levels between Grenache grown in France and Cannonau from Sardinia would more likely be related to processing than geography.
Probably not as profitable an idea as a long position in green coffee beans [a diet fad Dr. Oz was promoting].
This. I’m not saying the chemicals don’t have any role, but it’s minimal. Balance and moderation.
Had to chuckle this morning when an email offering from the ever-alert good guys at Wine Exchange took a stab at leveraging the ‘Oz effect’ by including the following copy in their monthly e-blast:
"ISLAND FEVER?
For the past few months, we’ve noticed a wave of customers inquiring and requesting Cannonau wines from Sardinia, Italy. It seemed quite strange at first that a number of seemingly disparate folks would suddenly seek out a rather obscure wine from a very specific but rather off-the-beaten-tourist-route appellation. Were the hipster Italian eateries suddenly promoting Sardinian wines? Not likely. After getting a disproportionate number of requests, like as many in a week as we had gotten since, well, ever, someone clued us in. One of our customers explained that the wine was featured on an episode of The Dr. Oz Show where he visited Sardinia, home to the most male centenarians on earth. We can recall a similar phenonmenon, though shorter lived and much less intense, with Madiran some years back. The impression we got was that people were led to believe that one of the reasons that there were so many men of such an advanced age in Sardinia was in part due to their consumption if Cannonau.
Thus began our search for some quality Cannonau. Usually we have two or three on the shelves anyway. But we had gone though something of a dry spell. Our most consistent source through the years was a guy who was selling wines from his family’s estate. But he had health problems and we hadn’t been in contact with him for quite a while. We had tasted a couple of others that simply didn’t make the cut, but in truth, it’s not like there are countless examples out the marketplace anyway. Then, quite by accident, in walked someone selling a good line of Sardinian wines from a producer called Pala. Originally established in 1950, Pala is still operated today, now by the third generation of the family. Winemaker Mario Pala focuses on his Sardinian roots and believe that their unique micro climates are the most important aspects of their wines. They have 58 hectares of vineyards in 5 five separate locations all planted to different varietals. By the way, the name Cannonau is what the natives call Grenache, but on this marine influenced terroir of this island yields an example that is unique. The ‘great white’ of the region is Vermentino."
Disclaimer: I have no association with Wine Exchange other than being an occasional customer.