A science writer extols the virtues of red wine made in hot and sunny climates.

A science writer extols the virtues of red wine made in hot and sunny climates.

Abook by James Wong, a London-based botanist, science writer and broadcaster, arrived at our house recently. How to Eat Better describes itself as being “not about what to eat, but how to eat the foods you love to get the very best out of them – all backed by the very best scientific evidence going”. It reflects the contents of nearly 3000 research papers.

At the end of the book, Wong discusses alcoholic drinks – and how to get the very best out of them. Moderate drinking, which he defines as “no more than two glasses a day”, has potential health benefits for most people, he believes.

Studies generally suggest wine drinkers have a slight health edge over those who prefer beer or spirits, thanks to the beneficial effect of wine’s relatively high levels of antioxidant polyphenols. He concedes, however, that the apparent extra benefits of wine consumption may simply reflect other lifestyle factors, such as a relatively high intake of fruit and vegetables by wine drinkers.

Do red wines, as widely believed, contain more of the good stuff? When it comes to heart-healthy polyphenols, red wines contain “an astonishing 10 times more than both white and paler rosé types”, Wong writes.

So which reds are best? Most polyphenols in wine come from grapes’ red and purple pigments, called anthocyanins. “This furnishes us a wonderfully simple, colour-coded guide to which are likely to be the richest in phytonutrients [plant compounds giving health benefits].”

If you are a pinot noir lover, the news is not great. A relatively thinskinned grape, pinot noir yields wines with lower levels of antioxidants than darker, bolder reds such as syrah, cabernet sauvignon, merlot and malbec.

To make matters worse, Wong notes, grapes produce anthocyanins as a defence against solar radiation – a sort of natural sunscreen. This means that vines grown in hot, sunny climates (such as most of Australia’s) yield red wines with more anthocyanin-related benefits than those from cooler grape-growing climates such as ours.

Will these findings persuade many of us to switch from home-grown pinot noirs to imported shirazes? I doubt it.