Is wine ever good for you?

For a while I’ve been getting sick of wines that are so high in alcohol that, firstly, the taste is ruined and, secondly, drinking half a bottle blurs my edges. Blurred edges are fine when you deserve them, but I like to remain capable of loading the dishwasher and locking the front door on a week night. Therefore, I was delighted when I attended a Tesco tasting in March and discovered McGuigan’s Lower Alcohol Chardonnay and Shiraz at the very reasonable price of £5.99. They’re 9.5% which isn’t so low that they taste like wine substitutes, but is low enough to give your poor mouth a rest and keep your edges nicely in focus. The Chardonnay 2006 has an attractive, fruity, slightly tropical smell, but still manages to smell fresh and clean. Maybe I’m unusual, but I find a good balance between alcohol and flavour very attractive. It’s noticeable that the wine isn’t hard work – its thirst quenching. Yet, it tastes just the same as normal wine. There’s a touch of pineapple on the finish.

The Shiraz has an attractive baked, sweet, dark fruits aroma. The taste is bordering on too sweet for me, but again the fresh balance is noticeable and very attractive.

There’s another group of low alcohol wines newly on the market, which slot into an entirely different category. Sovio is lightly sparkling wine, from Spain, with a mere 8% alcohol. I’m sure McGuigan spent a significant amount of time and money analysing and tasting the precise level of alcohol which allowed their wine to still taste like wine. Sovio absolutely has its place, but it really is not wine. It comes in a 200ml bottle, which equates to 1.6 UK units. They’re available in bars, so price is difficult to be accurate about. The white smells of peardrops and tastes like pear juice, only not the delicious pear juice from Lidl, which I hide in the back of the fridge we don’t use much, so the kids don’t nick it all. The Sovio isn’t unpleasant, but it’s like a sprizer. The Rosado smells of dried cherries and tastes of a dried version of cherryade, without the E numbers. It’ll probably be a hit with young girls.

Another healthy option, or “super wine” has just been launched, called Red Heart. As we all know red wine is good for our heart. In fact, to keep a healthy heart, we are advised to drink a little red wine every day because the good effects stay in our system for 24 hours, so we need to keep these low levels constantly. However, our liver disagrees with this and would rather we have a couple or more days of rest from alcohol each week. I suppose you have to decide which is more important. Anyway, Red Heart, an Australian made from Cabernet and Petit Verdot, grapes which have particularly thick skins (where the antioxidants live) is £4.99 in Sainsbury’s, Asda and Nisa-Today.

Actually, it’s not a bad little wine. It has quite a fragrant, Cabernet smell with a hint of violets. It’s light, fruity and smooth. Perfectly reasonable but nowhere near complex. But, hey, at £4.99 and able to fight free radicals?! It’s a bargain.

Is wine ever good for you?

© Copyright 2007 Mel Jones