Sunday, February 06, 2011

Dieting?... Check Your New Wine Label!

 Once again wine label requirements are under attack. This time it is the US and Australia. I did a post in January last year when Brussels was rattling its chains. Here is the link to that entry.

http://wwpress.blogspot.com/2010/01/wine-labels-under-attack-by-brussels.html

 It seems bureaucrats everywhere feel they must protect the dumb public by forcing wineries to print the number of calories in their wines on their wine labels. This would change of course with each vintage and thus creating additional costs for the wineries.
Australia is moving ahead on this requirement 
Now the US is also considering label changes. Now I ask you would anyone seriously look at a back label and do calorie comparisons between two or three wines?
'Look at this one  dear, it has 20 calories less than the one you are looking at'. 
When you buy your bacon do you for one minute think that it is not high in calories, but you better check all the bacon labels to see if you can shave off a few calories? How utterly ridiculous. 
We buy wines because we thoroughly enjoy them and we know they are good for our health.
How about equal opportunities and allow statements of wine being good for your health to be displayed as well?
Latest research has just discovered that red wine contains chemicals used in the treatment of diabetes.
Doctors are loath to tell patients that wine maybe good for their health for fear of turning their patients into alcoholics. But the use of wine in treating various ailments has been with us for centuries. 
I am in possession of a book called 'Healing Wines' by Manfred Kohnlechner  tracing the use of wines in medicine from antiquity to modern times. Fascinating reading. It was published and printed by Autumn Press in 1981, so its not likely too many copies are still around. But Roger Corder's The Red Wine Diet is readily available. It is a well written and thoroughly researched book. Decanter states " Quite possibly the most useful wine book published this year"
Roger's opening sentence in the first chapter is as follows:  "Wine drinkers generally are healthier and often live longer than people who don't drink wine on a regular basis"
I say Amen to that and raise my glass in a toast to all you wine lovers out there!!