MEDICINAL WINE . . .

This one sounds like it’s too good to be true. A biochemist-turned-winemaker in Queensland, Australia, claims to have created wine that is beneficial to your health. For years winemakers and scientists have been trying to figure out how to truly reap the purported health benefits of wine. Greg Jardine, founder of Mt. Nebo-based company Dr. Red Nutraceuticals thinks he’s done it. Jardine filed a patent for Modified Polyphenol Technology in Wines late last year and said the creation would “finally give wine a real medicinal edge”. The process involved aging red wine for a certain period of time, which enhanced the number of antioxidants within it, made them fat-soluble, rather than water-soluble, and easier to absorb into the bloodstream. Some studies have shown antioxidants are effective at fighting a multitude of different diseases. Jardine said that he had been working on the process for 1O years but had only recently discovered a way to retain the taste while enhancing antioxidants. “Wine has got massive amounts of antioxidants but they are quite tannic so if you put more in people would not drink it because of the taste. What we discovered was if we allowed them to age and stop it at the right point of time the tannic taste goes and we make it taste good,” he said.

Biomedical Sciences Professor Lindsay Brown, from the University of Southern Queensland, found that the non-alcoholic dried crystal used to make the wine successfully treated rats with arthritis. Jardine said that the wine could help treat a “range of ageing conditions” from chronic fatigue and gout to stiff joints after a visit to the gym.

Stressing the wine is “not medicine”, Jardine said that it should be consumed in moderation as it has the same alcoholic content as regular wine. Who knows if there’s anything to this but if he’s truly onto something he might as well be bottling liquid gold.