“You are what you eat”, but you are what you drink, as well. The average person in Britain drinks over 108 bottles of wine in a single year, so, if you’re anywhere close to average, you’ll need to give your wine of choice some due consideration if you want to maintain your health and overall wellbeing.
Conventional, mass-produced wines might help you have a good time for the evening, but they could be detrimental in the long run (especially if drunk in excess). To truly enjoy the benefits that wine has to offer, you’ll need to invest in high-quality, organic wine.
Take a look at just some of the reasons why you should give organic wine a try
Have you ever noticed your lips and teeth become purple after a few glasses of red wine? While that may seem like a natural side-effect of drinking wine from deep, flavourful grapes that give wine such a rich colour, it’s just a side-effect of food colouring and artificial dyes.
High-quality, organic red wine might stain your white shirt if you spill it, but it will never colour your teeth and gums because there are no dyes or unnecessary additives. It’s pure wine that’s perfect in its natural state.
Sulphites are natural stabiliser that develops in wine during the fermentation process. It gets rid of potentially harmful bacteria and microbes, giving the wine surprisingly long shelf life. Organic wine produces trace amounts of sulphites because the chemical naturally occurs in grape skin.
However, mass-produced wine will often have added sulphites for better preservation, which could trigger an array of adverse reactions – headaches, abdominal pain, and low blood pressure, to name but a few.
Moreover, conventional wines will also be made from grapes showered with pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and other chemicals that you will end up drinking. It’s always a better option to go for organic wines that are free of it all.
All wines need added yeast to assist the fermentation process, turn sugar into alcohol, and round up the flavour. The problem is that in non-organic wines, the yeast could contain GMOs, and the wine itself often contains additional artificial flavourings.
With organic wines, this isn’t an issue. Primarily, much of the yeast necessary is produced from the grape skin, (since no fungicides and pesticides that could harm it are used). Secondly, many organic winemakers use native, wild yeasts that give the wine a more robust flavour. And finally, all the flavour you experience is from the grapes themselves.
When grapes are drowned in chemicals from pesticides and herbicides, they lose many of their delicious, unique tasting notes, so many non-organic winemakers try to compensate for the lack of flavour by adding sugars.
However, no extra sweeteners are needed in organic wines – all of the sugar comes from the grapes themselves, and native yeasts eat up most of it. At the end of the day, your organic wine should have less than a gram of sugar per litre, allowing you to stay within your preferred calorie count.
Resveratrol is an essential chemical found in grapes that helps heal any injuries that the plant sustains. It’s also an essential chemical that can help to improve your overall well-being.
Resveratrol is the main reason why drinking red wine in moderation could be good for you – it has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antifungal, and antibacterial properties, making it excellent for fighting infections and an array of health conditions.
Organic wines are packed with resveratrol and antioxidants, offering numerous benefits. Mass-produced wines, on the other hand, typically have much lower resveratrol concentrations.
All the pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides used on conventional wines diminish the grape’s ability to produce resveratrol, so subsequently, there’s less of the chemical in the final product.
If you drink and would like to enjoy the health benefits of red wine, going organic would be a much better option for you.
Perhaps the main reason why you should switch to organic wine is that it helps protect the environment. Organic winemakers don’t simply avoid pesticides and herbicides – they have to follow strict rules and regulations and ensure sustainable farming practices.
They use rich soil, filled with organic matter, that retains water better and provides all the necessary nutrients to the vines, reducing the need for wasteful irrigation and artificial fertilisation. They follow organic farming practices that reduce pollution and improve the environment. They preserve the local ecosystems, keeping our planet happier and healthier.
Finally, switching to organic wines allows you to support small farmers and winemakers dedicated to their craft, vineyards, and staff.
Despite the marketing, most conventional wines are made in a factory, not in some gorgeous rural chateau. If you want fresh, authentic wine that’s made from carefully grown grapes, you’ll only get it from small organic winemakers who’ve perfected their wine-making process.
Organic wine can expand your palette, improve your overall well-being, and provide an array of benefits. Once you’ve taken a sip of it, you’ll never want conventional wine to touch your lips again. So, give organic wine a try, and become a true sommelier who knows how to appreciate the good things in life.
