When word of the “French Paradox” started being thrown around a few years ago, everyone wondered what it was all about. The question was, how could French people, famous for their love of cheese and fatty foods, have such a low rate of heart disease? The answer lied in their moderate daily intake of wine. As it turns out, our daily red wine could be helping our hearts!
In America, we tend to have a fear of developing liver disease and alcoholism when consuming alcohol daily. However, when we enjoy our daily red wine in moderation it is actually very healthy. Wine conveys quite a few positive health benefits whether drunk in moderation or used in cooking.
Study after study has found that a moderate, daily consumption of wine is good for your health. Early studies found a valuable antioxidant in our daily red wine called “resveratrol,” and it was later found in white wine as well. Since then, some American vintners have modified their winemaking process to boost the health benefits of our daily red wine.
Various studies show that our daily red wine kills cancer cells, has anti-aging effects, and helps prevent strokes by keeping your arteries clean. The valuable antioxidants you keep hearing about are essentially the building blocks of your cells, especially in your immune system. Our daily red wine promotes healthier blood vessels in the elderly and reduces coronary heart disease and ulcer-causing bacteria.
Wine also builds stronger bones and decreases ovarian cancer and stroke risk in women, along with lowering the risk of heart attack for men who have high blood pressure. While the exact method by which our daily red wine helps us is not specifically known, it is very beneficial to have some wine everyday – whether with you have a glass with your dinner or us it in cooking.
Think about the process of winemaking. When you really think about it, wine is probably one of the most organic and pure beverages you can get. Wine ferments naturally and naturally has enough preservatives in it for it to last about one-and-half years. The grapes that our daily red wine comes from have a basic level of sulfites that keeps them from rotting while still on the vine.
The key here is moderation. As with just about everything in life, there is such a thing as drinking too much wine. Binge drinking during the holidays, on the weekend, or after work isn’t going to help you combat disease. In fact, consuming too much alcohol is never good and brings a whole bunch of other health problems down on your head.
Everyone these days knows about the dangers of drinking too much alcohol, but not enough know about its beneficial effects when enjoyed in moderation. If you have one to three glasses of wine every day with your dinner, it’s not going to adversely affect your health. On the contrary, it can boost your health and help you combat disease!

Legacy Red Wine is a wine kit like no other. These folks take the time to make sure that you know exactly where your grapes are coming from and give you a wide variety of choices when it comes to making red wine in your home. All of their kits take 6 weeks to make and all are simply stunning.

Anyone that’s ever delved into cooking has probably come across red wine vinegar at one point or another. If you’re a real wine enthusiast, you’ve probably asked yourself, “Where does red wine vinegar come from? Is it really made from wine?” Well, the simple answer is yes, it does come from wine. If you’ve ever wondered how to make red wine vinegar, here’s another tidbit – you can make it right in your home!
We’ve all heard the tales of wine left out too long or not aged properly turning into vinegar. While this old tale is not entirely accurate, there is some truth to it. Under the right conditions, wine can turn into vinegar, but this doesn’t always happen. In order for the wine to turn into vinegar, the proper bacteria must be present. Some folks out there may have looked at vinegar under a microscope in biology lab in high school, but for those that don’t know, vinegar does indeed contain active, live bacteria. Don’t get too grossed out though – we need them if we want our vinegar!
So what sort of conditions do we need to make our red wine vinegar? If you really want to know how to make red wine vinegar, you first have to figure out if you want to go all out and do it the old-fashioned way or take a short cut. The creation of vinegar, you see, requires a vinegar mother, also known as a mother of vinegar. The vinegar mother is simply a rather unpleasant looking layer of “stuff,” for lack of a better term, that comprises the majority of the bacteria colony in the vinegar. If you want to go all out, you can make the vinegar mother yourself, but if you want to speed things up you can actually buy one online or at a store that caters to beer or wine makers.
First, there’s the long route on how to make red wine vinegar. You can rely on airborne bacteria to find their way into your wine to make vinegar, but most opt to buy the right bacteria so they don’t waste their time. The bacteria you want are called Mycoderma aceti. Add these bacteria to your wine in a good-sized crock, depending on how much vinegar you want to make. Cover the top with cheese cloth to keep anything unwanted out, and secure it with a rubber band. Set it somewhere cool (but not too cool), and let it sit for three months. After this time, your vinegar mother will have formed. Start adding a cup of wine each week until the mother sinks to the bottom. Once that happens, it’s ready! Filter your vinegar to get any solids out and bottle it.
If you’re short on time but still want to know how to make red wine vinegar, purchase your mother and cut the time by half. It’s basically the same as above, but you’ll add a cup or two of wine to the crock once or twice a week for three weeks then let it sit for another eight weeks. Filter and enjoy!

Fifteen years ago, the “French Paradox,” a term referrring to the fact that French people (despite being notorious for their love of fatty foods and cheeses) have a very low rate of heart problems, started getting tossed around by doctors and health nuts alike. “How could this be?” everyone wondered. The answer is pretty simple: it’s the wine! Good old healthy red wine!

Any hobby comes with risks and occasional accidents. For wine drinkers, the most common accident is spillage. Every now and then, whether it’s due to inebriation or just plain bad luck, even the most experienced wine drinker will knock over a glass of wine or swirl too aggressively. Unfortunately, wine is one of the hardest stains to remove, and usually, its red wine that’s been spilled. To get red wine stain out, there are a few instructions you can follow to make sure your favorite drink isn’t permanently stained on your floor or furniture.
As soon as you’ve spilled red wine on anything, blot the stain with paper towels to remove most of the moisture. Getting red wine stain out depends on how fast you act. If the item is dry clean only, simply blot out of the moisture and get it to the cleaners. Do not use any liquid on dry clean only items! This can permanently damage the fabric.
The best thing you can do for a sudden stain is to fight fire with fire. As soon as you absorb the majority of the moisture from the red wine spill, pour a small amount of white wine on the stain. This neutralizes the tannins and proteins within the red wine stain that can create permanent damage.
Next, use a small amount of soap (Tide or Dawn works) with a small amount of hydrogen peroxide mixed together on a rag or sponge. If the red stain is on clothing, place something behind the piece of cloth as you treat it, which prevents the stain from spreading further. With the prepared mixture, blot the stain until the red wine stain is out. Remember, always blot. Rubbing actually creates friction between the cleaning agent and the stain, which imprints the stain more into the fabric or carpet!
What if the red wine stain has been there for a while? Or what if the pre-treatment doesn’t work? There are some more alternative solutions to get red wine stain out.
An alternative treatment for getting red wine stain out from fabric or carpet is club soda and salt. When you’ve blotted the moisture from the stain, pour a small amount of club soda on the stain and sprinkle salt. Allow the salt to dry and then vacuum the spot. If the stain still isn’t coming out completely, use a small amount of detergent or dish-soap. By now, the stain should be completely lifted.
For extra tough stains, or stains that have set for a while, a product called Wine-Away is an excellent red wine remover that works on almost any stain. Wine-Away is especially good for carpets and large areas where soap and hydrogen peroxide is impractical. Best of all Wine-Away doesn’t harm fabrics or even hard surfaces like marble or porcelain.
Wine drinking comes with its risks, but with a few simple products, you can be rest assured that you can get any red wine stain out of your fabrics, carpets and furniture.

The “French Paradox” was discovered in the 90s and turned the health care world on its ear. This term centered around the observation that the French, who everybody knows eat a lot of cheese and fatty foods, had a very low instance of heart issues. How could this be? The secret was hidden in the red wine that every French person drinks daily starting with childhood. It may seem a bit mind-boggling, but the health benefits of red wine do exist!

A connection between your heart and red wine? Are you kidding? That may be your first reaction, but if you’ve been been paying attention, it should come as no surprise. Years ago, scientists that were studying the French Paradox – the phenomenon showing that people in France, despite eating a lot of fatty, cheesy foods, have a very low rate of heart issues – discovered an antioxidant in red wine called resveratrol. As it turns out, the French have been self-medicating themselves all along when they drink red wine with their meals on a daily basis. Who knew? The French, obviously!

The glycemic index, or GI, is a measurement of the quality or type of carbohydrates in a certain food, and how fast 50 grams of this carb raises your blood glucose levels as it is digested. This also has an effect on insulin secretion and other effects produced by your pancreas, so obviously it is of great concern to diabetics, their friends and family, and their doctors. So what many for whom this is a concern want to know is, what is the glycemic index of red wine? After all, wine lovers and diabetics are not mutually exclusive!

Typically, it is the more “advanced” wine connoisseur that prefers a dry red wine. Dry reds tend to be more robust and definitely much less sweeter than other wines. They go best with meals, as they tend to really help round out the flavors of the overall setting. What makes a wine “dry” is the fact that it has less sugar content than other wines. There are many dry red wine types, and we’ll go over them here for those who want to start delving into them.