Don’t Whine about Drinking Wine…
Throughout my adult life, I have enjoyed the occasional beverage. In my college years, the ‘go to’ was Little Kings and cheap wine. During my early years of dating and marriage, I enjoyed beer and mixed drinks – oh, and of course, the margaritas at Chi Chi’s!
As I grew older and started meeting new friends who were drinking wine, I revisited wine drinking. I still have not been on a winery tour or become truly educated on the topic of wine. So with this lack of knowledge, I would say things like, “I only like red wine,” or “I don’t like dry wine” or “I like only sweet wines.” For a long time, my favorite wine was a Moscato that I found at Olive Garden. (You can see that the chain restaurants had a bit of power over me during this time of my life.) As I matured, I began introducing my taste buds to various different types of wines that were offered at gatherings – in moderation of course!
Since learning about the Blue Zones (5 areas around the world where researchers have discovered higher concentrations of people that live well beyond the normal life expectancy), I discovered there was a specific wine that many individuals on the Italian island of Sardinia drink every day. It is supposedly one of the healthiest wines in the world – Cannonou di Sardinia. They average about nine ounces spread throughout the day and almost always as part of gathering with good friends.
According to an article on the Wine Searcher website 1. ” Cannonau di Sardegna is a DOC (2) from the Italian island of Sardinia. It is made from Cannonau, the local name for the Grenache – one of Sardinia’s most successful wine grapes…. Cannonau di Sardegna wines have attracted considerable attention in the last few years, not necessarily for their quality, but for their association with longevity. Sardinian locals tend to live well into their 90s and in many cases to over 100, and diet on the island is usually given as a key factor in this. Cannonau de Sardegna wines tend to be high in anthocyanins and polyphenols, antioxidant-rich compounds which have been linked to heart health.”
GO TO TIME PLACE 26:14 – 18:43
I set out on a mission to find this wine. I called liquor store after liquor store and nobody had heard of it. Finally, after a long search, I found it. The price point was a bit higher than I’m use to paying for a bottle of wine. I consider it an investment in my health. And, it lasts several days since I’m only drinking about 4 ounces a day in the evenings, usually with John at dinner.
2. DOC (Denominazione di Origine Controllata) is the main tier of Italian wine classification, and covers almost every traditional Italian wine style. There are around 330 individual DOC titles, each with a set of laws governing its viticultural zone, permitted grape varieties and wine style.