You've probably heard of the story in the bible where Jesus turned water into wine and "kept the party going" as Comedian D. L. Hughley hilariously tells it. Well, now there's a company that is doing it the opposite way by infusing wine with water to make a healthier beverage for wine lovers.
The company is called Vineyard Enriched Water, produced by Napa Hills. Although the product has been on the market for almost a year, until recently it was available only in the Chicago area. According to Napa Hills, one glass of Vineyard Enriched Water delivers the antioxidant benefits of one glass of red wine, sans calories, sugar and alcohol. The water performs this feat with help from VitaRes, a proprietary product from red wine and grape skin extracts reaped from Napa Valley vineyards.
VitaRes includes resveratrol extracted from grape skins. Resveratrol is a natural chemical discovered in the 1930s in Japan. Good sources of the chemical include the skins of grapes, blueberries, raspberries, and mulberries. It took fifty years for scientists to fully understand resveratrol's potential antioxidant qualities; then, in the 1990s, red wine gained a reputation as a leading resveratrol delivery system. That's because the heat generated by fermentation on grape skins is among the best ways to extract the chemical.
Wine itself can be healthy. Drink too much and you can damage your body, but in moderation — one glass a day for women and two a day for men — you might enjoy alcohol's health benefits which include boosting the immune system, increases bone density, reduces the risk of stroke, reduces the risk of heart disease, lowers cholesterol, and can reduce the risk of Type 2 Diabetes. If you prefer not to drink alcohol, the good news is that you can get the same health benefits from wine with significantly lower alcohol levels.
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As it turns out, water is also a useful flavor enhancer, exactly because it dilutes other ingredients and can change their balance for the better.
It’s no secret that the alcohol in drinks can get in the way of our enjoying their flavors. When alcohol makes up more than 10 to 12 percent of a liquid’s volume,...
... we begin to notice the stronger taste and smell.
But aroma molecules are also more chemically similar to alcohol molecules than they are to water, so they tend to cling to alcohol, and are quicker to evaporate out of a drink when there’s less alcohol to cling to.
This means that the more alcoholic a drink is, the more it cloisters its aroma molecules, and the less aroma it releases into the air. Add water and there’s less alcohol to irritate and burn, and more aroma release.
Resveratrol-rich Vineyard Enriched Water comes in two flavors: Cherry Rosé and Peach Grigio. It sells for about $3.00 per each 16.9 oz bottle—or $30 per case of 12 bottles. It can be found on Amazon.
