Fat-friendly wines play important role in our diet
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Isacs is the founder and CEO of EnjoyGourmet, a leading gourmet digital (www.enjoygourmet.com.cn) and print media company in China. He has authored over a dozen wine and food books including the awarded ISACS Guides and other gourmet books and is a wine consultant to governments, wine regions and organizations. He also hosts wine events for leading organizations and companies throughout China. Contact John via jcolumn@enjoygourmet.com.
Too much of anything good is bad. This truism applies to wines as it does to fats in our diet. Fats are an important part of a healthy diet as they provide essential fatty acids, soften and nourish our skin, supply fat-soluble vitamins, and are one of nature’s most energizing fuels. Most importantly they are incredibly delicious and textural delights. But not all fats are created equal, so dieticians have traditionally divided fats into two camps, namely, the good fats and the bad fats. The good fats were unsaturated fats like olive oil while the bad fats are saturated fats including animal fats like lard as covered in today’s iDeal feature story. But meat and fat lovers can take heart, animal sourced saturated fats may not be as unhealthy as once thought.
Moderate consumption of saturated animal fats, may actually be good for your health. For decades, doctors, nutritionists and health authorities have told us that a diet high in saturated fats raises blood cholesterol and increases the risk of heart disease. However, recent studies have cast doubt on those claims, concluding that saturated fats do not necessarily cause cardiovascular disease and in fact fortify the gut, prevent cancer and improve insulin sensitivity.
Healthy diets that include animal fats are quite common in wine consuming countries. Just look at France where fatty foods, including goose liver, cheese and butter, are common but heart disease is relatively low.
One undeniably positive factor is wines, in particular red wines with abundant tannins.
Acidity commonly found in white, rose as well as red wines is a good counter agent to fat, but the best way to dissolve and digest fats, especially animal fats, is tannins. Tannins are a group of chemical compounds found in grapes and other plants. In wines, tannins affect the color, mouth feel and aging ability of wines. Tannins cause mouth-puckering, astringent sensations on the sides of your mouth. These tactile sensations range from silky and velvety in well-made wines to highly abrasive and unpleasantly chalky in poorly made or too youthful wines.
While acidity in wine makes your mouth salivate, tannins promote feelings of dryness. Science is still at the early stage of discovering the incredibly complex chemical reactions between tannins and other compounds in wine. The goal of scientists and wine makers alike is to better understand the dynamics of tannins in wines and optimize their beneficial qualities.
Various studies have indicated that tannins benefit cardiovascular health. By researching local populations in southwest France and on the island of Sardinia where wines are naturally rich in tannins, scientists found these groups to have better vascular health and greater longevity than populations in areas where wines are lower in tannins. In our bodies, tannins also act as antioxidants.
Lovers of fatty foods and red meats should also be fans of tannins. Tannins literally melt fats and make them more digestible. The same is true of red meats and fatty fowl.
Well-known red varieties naturally high in tannins include Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Malbec and Nebbiolo.
Petit Verdot
If the words dark, dense, tannic and spicy stimulate your wine desires, then you must get to know Petit Verdot wines. Over the past 50 years or so, Petit Verdot has been best known as one of the six noble red wine grapes of Bordeaux almost exclusively used as a minor component of area’s greatest wines. The grape is mostly used in the left bank Medoc region of Bordeaux.
Petit Verdot, a small grape with a thick skin, tends to make wines that are very dark red or purple in color, sometimes even blackish. When young, Petit Verdot wines often have dark fruit, banana and pencil shavings aromas and flavors. As Petit Verdot wines age they tend to develop more dark fruit flavors along with violet and leather sensations.
Young and old wines also tend to be spicy and have robust tannins.
The earliest reference to Petit Verdot in Bordeaux dates back to the early 17th century. Some believe that the grape was brought to Bordeaux by the Romans.
In the 18th and 19th centuries the grape was used in small amounts of 2 to 10 percent in the blends of the best wines of Bordeaux. Despite playing second fiddle to Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and other varieties, Petit Verdot has historically played an important role in the blend by adding color, tannins and structure. While Medoc is best known for using Petit Verdot in blends, a small number of winemakers in Australia, California, Argentina and Spain recently started making single variety Pinot Verdot wines. Some of my favorites include Finca Decero in Mendoza, Argentina; De Bortoli in Australia and Casa de la Ermita in Spain. Whether from Medoc or elsewhere, the wonderful intensity and bold structure of Petit Verdot wines make them superb companions to fatty and flavorful meat dishes.
Varieties:
The Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot varieties are the most planted in Medoc; yet minority contributions of Petit Verdot and other grapes also play a role in many of the region’s best wines.
Key term:
Tannins are astringent matter in a wine derived from the skin, pits and stems of a grape and also from oak aging.
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