All Articles Fitness Nutrition Red Wines vs. White Wines: Which Bottle Should You Pick? Most wine drinkers have their preferences of red wines or white wines, and their preferences are mostly based on taste. However, if you want to have a healthy meal, you should take the nutritional values of the wines into consideration. So, should you go for white or red wines? Features of White and Red Wines The main ingredient in white wines is white grapes, and these grapes have no skins or seeds. Most white wines have a light and fruity taste, but there are certain varieties of white wines that have a richer taste. Some of the types of white wines that are available include Champagne, Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Chardonnay, Viognier and Chenin Blanc. On the other hand, red wines are made with dark red and black grapes. The main difference between red and white wines is that red wines are produced with whole grapes, including the skin. The skins add color and flavor to red wines, and this is the reason why these wines have a richer flavor.

Red wines are the preferred type of wines in major wine-making countries such as Italy and France. The most popular red wines include Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Syrah, Malbec and Sangiovese.best place to buy wine london Health Benefits of White and Red Winesred wine with best health benefits Both white and red wines are good for your health. best premium wine brandsAlthough they are made with grapes, they do not provide the same health benefits as fruits. glass of wine badAfter they go through fermentation, the grapes lose some of their original nutrition, but they also gain new health benefits. best italian wines to drink now

One of the main benefits of white wines is that they can improve heart health and prevent heart diseases. They are also effective in promoting lung health.food and wine best pizza in the us Red wines have most of the health benefits of white wines, and they can contribute to your health in other ways as well. cheap wine bar new york citySince they contain the skins of grapes, red wines have a powerful type of antioxidants called resveratrols. top 10 wine producers 2014Resveratrols offer excellent protection for your blood vessels, and they can eliminate blood clots as well. best white wine for 20 dollarsThey are also effective in inhibiting the activities of enzymes that stimulate the growth of cancer cells and slow down immune response.

Red wines also contain polyphenols, which are excellent antioxidants that can perform a wide variety of tasks, including reducing blood pressure and cholesterol levels, improving the immune system, combating against harmful bacteria and preventing cancer. There is also a significant amount of flavonoids in red wines, and these antioxidants are known to be able to lower risks of cancer. Generally, red wines are considered a healthier option than white wines. However, high quality white wines from certain winemakers may offer more health benefits than some red wines. Wines do not only improve physical health; they can also help you overcome stress. If you are suffering from a serious disease, the calming effect of wines may give you the mental focus to help you overcome the illness. Even though wines are beneficial to your health, they should not be consumed excessively.Lately, choosing red wine vinegar at the supermarket gives me the same nervous feeling as trying to pick the right wine for dinner guests.

As with balsamic vinegars, the number of red wine vinegars in the condiment aisle has exploded in the past decade. I can choose between brand-name vinegars my mother has used for years and newer ones that boast impressive European pedigrees. Is French better than American? Does aged red wine vinegar provide more depth of flavor? Will a pan deglazed with vinegar that began life as a Zinfandel or Pinot Noir create a sauce that’s more piquant than one flavored with vinegar simply labeled “red”? Considering that some vinegars cost less than 20 cents per ounce, are the ones that cost four or five times as much actually worth the money? We last tasted red wine vinegars in 2003. Given the proliferation of options since, we decided that it was time to take a fresh look. Food scientist Harold McGee aptly calls vinegar “the natural sequel to an alcoholic fermentation.” For centuries, humankind supplied the wine, and nature provided it with bacteria (Acetobacter aceti), which, with the help of oxygen, metabolizes wine’s ethyl alcohol and converts it into the acetic acid that gives vinegar its distinctive sharp scent and mouth-puckering flavor.

Today, most commercial red wine vinegars are produced via two distinct methods. The first, the Orléans method, was developed in the 14th century. To start fermentation, oak barrels of wine are inoculated with a “mother of vinegar”—a cellulose glob loaded with acetic acid bacteria from an established vinegar. Periodically, vinegar is drawn off and fresh wine added, and the process continues until all the alcohol is converted into acetic acid. Some argue that this method makes for a more flavorful wine vinegar because it gives the flavor compounds time to develop and mature. But it’s also expensive, since it takes months before the vinegar is ready for the market. In the second, more modern method, wine and bacteria are put in an acetator, a stainless-steel machine that rapidly circulates oxygen through red wine to feed the bacteria. This method converts alcohol into acetic acid in about a day, although some of these rapidly produced vinegars are then put in barrels for additional aging and, presumably, improved flavor.

Domestic varieties of red wine vinegar are typically just 5 to 6 percent acetic acid, while imports are usually in the 7 percent range; the strength is determined by a dilution with water. But the unique flavor profile of a vinegar is influenced not only by acetic acid but also by naturally occurring flavor compounds from the base wine, as well as by new compounds created during the production process. The question was, which of these factors would actually make a difference to our tasters? We asked 21 staff members to taste and rate 10 red wine vinegars, selected from a list of top-selling national supermarket brands. Most cooks don’t do shots of vinegar unless they’re masochists, but I was curious to learn if we’d get some early preferences right out of the bottle. I assumed that tasters would be partial to the vinegars that were sweet and less harsh, since they’d be tasting these potent substances straight. In fact, the favorite in this round fell right in the middle of the rankings for sweetness and harshness.

Tasters, it seemed, liked full flavor and a little sharpness. While I wasn’t confident that we had a front-runner yet, the plain tasting did reveal that some of the vinegars had unpleasant off-flavors and aromas, the most common being the smell of nail polish remover, or acetone. This was not surprising, since any traces of alcohol left in vinegar will bond chemically with acetic acid to create ethyl acetate, a compound that has the same distinctive scent as the acetone found in nail polish remover. “A little bit is OK,” said Mary Ellen Camire, a professor of food science and nutrition at the University of Maine, explaining that acetate can give vinegar a pleasing fruitiness. “But too much can indicate a production failure.” Next we tasted the vinegars as they would actually be used—in a simple vinaigrette served with butter lettuce and in pickled onions. Surprisingly, some of the harsher vinegars, which had made tasters choke in the plain tasting, were experienced as relatively sweet in the vinaigrette.

How could this be? I recalled that the mayonnaise we had used to help emulsify the vinaigrette contained a small amount of sugar. Our science editor confirmed that the strong, highly acidic vinegars were acting synergistically with this sugar to heighten its sweet taste. Less acidic vinegars, on the other hand, were being pushed into the background, allowing the strong flavor compounds in the extra-virgin olive oil and the mustard to mask sweetness. This told me that a good vinegar needs some muscle in the form of acidity to tease out all the flavors from the bunch. But in the end, these highly acidic vinegars lost the battle with our tasters. The most expensive of the supermarket brands ended up tied for last place with the other most acidic entry. The majority of tasters simply found them too harsh, especially when sampled plain or in pickled onions. However, since they scored well in our vinaigrette tasting, they might be worth buying if you like a strong, bracing vinegar to dress your salads.

At the top of the heap, a French import knocked our former favorite down a couple of notches with its crisp red wine flavor balanced by stronger than average acidity and subtle sweetness. While this vinegar gets its start in an acetator and then is aged in wooden barrels for two months before bottling, we weren’t convinced that aging was the reason that our tasters gravitated toward this brand. Several of our lowest-ranking vinegars were also aged. There is one characteristic shared by all three top vinegars: They’re blends. One is made from a mix of red and white vinifera grapes, another adds an aged vinegar sourced from Spain to its domestically produced vinegar, and our former favorite is created from a combination of sweet Concord grapes and winy vinifera-type grapes. (It’s worth noting that our favorite high-end vinegar adds Bing cherry juice to heighten the flavor of its base vinegar.) Multiple varieties of grapes create vinegar with a complex and pleasing taste—aging is not necessarily required.