Dieting, Wine and Mindfulness

New Year resolutions are easy to make but a commitment to healthy living is much hard to do. At WineWeaver, we have a product which will make your wine drinking more mindful and enhance the pleasure of drinking that one glass of delicious wine that you are permitted on your diet.

Drinking wine is so much more than just consuming liquid to quench your thirst. It is about engaging in mindful pleasure and WineWeaver is all about enhancing and engaging in that mindful experience which is why our aerator is beautiful as it flows and aerates.

How can I diet and drink wine? Start with the concept of buying the best bottle of wine that you can afford. As with most things in life, there is a connection between the price of the bottle of wine and the subtle nuances contained within the wine. I am not judging if a wine is good or bad by the price but connecting the price with the complexity of the wine.

You have now invested in your health and your wine drinking pleasure by buying the best bottle you can afford. There are numerous products on the market, and indeed we sell one of them, which will allow you to save the wine so you can drink the wine over a number of days. This justifies the additional cost of the wine and helps you to keep to your diet plan at the same time.

So by this simple act of saving the wine you can drink responsibly, reduce wastage and make wine consumption a part of your healthy living. Over time this will become a habit and it is only by changing our habits that we can change our lifestyles and our waistlines.

Wine can be a positive part of your lifestyle which is great as numerous wine studies have shown that wine, and particularly red wine can have a beneficial impact upon your health.

Now you can enjoy the label and anticipate what the contents will taste like. As you know, wine tasting is also a part of drinking wine, as is collecting wine labels. Remember, both of those activities are calorie free wine hobbies.

Make the wine glass and the wine aeration process part of the positive, mindful approach to enjoying and savouring your wine. As you pour your wine through the WineWeaver wine aerator you will specifically notice that the scents of the wine are being released. Take the time to sniff and enjoy as smell is an essential part of wine tasting and is often referred to as the ‘aroma’ or ‘nose’ of the wine.

Having aerated the wine, you are now in a position to check the colour before you enjoy the finer nuances of the taste and aroma released in the aeration process.

If you are on a diet and want to drink wine, make sure it is served at its best by aerating it and served in a lovely wine glass. By incorporating mindfulness you can consciously live the moment, enjoy every sip and calorie and feel proud that you will be watching your waistline at the same time. Diet, what diet? This is not a diet it is a lifestyle change.

Can I Diet and Drink Wine

Diet and drink wine?! Sounds absurd! But getting healthier need not mean giving it all up and live a life without friends, dining out and a glass of wine. So in answer to the question, Can I Diet and Drink Wine? The simple answer is yes, we can lose weight and still drink wine. The real question is how much wine can I drink whilst on a diet? That is much more complicated and we will try to give you an overview in this article.

Harvard medical school suggests that you can drink as much as two glasses of red wine a day if you are a man and one if you are a woman. Wait up- do not reach for that pint glass or the largest wine glass you can find. That is where you have been going wrong in the past – not all wine are the same and not all wine glasses are the same size. Firstly, we are looking at red wine here as it has some additional potential medical benefits.

If you want to diet and drink wine, you need to find a moderately sized glass and then remember that the WineWeaver is designed to help that one/two glasses to taste better. Savour the moment, enjoy that delicious glass of wine and be mindful as you drink.

Now onto the next issue, wine is wonderful because it is so varied. On the other hand that can be one of the issues to consider when dieting and considering living more healthily.

Those of you who have travelled to Spain, France or Italy might recall having the local vino. It is sold cheaply compared to the bottled wine from local vineyards which are laid down and are generally more complex wines.

Why do the Europeans serve what used to be called Table Wine?

Simple, everyone can grow grapes if they want to and often the wine is pressed in a co-operative where you get back a share of the wine. As there is a market for the product, it is also produced for sale in the supermarkets. This local or table wine has a very low alcohol content which is best for the heat of summer and explains why the Mediterranean diet includes indulging in wine when eating. In essence, some wines have high alcohol content and other wines have a lower alcohol content so be aware of your glass size and the alcohol content so remember to check the alcohol and sugar content of the wine. Usually, the higher the alcohol content the higher the sugar content.

How or where do I check the alcohol content in a bottle of wine?

On the two photos shown, which are both European wines, you can see the alcohol content of the wine on the label. It may be on the front of the label as it is with the Chateau Burgrave 1999 French Pomerol or it might be on the back as in the case of the Barbera D’Asti 2011 from Italy. The labels also show you that there is a range of alcohol content in wine – 12.5% and 14.5% in this case.

I also looked at several bottles from excellent wineries in the Napa Valley and I couldn’t find a single label with the alcohol content on the label. However, in the USA wine is legally defined as any fermented alcohol beverage that is made from grapes or other fruit and contains not less than 0.5% of alcohol by volume and not more than 24% and is not for industrial use see (https://bit.ly/2QVijHe). Complicated, just remember that in Europe we generally think of wine as being between 10-15% and in the USA it is up to 24%, so if in doubt check it out.

To make it a little easier for you to calculate how many calories in your glass of wine Drinkware suggests you think about units of alcohol and the link https://bit.ly/2ZWwD6o provides an easy way of calculating the calories in a glass of wine. The Drinkaware top tip is not to save up your units and drink them all in one go but to spread it out over the week which leads us nicely onto our top tip.

Top Tips Whilst You Diet and Drink Wine

Our top tip is to buy the best wine you can afford, enjoy every glass perfectly served though the WineWeaver and use a product to save the wine so you can enjoy another perfectly prepared wine the next day. That way you can enjoy wine whilst dieting.
Remember dieting can be serious so always seek your physician or dieticians help.

References:
https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/understand-your-drinking/unit-calculator
https://www.health.harvard.edu/topics/diet-and-weight-loss
https://definitions.uslegal.com/w/wine/

When we are asked what is the purpose of aerating a wine we can give a simple answer- to improve the taste of it.

However, we are talking about wine here and wine drinkers know that there seems to be an almost infinite number of wines on the market.  The countries vary, the grapes come in different varieties and then there is the wine made in vast quantities in factories right down to tiny vineyards where a single individual makes a unique wine.

Having established there are thousands of wines made in very different ways it is easy to see that each wine would have a different reaction to aeration or the introduction of air to the wine.  The simple job of pouring out the wine from the bottle is in effect introducing a tiny amount of aeration and evaporation. It is unlikely this is enough time or exposure to make an difference to the taste of the wine. The purpose of choosing to aerate wine is to ensure there is a release of the more delicate tastes embedded within the bottle.

What is happening when you are aerating your wine?  Essentially, when you pour the wine the volatile compounds will start to evaporate and the first smells you get will relate to the ethanol or alcohol components in the wine.

You may also notice, in this first stage, the smells that related to any sulphites which have been added. The sulphites are sometimes added to the wine to stabilise it and reduce the amount of oxidation which can occur in the bottle.

Oxidation is also a normal process in wine-making and we often help to visualise the process by referring to the browning that occurs on a cut apple.  So the sulphites are added to ensure the wine doesn’t just oxidise into a brown fluid. Unfortunately, there can be a side effect for a few moments on opening when the wine will smell of rotten eggs, earthy or of onion skins. Don’t worry this stage will pass.

Whilst opening the bottle and pouring is introducing some air to the wine, it is often not enough if you want the nuances and delicate tastes of the wine to be more evident. This is where adding aerator like WineWeaver assists the process and helps to lift the wine or release the flavours.

In wines with a cabernet grape component it is relatively easy to taste the difference between aerated an un-aerated wine. Firstly, you can smell the wine just after pouring the wine through the WineWeaver into the glass and then you can taste the difference as the tannins fade away.

The Purpose Of Aerating Wine Key Point…

The purpose of aerating wine therefore, is to release the more subtle tastes and flavours that have been stabilised and contained in the bottling of the wine.

The simple answer is yes, a wine aerator really works! It is why we invested so much time and money in developing the WineWeaver®.

As you know, not all wine tastes the same or is made in the same way. Some wine is made the traditional grapes into an old French oak barrel, preferably used for brandy before passing into the wine industry and other wines are made in vast metal vats. So the type of wine and the way it is made will have an impact on the need for aeration.

As you may imagine with the vast differences in the wine making process, some wine benefits from a great deal of aeration and when I say a great deal, I mean they may need to be left for hours after decanting. Other wines need very little air or perhaps if they are very light, none at all. Most red wines will benefit from some aeration.

The need for aeration is related to the grape, the basic raw material of the wine. You may wonder how the grape lead to the need for aeration does. Well, it is the tannin in wine which is there because of the natural wine making process.

The grape skins, seeds and stems impart the tannin into the wine and the length of time or exposure to the grape skin is one of the skills developed by wine makers. Each winemaker will decided depending on the quality of the grape on how long to leave the skins in the wine; it is a matter of individual judgement and experience by the winemaker.

Decisions based on how the grape is treated is also one of the skills that allows consumer to identify individual wines and winemakers as it is the skill and decision of the wine maker that leads to the recognisable characteristics of a vineyard or winery.

As a rough guide, it is easier to taste the change in red wine as the wine gets its colour from the exposure to the skin and therefore, it is likely to have tannin in the wine. On the other hand, if your wine is high in sugar and alcohol content it will be harder to ascertain the change in the wine pre and post aeration as the sugar is a dominating taste.

One of the very easy to assess wine in which to see if a wine aerator really does work is a cabernet sauvignon wine. Cabernet wines also have a higher tannic content and therefore there is a bigger change over a shorter period of time. It is also one of the main reasons they are good to hold and lay in a cellar before drinking.

Remember, the use of tannins in wine is positive as they are a natural antioxidant and add to the overall depth of colour in the wine. So use a wine aerator as a positive action to lift and improve the wine but remember, if you have a sweeter red wine with high alcohol content, you may not notice the difference as much.

Aerating wine is merely giving the wine the respect it needs for it to give you the best of its complex nuances or in a short form – you aerate wine to release the tastes.

Try an aerator on your next bottle of cabernet sauvignon and answer for yourself; Does a wine aerator really work?

People who are relatively new to wine often ask the question how do you know if a wine has tannin? It is a fair question, as it is possible that until your wine tasting experiences take you to wines made primarily from Cabernet Sauvignon, Nebbiolo, Syrah based grapes from say, Italy, France, Spain and the USA you may not have noticed the taste of the tannins.

Mass produced wines, which certainly have a place in the wine drinker’s life, are often blended to remove the taste created by tannin. The large producers are trying to make a wine which can be easily served in bistros’ and very busy restaurants and wine bars. In these environments it is essential that the impact of high tannin is reduced.

You may imagine where time is of the essence the wine has to be opened and served in seconds or minutes. There is no time to leisurely open the wine and allow the natural tannin (part of the making process) to evolve; no, the restaurateur has to open and pour immediately into the glass. A quick swill and the tannin must be gone. It is why I am suggesting that you may not have encountered many types of tannin on your experiences to date.

By the way, before we leave that thought, you could take your own WineWeaver® with you to the restaurant in the tote we have specifically designed for this purpose. Our handy Travel Tote is the perfect accessory to a WineWeaver® wine aerator

As we, in our role of the wine taster, get ever more bold and experimental it is natural to move in to the domain of the tannin.

So how do you know if a wine has tannin?

I would describe the taste of tannins in wine more as a sensation than a taste. It gives a sensation of dryness in the mouth and bitterness in both the front of the mouth and the side of the tongue. The sensation of dryness will stay with you after you have swallowed the wine.

As an aside, the taste of tannin in wine is not to be confused with the term ‘dry wine’ which refers to sugar levels. Tannins are important as they are part of the natural wine making process, primarily for red wines but there are tannins in white wine too.

When we think about what flavour tannin gives to wine, we are thinking of the acidity and bitterness and with this comes the terminology of the ‘complexity of wine’. On our journey with wine and wine tasting, you will probably find you will naturally graduate to more complex wines over time.

For the moment, it is good enough to know that high tannin wines bring complexity with them. It is also essential to know that having identified that your wine has tannins you can just use your WineWeaver® aerator to remove and soften them. You should be left with an instantly improved wine after using WineWeaver® and yet retain all the complexities the wine has to offer.

Featured image courtesy of wikipedia

Nine Wine Aerator Facts Part Two contains a little more of the science of wine….

Part One of Nine Wine Aerator Facts can be found here.

If you leave this page with nothing else, just understand this simple fact as the WineWeaver® was only designed to do one thing- aerate wine to improve wine instantly- whilst incorporating some unique, patented features.

Wine Aerator Fact Five: Chemical Relationships

The flavour of the wine is made up from hundreds of compounds and the art of the wine-maker is understanding about the relationships between the alcohol, acid, sugar and tannin. Wine writer James Suckling points out ‘a red wine with high tannin should also have a high alcohol so that neither component sticks out’ relative to the other. So the art of good wine-making is achieving the balance in the wine.

Wine Aerator Fact Six: Alcohol

Wine is defined by the amount of alcohol and this is shown on the wine label as a percentage. Wine generally ranges between 7%-15% (https://en.mimi.hu/wine/alcohol.html). During the process of aeration the strong smell given by the alcohol will be dissipated leaving behind more subtle scents, which are alluded to in wine tasting notes, such as the blackberry, cherry or hints of leather.

Wine Aerator Fact Seven: Wine-maker Meets Wine-grower

We are sniffing the wine to understand the combination that the wine-maker is trying to achieve in a particular wine. The wine-maker is given grapes created by nature and the wine –growers skills and it is the wine-makers job to bring out the best expressions of the grape in the form of wine. The WineWeaver® is designed to assist the wine taster in finding those expressions.

Wine Aerator Fact Eight: Oxidisation and Evaporation

As the wine oxidises the tannins will soften and the alcohol evaporate the wine so wine tasters and drinkers like us are trying to capture a moment in the life of a wine through its taste. I won’t deny that you could open the wine and leave it for an hour, several hours or even overnight for the initial oxidation to take place and for the natural tannins to soften. You may also just choose to swirl it around in a glass and take the risk of it jumping out on your favourite item of clothing.

However, with the time pressures of our modern lives we seldom have time to plan to leave a bottle open for the period of time needed to enhance the wine within as soon as possible, if not immediately. It is just more practical to reach for a modern wine aerator like the WineWeaver® which is designed specifically to allow wine to be served by the glass.

Wine Aerator Fact Nine: Tannin

Tannin is a natural part of the wine as mentioned above, wine-makers use it in the wine making process. It is produced from the grape skins used in the process of making the wine and can have a bitter taste. When we open the bottle to drink the wine, we want the tannins to soften and this is where the WineWeaver® wine aerator plays its part through aeration. The aeration process immediately releases the harsh tannins and allows the true flavours of the wine to come through, just as the wine-maker intended.

As the time passes and the wine aeration process enhances the wine you might also use the term ‘second nose’ to describe the new sensations and nuances in taste that come to the forefront. If you leave it to oxidise for too long, the wine will become flat and all the desired taste lost forever.

Wine aeration summary:

• Wine aeration is a part of the wine journey
• The journey can be long and slow (and if you use a decanter involve a lot of washing and drying up) or immediate and simple if you use a WineWeaver® on a glass
• All wines are unique although the factory blended ones are designed to be consistent and may be blended to ensure they are immediately drinkable
• Some wine is designed to be laid down for the tannins to work on the wine
• Wine aeration is natural and wine aerators enhance the process
• Wine aeration helps younger wines to imitate the natural aging process of wines laid for several years

Nine Wine Aerator Facts Part One is the first in a two part series of facts about, you guessed it, wine aerators.

If you are on this website it is taken as a given that you enjoy the wonderful mysteries of wine and no doubt you are wondering about wine aerator facts. The most important wine aerator fact is that most red wines will benefit from some aeration and the WineWeaver is designed to help you achieve the aeration effect immediately – that means instantly improved taste.

If you leave this page with nothing else, just understand this simple fact as the WineWeaver was only designed to do one thing- aerate wine to improve wine instantly- whilst incorporating some unique, patented features.

The rest of this article is about finding out some interesting wine aerator facts in both the wine and the design of the WineWeaver. Part two of the article can be found here.

Wine Aerator Fact One: The Expert

To improve the taste of wine instantly it takes an understanding of the aeration process and who understands that process better than a Master Sommelier. The best wine Sommeliers have to undertake stringent exams and are known as the Court of Master Sommeliers.

In our case the WineWeaver team were privileged to work with award winning French Master Sommelier, Christopher Delalonde in our quest for perfection. Christopher has worked at a number of fine dining restaurants including The Square, Medlar, Hotel du Vin and is currently working as Head of Wines at The Dorchester hotel in London.

Wine Aerator Fact Two: Wine Aeration

Wine aeration is a natural process and starts as soon as you open a bottle of wine but that is only a tip of the fact and \what we also need to understand is that not all wine is the same and therefore, neither is the aeration process.

Aeration is simply a process of exposing the wine to air and allowing a oxidation and evaporation to take place.

Wine Aerator Fact Three: Differences In Wine

Oh, I hear you ask, so why bother to aerate if it is a natural process?

Now that is where it gets a tad more complicated. As already mentioned, not all wines are the same, some wines have individual pedigrees like dogs and others are blended, much like making a new breed of dog by using two different pedigree breeds.

The ‘pedigree’ in our analogy, might be a single grape from a single vineyard and the ‘blend’ might be wine made using grapes from different vineyards to make a particular wine taste or brand of wine. Some wine blends are extremely successful, Barefoot and E&J Gallo for instance, and sell wine by the hundreds of thousands of bottles. Other wines are also successful but may only produce a hundred bottles or less. The grape and the type of wine finally produced will have an impact on the amount of aeration required.

Wine Aerator Fact Four: Pedigree Or Blend

It is simply a fact that some wines will thus benefit immensely from the aeration process and the final product will be a smoother, richer, deeper glass.  Traditional wine-makers concentrate on differentiating their wines and thus you may notice that some wines are made to be ‘laid in a cellar’ in order for the tannins to work as part of the wine tasting process. So it is important to have a basic understanding of the bottle of wine. At a very basic level cost might be a good indicator. If you blend millions of gallons of wine and sell it immediately, it is likely the bottle of wine will be cheaper than wine that has been laid in a cellar for a number of years. It is just a case of simple economics, not that economics is ever simple!

Further Wine Aerator Reading:

Part two of the article can be found here.

Drink Wine On A Diet – Well I never!

After a wonderful time indulging in some Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa, a Texan Texas Tempranillo Reserve or a fine Bordeaux, over the holiday period the adverts start reminding us of the idea of dieting or in other words – abstinence or doing without. How we all hate the idea of not being able to drink wine on a diet.

Maybe there is a way to drink wine on a diet.

The problem is that abstinence can be so hard to maintain and it may not be the only or even best solution.

Whilst thinking about the pros of control versus giving up wine for a whole month or more, I came across some research that suggests that one glass of red wine can, over the long-term help with weight management, particularly for middle-aged women and prevent them from putting on weight and becoming obese (Archive of Internal Medicine and International Journal of Obesity). On reading that it made me wonder, is that why in Paris the women seem to be so slim and there are so few obese people (well to be honest, I have never in nearly 30 years of visiting Paris (France) actually seen an obese person).

So back to the basic question, can I drink wine on a diet?

Maybe a change of approach is to make your wine consumption a fabulous experience from the moment of preparation to the actual consumption. Make the whole wine drinking experience easy and fun. Make that one glass count in every sense.

How to make one glass the perfect glass?

Think about, really visualise, that special meal. For example, how much better do double cooked French Fries taste when served with a fabulous steak? Now add a glass of your favourite wine. Get the picture?

Okay, it is the diet season so maybe remove the French Fries as a concession to the little indulgences taken over the holiday period. Instead take a moment to add a touch of class to the glass, remember you can only have the one perfect glass of wine.

A fine wine glass, a beautiful wine aerator on top of it and you are ready to have a visual experience (remember you eat and drink with your eyes as well as your taste buds). Just take a few seconds to really enjoy watching your wine pass through the wine aerator and as it picks up the air it gently releases the nuances of the smells contained in the wine. In the time it takes to pass through the aeration process, your senses can be indulged in a simple and effective but stunningly beautiful sensation, precisely what the wine deserves after all that time locked in the bottle.

So, go ahead and indulge in a glass of perfection whilst you are on your way to a new shape, new way of living.

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