Ep. 70 - Wine...healthy or not?

Welcome friends to the reality of health podcast. Today, we're talking about wine. Oh yeah.

So if it's, you know, maybe in the evening for you and you want to grab a glass. I say, go for it.

If you're listening to this in the morning. And you're an alcoholic. Go ahead. Grab a glass. I'm kidding. All right. So let's just start off right away and tell you this is by no means all the information that I could give you on wine. Literally. This is what I think the most important thing is to know wrapped up in however long, this episode is going to cover the types. Additives. Sulfites. And other topics you might actually find interesting.

If you find that wine gives you a headache or any other side effects, this will help you understand why. The information in this episode actually could apply to many of the beverages you consume or any other food you consume. Especially to any fermented foods that you might purchase from pickles to beer. 📍

There's two types of wine. There's the dead kind. And then there's the living kind. So dead. Or alive. 📍

Then you've got these subtypes. Commercial. And natural. Commercial is produced with profit. And production in mind only.

You've probably heard the terms natural or organic, maybe even biodynamic. Natural organic and biodynamic unfortunately can do many of the same things conventional does to their wine. Including a lot of marketing. Organic only refers to how the grapes were grown. Now that we got that out of the way. We can get into some more minutia. So, for example, the label could say, Made with organically grown grapes or 100% organic grapes, or even containing naturally raised grapes or any number of ways to skirt the issue. And not even really give you the truth. But make it sound. Really natural and good and original and untainted.

It's just so clean. Wrong.

So just because it says it's organic or natural or biodynamic doesn't mean that it was processed in an organic or natural or bio-dynamic way. It could be made with literally 100% organic grapes then they can use all the other modern ways of creating the wine. And you would never know it.

So you say, come on, Erik. Is it really that bad? Yeah, it is. There are no standards for the label.

The only standard is it must say the warning about drinking it when you're pregnant. Et cetera, you know, that whole thing. And then also it has to state the alcohol content. That's a legal thing. We're going to get into what is the word state? Of alcohol.

So the only real way to know is if you actually went to the vineyard and watch them make it. Or you just know your distributor. Because the distributor. Knows what they did to the wine. Hopefully, they went there and met these people. We aren't going to go into how to contact distributors and know which ones will help, you know, if a, why is natural or not. You could look that up online.

Natural refers to how they made the wine after harvest with organic

or bio dynamic grapes. So what is a natural wine?

First. No synthetic molecules are used in or on the vines.

They will only use plowing or other solutions to avoid chemical herbicides.

They will only use indigenous yeast. Not GMO yeast or GMO bacteria. They hand pick the grapes. Low to almost no filtering.

Low to no sulfites.

It's wine-making that respects the grapes. no. Pounding or rough handling of the grapes? No. What's called micro oxygenation.

No chaptalization which basically just means they add sugar. The grape must in order to increase the alcohol content. I knew what some of you were saying. Who 📍 doesn't work that way. Natural wines are actually lower in alcohol.

But for you, indulge is out there. It will still mess you up. Remember. It's alive.

alive things are more potent than dead things.

If you care about the environment. And this is one way that you can contribute by not buying conventionally raised grapes, the largest polluter in France. are grape growers.

Only 5% of the grape growers in the world. are organic.

We want to get all upset about somebody driving a certain car that we think is a big polluter. But then. We could be drinking wine grown in France. That's one of the biggest producers of pollutants in France.

All our choices have consequences.

In the U S only three companies own 52% of the wine. Oh, So, what do you think. We look at these. Bottles. You know these labels and it says Chateau or vineyards, and they got these beautiful labels. Well guess what. All of that is still made in a massive factory in California. They bought up those little places, kept the labels and then just produced mass.

Quantities of.

Cases of wine.

You ever heard of dry farming? Well, if you haven't. Basically it's the best and the healthiest way to grow most things. But in this case, we're talking wine.

You don't use any irrigation.

At all. That means you don't need pesticides, herbicides and insecticides. Because those can lead you into the ground, into the water supply. So what happens is. This forces, the vines to grow their roots deep. Up to eight meters. In order to find water. That means you don't need irrigation. Because the roots are deeper. They can collect more nutrients from the soil.

They also get more. Quote life unquote. From going deeper.

If you irrigate vines.

Then the roots don't go very deep. They stay on the surface to get the water. That means less nutrients from the soil. Less flavor. Less minerality in the end, ferment. I love that word, ferment.

In an esoteric way, I guess could be just more. Actual real truth of the matter is the fact that if the roots go deep, it's dark. And then the vine is on top of the soil. Which gets the sun. Which is the light. So you have this. You know, dichotomy of darkness and light. Is there something there? Could that contribute to the quality of the wine. Well, it's interesting, nonetheless.

In Tuscan, Italy wines. If it has the letters D O C G . Anywhere in the label. Or on the neck. That means that it is certified to be dry farmed. That's pretty cool. Did not know that until recently.

Those are Italian wines. We'll have a white and light blue. Label ring around the neck. The other one is white with almost a green. Color. You want the one with the blue first?

The green is almost as good as the blue.

Dry farming. Means that as the grapes are growing. They take on the naturally occurring yeast and bacteria in their environment. That is the only yeast and bacteria that's used in the fermentation. Then when you make the wine without adding sugar, Then that means you're going to have less alcohol and less overall sugar in the wine. 📍

Companies that are dry farmed, do not use any chemicals in their growing or they're harvesting. You could say they are the cleanest. Nothing added nothing removed. It's pure and actually natural. The least amount of human intervention.

The yeast and bacteria are not genetically modified like conventional producers. Yeah. That wine you think is so natural and healthy.

Couldn't have GMO yeast and bacteria. couldn't. And have added sugar and chemicals. Right. I mean, why would you need to do that?

The GMO yeast and bacteria are a big deal.

Y. Because huge companies own almost all the brands, which is about 70% of them. You think you're getting this farmhouse wine made by some families somewhere 📍 in the world, working super hard out in the vineyard. This romantic visual of them with love gathering the grapes and pressing them with laughter and joy. Then sipping the end wine while the sun goes down during their family dinner out on the veranda. In reality. No such thing.

Did you know that they can add GMO, yeast and bacteria to make a wine taste like a region of the world? Let that sink in. They sold you into believing that wine was from a certain area made by a specific vineyard. When in reality it was made in a factory in California. To taste like it came from a special place. You know, who else does this? Starbucks.

Commercially produced wines can actually be very high in histamine and that can give you all kinds of health issues.

One of those would be headaches.

The other is the alcohol content. Federal government. States that the alcohol content must be on the bottle. But guess what? That was stated in the forties. They had inaccurate testing back then to tell how much alcohol was actually in the bottle. Nowadays, we have super precise ways and we can get the exact amount on the bottle. So your alcohol content. We'll be either what it states on the label, or it could be up to one and a half percent higher.

Doesn't seem like much, guess what it is.

Sometimes they find that it's up to 3% higher. You might be asking. Why would they allow this to happen?

This is where it gets really interesting. Because the excise tax paid on alcohol. The lower, the alcohol, the less tax. And then you have the government doesn't want to change.

The alcohol law stating the amount of alcohol in the label. Y. Lobbyists. Because the companies don't want to change.

Otherwise, they would have to pay more tax.

They want to keep that level. They want to keep that.

Label. Just the way it is.

These wine associations, spend millions of dollars to keep labels off of wine. They don't want you to know what's in it or the nutritional facts. Gee, I wonder why. Because if you saw the true levels of carbs or alcohol or any other ingredients, they used like the chemicals, which we're going to discuss shortly. You would never buy it. You would say this is trash. I thought this was some beautifully crafted. Grape. Then fermented properly.

Nope. It's not.

One of the other reasons why you don't feel well? With these conventional wines.

Or commercial wines. Same thing. Is they add Oak? Or they use new Oak barrels.

This is where it gets a little interesting. Oak and parts. High amounts of methanol.

And three other chemicals, but methanol is the worst and that can make you feel terrible.

If they don't want to use barrels, then they'll add pellets. Or dust. Or wood chips.

If we had. Labels. One of the things they could put on there is whether or not they tested for mycotoxins.

Why is that important, Erik? Because mycotoxins can kill you.

They have serious detrimental effects in your body.

There's no requirements in the us to test for wine for mold doxins. Mycotoxins make you feel super bad. The EU even makes it mandatory for wines to test for that. The only time the U S test for toxins is when it's being shipped to other countries.

Isn't that wild. We're so lame when it comes to stuff like this.

By the way. That applies also to glyphosate, which I might have an episode.

Got a question for you. Is expensive wine better than cheap wine. What do you think. Well, they've done all kinds of studies trying to see if people can taste the difference in whether or not expensive wines taste actually better. Typically people find that they don't like the taste of expensive wine unless. They are trained in actual wine tasting. Most people will find it. Unpalatable. Sometimes because they don't want to taste grass or tobacco or leather or anything else, they wouldn't want to liquefy and put in their mouth. Are you, am I right? Like. As soon as I hear leather, I'm like, I don't want to chew leather.

Why do I want it in my wine?

So what's the difference between the two of them when it comes to quality. Are expensive wines, cleaner or healthier than cheap ones. Let's differentiate first off. Expensive and cheap. Expensive is anything $30 a bottle. Or more.

We'll use that mark, because it seems like most people won't spend more than that for a bottle because let's face it it's most people can't taste the difference.

No, why you can't taste a difference? Because they make the wine taste a certain way based on a guy named Robert Parker. He set the wine tasting 100 point scale. You know that one, you always see 93 points.

They all wanted to please him. He likes bold. Full bodied wine. So they flavor the wine to tastes like his recommendations. That isn't a joke either. He set the standard for the flavor of most wines, which you have tasted and then say tastes the same as everything else.

And some cases, people who tasted the $8 bottle said that it tastes exactly the same as the $35 bottle.

Well, of course.

They made it all taste the same. Just to please Robert Parker.

It's all subjective.

But by taking that factor out. Just saying, do you like the taste? People couldn't pick. Which bottle was what. Uh, $50 a bottle or a $5 bottle. Or a $12 bottle. they couldn't tell.

Do you like movies?

If you like movies. You got to see the movie sideways. It's about wine. 📍 📍 It is awesome.

So, what about all those awards, Erik? Well,

An analysis of the scoring of these wines that won awards. They would win. Let's say in one competition, then they'd score one of the lowest in other ones. Awards mean absolutely nothing in the wine world. That brand could say we've got 80 awards. What they don't say is they also scored the lowest in 80 other competitions. Even other studies that when they told people how much a wine cost. They scored it higher because they thought they should. Even though it was the same wine in both glasses. 📍

Even professional wine tasters will contradict each other all the time. You got one saying. Oh, this is the best wine. This is so beautiful. It's got this and this and all this other jazz. And another critic will say, it's the worst thing they've ever tasted.

Even sometimes. They're told the vineyard and the price of the wine before they start tasting it. Oh, what.

All right. Let's get into the body of this wine episode. 📍

The wine making industry. There are hundreds of additives that are legal. The first thing they do is add sulfites to the grapes. That way it kills bacteria on the grapes and the yeast before they start producing the wine. Organic wines don't use anything, no chemicals at all. None on the soil. None of the vines, none of the production. So natural wines, organic wines that are.

Fermented naturally, they don't need those chemicals.

They don't need sulfites.

The agricultural revolution took on the concept of grow it faster, cheaper. To make as much money as possible. The craft of creating real wine actually went to the wayside. Much harder to do. Much more expensive with less profit. I guess that's true for many things. Isn't it.

Remember when I said there are two types. Dead or living. Natural wine is a living beverage. Similar to things like kombucha. Or Keifer. or any other fermented non chemicalized fermented beverage.

In other words, no chemicals are added to stop it from living. Right then and there in the bottle. So when you open a bottle of natural wine, it will taste different as you're drinking it because you're exposing it to the environment. It can actually change its flavor. Conventional wine will pretty much taste the same all the way through because it's dead. 📍

So when you open. A bottle of natural wine, it will taste different. And as you're drinking it. Because you're exposing it to the environment. It can actually change its flavor. No commercial wine will pretty much taste the same all the way through because it's dead.

There are 76 different chemical additives allowed. In wine in the U S. No, not all of these chemical additives are necessarily harmful. Some of them are actual, real substances. But if you're looking for the cleanest, most natural least fiddled with wine. Then you need to know what they're adding or what they've done to the wine during growing season. The best place to buy wine online is through sites that show you how they produce their wine. That way, you know,

If you want to get most of these wines conveniently than order from sites like dry farm wines.com. Or Secco wines. That's S E C C O. I have no affiliation with these guys. I don't know these people at all. But their process of picking wine is top notch. They're doing all the work for you.

They physically go to the wine makers. See their operations and then they test their wines to make sure they are done with the least amount of fiddling. 📍 📍 They're fully biodynamic, fully organic, no additives. No, nothing. Just literally let the grapes grow. Let the grapes ferment. And that's it.

They support. Small makers. Because these people are the ones actually making the real wine, not the factory chemical laden garbage. The wines that they select and sell will have less than a gram. Of sugar in the bottle. Less than 12 and a half percent alcohol. Why is that important? Because most wine has added sugar. Dry farm wines says that they routinely find. Normally 30 grams or so.

Of sugar in a bottle. But it can actually go higher than that. And dessert wines. They can go up to 300 grams of sugar. Are you kidding me?

You know, those new type of wines you see called sweet reds. You see it on the label where they say the word sweet. What do you think makes it sweet. I'll give you a guess. Yep. You're correct. 📍

Secco is a little cheaper at about $25 a bottle. But we'll have a more limited selection. The alcohol content is a little higher and so it was the sugar, but not much. Dry farm has over 600 wineries. They work with that are fully dry, farmed and natural. They run about $30 a bottle.

I know. If you're the type who won't, or can't spend more than 25 a bottle. Then look for wineries, either in your area. Uh, or search online for companies that are dry, farmed and natural. They'll tell you exactly what they do. They love to talk about it. They love for you people to come to the vineyards. And if they don't, what are they hiding?

So vineyards that actually care about the wine that they make. Won't use chemicals. And they routinely will test their harvest. Y. Because there can be up to 500 different chemicals. In their grapes. By the way. That are not supposed to be there. We're not talking natural chemicals.

When vineyards use herbicides, for example, because obviously no one wants weeds. They want a beautiful looking vineyard, that romantic picture. Well, some of those chemicals are almost the same as napalm that they used in Vietnam war. Burns the grass and the weeds. But this stuff.

Also kills all the good bacteria in the soil and all the biological substances that help the, you know, the soil be super good as well as. Destroying insects. That are positive, like worms, and yeasts and fungi. And all the other living creatures that are in the soil then make it awesome.

We all know what good soil is supposed to be. It seems like we never ask ourselves or the companies that make the food. Did it come from good soil.

So the end result of using chemicals in your vineyard is your soil loses its vitality. And then therefore the vines will lose their vitality. I don't care if it's grapes for wine or carrots. Food tastes better when you keep the chemicals out of the soil.

It's not always what you add to the wine, but it's also what you added to the grapes during growing. Well, according to the USDA pesticide data program. There's over 34 different kinds of pesticide residues found on conventionally grown grapes.

You want the breakdown? You're ready. Remember. We all thought wine was this super healthy, natural thing. Well guess what. Four chemicals that they find regularly. Our known or probable carcinogens.

17 are suspected hormone disruptors. 10. Are neurotoxins. Six are developmental or reproductive toxins. 14. Are implicated in the deaths of honeybees. Of course they are. It's like they want to kill off honeybees.

That list of chemicals that I just listed off to you. How is that one thing that they say resveratrol is so healthy for you? Is going to counteract all of those 34. It's not. Resveratrol isn't as powerful as everybody says it is. But I digress something we can talk about later. So if a vineyard takes so much care in growing their grapes completely naturally. And they would never want to add chemicals in the process of making a wine from start to finish.

It would be as simple as possible.

That way you have the purest product that you can get.

That then embodies the care from that harvest and the climate and the amount of sun that it had and all that other stuff that makes that wine taste the way. It's supposed to taste. And each harvest, as we all know is different.

With conventionally made wine, they purposely add additives to the wine to make sure it tastes the same every single time. Or if they make 1 million cases of wine, they all have to taste exactly the same. Can you say McDonald's.

Natural wine maker. Let's wine become what it wants to be, not what they want it to be.

All right. Let's talk sulfites. The number one question. And when it comes to wine,

All wine has sulfites, regardless if it's added. Naturally occurring. Sulfites is not enough to give anybody a headache or any other kind of sensitivity reaction. What do sulfites do? Well, they stop oxygen from oxidizing the wine.

They don't know when the bottle is going to be consumed. Do you have to keep the wine from going bad? Sulfites stop the oxygen from killing. The wine.

Problem is when you add too many sulfites, you kill the wine. That's why, if you just use what's naturally occurring, you're fine. Here's a fun fact. Sulfites been added to wine, going back to even the Roman days.

The issue. With sulfites is most winemakers don't test or control for how much sulfites they use. If they did. And they would limit them to only what is needed. Which would be only a very small amount. And they had too much. It kills everything living in the wine.

That means. It's dead. You see. Got to know the finer points of. Fermenting foods.

So let's get geeky. Shall we? You ever heard of the term fining. Well, Let's get into it. So there's something called fining. And there are agents that they use for fining. So during the fermentation and the aging process, grape particles known as colloids. Suspend in the wine and impart flavor. But there aren't attractive. And they potentially might affect the end products flavor. Aroma or color and sole producers routinely remove them prior to bottling.

Those particles are so small that filtering them out on their own won't work. So they need to become sizable enough to be removed. The crystal clear wine you typically find on the supermarket shelves is a result of fining and filtering.

Traditionally though. That used, are you ready for this? Egg whites.

These help remove these particles from the wine. So the protein in the wine binds to the protein in the egg, whites clumps together falls to the bottom of the barrel. Egg whites are still used today. But they do have other non-vegetarian.

fining agents such as.

Bentonite clay. casein. From milk or even something called.

isinglass, I S I N G L a S S.

Are you ready for this? It's dried fish bladders.

Those will do the same thing as bentonite and casein. Also. There is an ongoing discussion about the usage of animal products in wine. Because of this whole vegan push.

It's brought new light into how to fine. Your wine, which is basically just making it as clear as possible.

I personally don't care. I think cloudy wines are just fine. Doesn't bother me a bit. Then they'll use things like Defoaming agents. Let me tell you. These are some seriously long names. I'm not going to bore you. If you look it up, you will see them all. Matter of fact, I can't even pronounce half of these. But those will control foaming.

Then you have. Di methyl di carbonate. That stabilizes the wine and also sterilizes it. Do you really want to sterilize your wine? What does that do? It kills all the living things that are in it that make it so healthy. And flavorful, I might add.

Then they can use things like copper sulfate. That removes hydrogen, sulfide and other.

Substances called mercaptans from the wine. I know. Wild.

So basically. This will remove unwanted characteristics from the wine, like natural, bad smells.

Uh,

other sulfurs in the wine that are undesirable that can, you know, Make it not taste so great.

And they use things like acetylaldehyde. That will stabilize the color of the juice prior to concentrating it. You know what acetylaldehyde is it's a byproduct of sugar.

Metabolism.

Ethyl Maltol another wine stabilizer, Ferocyanide compounds. These removed trace metals from wine.

And also things like sulfides and more mercaptans.

That isinglass. I was telling you about. It's known as fish glue.

It's been used for centuries for fining and clarifying wine.

Also takes out the yeast that they used in the fermentation. Then they use things like milk products. Yup. All types. To fine the wine.

Yeah, there's another stabilizer clarifier. That I can't even pronounce. Call it. P V P P.

By the way that starts with poly vinyl. So that's a plastic.

Then they use things like fruit concentrates from different grape varieties to boost the color and the flavor. Then they'll add things like distilled alcohol to raise the alcohol levels. Things like gum, Arabic that clarifies and remove sediment. One of the more controversial things they use is what's called mega purple. It's a concentrated syrup, used a correct color issues. What's the point of mega purple. That enables winemakers to make passable wine from poor fruit. We'll get into that.

Velcorin. The microbial control agent. That's the one that makes up napalm.

Then they use things like genetically modified yeast. We'll get into that. Water. Well, that can reduce the alcohol levels and acidity. It's not allowed at all in the United States.

Historically additives weren't added to wine. It was literally just Fermented grape juice.

But the problem with this for wine makers, mass producing the stuff as cheaply as possible. That wine has a tendency to be unstable. And if it's left unchecked or if a bad grape sneaks through it can spoil the whole barrel, Which is why many commercial winemakers increase the sugar content. Yes. Sugar keeps things. Um, more stable. Let's say.

Mass produced wines, take interventions to a whole new level. For example to meet demand. Hand picking the grapes when they're perfectly ripe, only selecting the best grapes and discarding any tainted ones. Isn't an option.

Because they're pushing quantity over quality. They need to pick all the grapes regardless of how ripe they are and include them all. Even the rotten ones. So they need to add certain elements to the winemaking process to counter any and all problems they might come up against with these bad grapes.

Natural wine producers don't fine their wines as they believe removing these colloids. I spoke about earlier removes the natural flavor and the texture of the wine. Most established wine tasters. We'll be able to tell you if a wine had grape juice concentrate They could also distinguish between the shallow flavor of Oak chips and the rich depth that comes from aging wine and real Oak barrels. They can taste the difference between the wine fermented with wild native yeasts versus wine fermented with commercial GMO added yeast.

You see additives remove natures influence.

They speed up. And standardize the winemaking process, but when they do that, they remove a wine soul.

You could taste the difference right away when you try a glass of natural wine.

It's not been manipulated with additives. The wine is alive. It holds within it. A story about the year it was made the changing of the seasons, the richness of the soil. The careful harmony between the winemaker and the nature or the terroir. Herself.

You never quite know what you'll get when you open a bottle of natural wine.

Natural wines, trade standardization for personality. And purity and quality. So the next time you think that that bottle looks innocent. It is not.

Thank you for listening. Now go get drunk. I'm just kidding. Take care of yourselves.