Wine: A Scientific Exploration

Wine: A Scientific Exploration. Eds Merton Sandler, Roger Pinder. Taylor and Francis, £65, pp 336. www.tandf.co.uk. ISBN 0 415 24734 9. Rating: ★★★★.

There's something about the fermented juice of grapes that attracts doctors. Hippocrates recommended wine as a treatment for almost all illnesses, although he drew the line at giving it to patients with meningitis. Christopher Rawson Penfold, the founder of one of Australia's leading wineries, was a young English doctor who emigrated to Australia in 1844 and soon realised that there was more to life than setting broken bones in the outback.

The editors of this book have gathered together a formidable international taskforce of physicians, scientists, and wine specialists. They present the scientific evidence to support the belief that a little of what you fancy does you good (especially if it's red and made from Merlot or Pinot Noir grapes).

Rosemary George, a wine writer and master of wine, sets the scene in the first chapter called “Drinking Wine.” She explores the four main factors that determine the taste of a glass of wine: the grape variety, the soil, the climate, and the human hand of the winemaker. I think it is a serious omission to leave out the company of fellow drinkers, but she later admits that drinking wine is above all about friendship, love, conviviality, and good conversation.

After a thorough recitation of the history of wine as a medicine, the heavyweight epidemiologists are wheeled out to look at the evidence behind the assertion that wine is protective against heart disease. They conclude that light to moderate drinking does indeed lower the risk of coronary heart disease. But is it the wine, or is it the ethanol? Michael Marmot and Martin Bobak are not yet convinced that it is the wine, citing “residual confounding by other factors” as the reason why some studies have favoured wine over beer and spirits. This view is supported by Arthur Klatsky from Kaiser Permanente in California, who presents the evidence on all forms of cardiovascular disease, including hypertension, stroke, and peripheral vascular disease.

Most of the second half of the book deals with the chemical compounds with putative beneficial effects: flavonoids, polyphenols, resveratrol, and related substances.

The chapter by Roger Pinder and Professor Carole Meredith on the identity and parentage of wine grapes should be required reading for all wine-drinking geneticists. Professor Meredith published a seminal paper in Science in 1999 that revealed the parentage of the Chardonnay grape. One parent is Pinot; the other is a miserable eastern European grape called Gouais Blanc. Chardonnay has never tasted as good since then, although I'm always willing to give it another chance if it comes from Burgundy.