Wine Blog

Château Lafite joins Chinese ‘grand cru’ race – Guardian Unlimited
One of the most prestigious Bordeaux wine estates yesterday joined the race for a stake in China ‘s growing wine industry, announcing that it would invest in vineyards in the Far East to produce a “Chinese grand cru”. Château Lafite, one of the most

How to Conquer Cancer, Naturally (The Grape Cure)
A new edition of the ‘Grape Cure’. Widely used by holistic health professionals to fight disease, often in patients with ‘inoperable cancer’. Grapes contain a very powerful antioxidant that protects your body cells from ‘free radicals’. Scientists have given it the name of ‘proanthocyanidins’, but it is not new. As far back as 1556, books on this wonderful nature cure had been published in various European languages. Dr Brandt was diagnosed with cancer in 1916, shortly after her mother died from cancer. Working with her own diet, fasting, etc, she began to see the relationship of the food she ate to the progression or regression of her cancer. It took nine years to achieve her healing. She discovered that a meat diet perpetuates cancer, a vegetarian diet conquers it, and that organic grapes aid healing. She helped others rid themselves of this deadly disease, left her native South Africa to bring her discovery to the US, and wrote this book. She shares her journey back to wellness in this small, yet remarkable book, reprinted because ‘the need is greater than ever for natural discoveries to reach the people’.

Customer Review: Grape Cure
I have been looking at many alternative methods for fighting cancers because I have found the allopathic method to not work on several people lately. Not to mention that the allopathic doctors missed some very obvious signs on 3 of the people
I found this book interesting and it seems that, given more recent scientific research information on grapes, that it might be something to incorporate into a cancer protocol when using natural methods.
I appreciated the book and enjoyed hearing the woman’s story. I read in another review that she seemed to ramble on, but I felt the way the story was told was very honest and natural.

Customer Review: Now Scientically Proven
This book originally written in 1920s by Dr. Johanne Brandt is fantastic. Although the reason why red grape juice can cure cancers remained unknown for more than seven decades until 1997, the major anti-cancer ingredient in this grape is now known: a polyphenol called “resveratrol” (R3).

It inhibits a Tyr-kinase called Syk, which is essential for the activation of several oncogenic kinases such as PAK and AKT. Since PAK is essential for the growth of more than 70% of human cancers, red grape juice, red wine, R3 or its derivatives could cure these PAK-dependent cancers. It is also known now that R3 is useful for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as NF (neurofibromatosis), Alzheimer’s (AD), Huntington’s (HD) and ALS.

So it would be worth reading this book, just to get a general idea, although the book itself does not tell you much of science (molecular biology of cancer) behind this “miracle” cure. However, I don’t think the “fast” a wise approach. Fast should be replaced by a more moderate approach such as “low” (70%) calorie diet.

One of the most well-known stories about the health benefits of eating fruit is called the French Paradox ? the condition of unexpected low incidence of cardiovascular disease in French citizens who regularly eat extraordinary quantities of high-fat foods and consume red wine. These people technically should have high rates of cardiovascular disease but seem protected by the chemicals in wine.

Although we now recognize that high-fat diets are undesirable, the potential benefits of a diet rich in whole food phytochemicals are clear when combined with other healthy dietary and lifestyle practices, such as maintaining a regular exercise program.

Possibly the most publicized phytochemical in red wine is resveratrol found in the skin and seeds of red and purple grapes and dark berries like the blueberry. Having the chemical formula C14H12O3, resveratrol is chemically defined as a stilbene, viniferin or phytoalexin (a Greek-derived term meaning to ?protect? (alexin) or to ?ward off?).

This designation suits the function of resveratrol in the outer skin of plants as a primary fungicide and antiviral agent with potent antioxidant properties protecting against ultraviolet radiation, pests and injury. Resveratrol belongs to the general class of plant chemicals called phenolics or polyphenols, named from their composition of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms in 6-carbon rings.

Benefits of Resveratrol

By consuming blue, red, purple and black-skinned plants rich in resveratrol, humans may gain these protective benefits. Early medical research proves this to be true, as resveratrol has been shown in preliminary research on experimental animals to:

? Increase blood flow and reduce the extent of brain cell damage following stroke
? Reduce the activity of brain inflammatory mediators in a model of Alzheimer?s disease
? Reduce vascular plaque formation in rats given a high-fat diet
? Improve the rate of healing in skin wounds
? Protect against lipid oxidation in a model of pancreatitis
? Protect against cellular pathology in a model of diabetic kidney disease
? Protect against liver damage in a model of cholestasis or bile duct occlusion
? Protect against cartilage deterioration in a model of osteoarthritis
? Stimulate anti-clotting mechanisms in blood
? Suppress appetite and in turn contribute to weight control or loss
? Enhance sperm production
? Inhibit formation of cataracts
? Inhibit proliferation of the herpes simplex virus
? Prolong the lives of yeast cells, worms, fish and fruit flies, possibly through mechanisms that affect aging via slowing the rate of cell death

Anti-Cancer Effect

Resveratrol?s most compelling health effect shown in laboratory studies is its broad-spectrum anti-cancer activity. The online database of medical literature for the US National Institutes of Health, PubMed, cites nearly 500 publications over the past decade of research on resveratrol as a cancer chemopreventive nutrient.

Experimental models of breast, prostate, lung, blood, skin, brain, kidney, bladder, tongue, esophagus and colon cancer show evidence for beneficial effects of resveratrol. It appears also to sensitize cells toward cancer therapy agents, improving the benefit of these drugs. Also, when combined with other plant-derived phenolics, resveratrol?s anti-cancer actions seem to be enhanced, showing the potential benefits of antioxidant synergy from a mixed diet high in colorful fruits and vegetables rich in phytochemicals.

Resveratrol?s actions to inhibit inflammatory mediators and the growth of new blood vessels in tumors (called anti-angiogenesis), plus its ability to accelerate the rate of cancer cell death (called apoptosis, ?eh-po-toe-sis?), are synergistic effects in anti-cancer activity. In other experiments, resveratrol inhibited enzymes synthesizing nitro-oxygen radicals like nitric oxide that may be involved in cancer development.

To summarize, resveratrol acts against mechanisms controlling the initiation, promotion and progression of tumor cell growth in laboratory models. It is considered one of the most promising natural anti-cancer agents.

Fortunately for us, resveratrol can be easily introduced into the diet by selecting foods like:

o Red grapes and dark grape juice
o Red wines (and even white ones, but with lower resveratrol levels)
o Blackberries, blueberries, cranberries and lingonberries (and their juices)
o Pistachios
o Peanuts with skins and peanut butter

Take home message: Eat berries! Drink red wine! And be merry!

Reading

PubMed at http://pubmed.gov; type ?resveratrol AND? in the search space, add the topic of your interest, and click on Go to view literature.

Linus Pauling Institute, Micronutrient Information Center, Oregon State University, Corvallis, http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/

Copyright 2006 Berry Health Inc.

Dr. Paul Gross is a scientist and expert on cardiovascular and brain physiology. A published researcher, Gross recently completed a book on the Chinese wolfberry and has begun another on antioxidant berries. Gross is founder of Berry Health Inc, a developer of nutritional, berry-based supplements. For more information, visit http://www.berrywiseonline.com

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Great Grapes! Grow the Best Ever

New and old – Ottawa Sun
“We’re really not a new group,” explained Dave Hamelin of the decade-old outfit, which has three albums under its belt. “But I think maybe we’re new to a lot of you people — or maybe to the people who voted What it really means is that they’ve

10 best bargain bites in Sydney – Sydney Morning Herald
There’s no swirling whitewashed plaster and no throbbing bouzouki beats. While the bill of fare ticks all the evergreen boxes – dips, dolmades, grills and baked lamb – what lands on your table is well above the norm. For six or more, $39.50 a head

Wine Journal
It’s time for a toast! Designed for recording the memorable aspects of each bottle of wine, the entry pages of this journal include an easy scoring system and plenty of space for pasting in labels. A completed journal becomes a handy personal reference book for both connoisseurs and casual sippers.

128 pages (guided), 8 x 5 inches

Customer Review: Great value for the price
I’ve just bought the wine journal and it it very nice! I is made lovely and all my labels fit in there. As a red wine lover I do not like that the journal has two parts – for reds and whites , but I am planning on putting reds in pages for whites.

Customer Review: I’ve researched others and this one is great
I ordered this as a gift and just received it. I think its great, the layout of the journal pages is simple and straightforward. There is plenty of room for writing your review – so many journals will have one line to fill in ‘taste’ (isn’t that what its all about?). And there is an open page to the left of each journal page that lets you paste in wine labels. I’m too lazy to peel off labels and the pages are so nicely designed that it wouldn’t look bad or look like anything is missing if you didn’t include a label. Some journals have a giant open spot on the page itself. It has a very simple scoring system with just 1 – 5 stars, and just circle what applies in a couple of different categories.

Its great as a gift, its a very nice looking book, hard cover, great design. I highly recommend it.

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