Red wines from south west France and Sardinia are the best for health

If you're looking to buy your next bottle of wine, do consider the traditional red wines from south west France and Sardinia because they may help in providing you with a long and healthy life. From The Herald:

People living in these wine-growing areas are renowned for their longevity. Now, Professor Alan Crozier, of Glasgow University, has found their wines contain particularly high levels of procyanidins – grape-seed chemicals that benefit the heart.

The effect of red wine goes some way towards explaining the so-called "French paradox" – the puzzling low levels of heart disease the French enjoy despite their fatty diets...

They found that procyanidins were the most effective at keeping blood vessels dilated, which would help the body delay the onset of cardiovascular disease. They then assayed wines from around the world and found the highest procyanidin content in wines from regions of south west France, and Sardinia.

One region was Gers, in the Midi-Pyrenees, where according to census data there are more men over the age of 75 than in other parts of France.

The other was Nuoro province in Sardinia, whose inhabitants' unusual longevity is already well-documented.

Red wines from these areas were five to 10 times richer in procyanidins than some new world wines, according to the study.