Weird Wednesday

June 25, 2008 - 3:32 PM by Rachel Neiman

The medical-oenological world was all aflutter this week. A story hit that researchers at the Technion, the Israeli Institute of Technology have developed a white wine with the same health benefits as red wine by boosting the anti-oxidant properties of your favorite chardonnay.

The ISRAEL21c news desk was equally thrilled at reporting another Israeli contribution to the betterment of society, until we discovered that we’d already run the story in 2002.

At that time, researcher Professor Michael Aviram was asked about the difficulty in finding age-appropriate human test subjects and answered, “For $200 a student will drink or eat anything… But what I need to do is look at the effect on arteries”. This time around, Aviram – clearly a man with a gift for the memorable sound bite – is quoted as saying: “There has been an incredible response from those that have heard about the research, with many thinking of taking up drinking white wine more seriously.”

Now, serious drinking of white wine is indeed the sort of story that should be reported on regularly and championed by organizations like Society of Medical Friends of Wine. However, the Technion spokesman assures us that no new research developments have happened. What is news is that Binymina Wineries, which cooperated on the development, is reportedly going to launch the new product in the US later this year.

No word yet on whether the headache I get after drinking white wine has also been eliminated by the new technology.

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