Wine Law

1. The French Paradox It is necessary to refer a work that marks a precedent of the French Paradox in order to understand what the French Paradox is. The American physiologist Ancel Keys published a research paper in 1958, studying the uneven incidence of heart disease around the world as early as the mid-20 th century. His research work became known as the “Seven Country Study”. Keys attributed the low incidence of cardiovascular disease in southern European populations to the so-called “Mediterranean diet”, rich in olives, wine, fruits, vegetables and legumes. Later, in the early 1990s, Serge Renaud presented the results of another study in which he claimed that the French lived longer, had less heart disease and lower mortality from heart disease than the American or the English populations – that is, industrialised countries with high saturated fat intake –, even though the French also had a diet rich in saturated fat. It was thus a curious French Paradox. Perhaps these studies would not have come out so strongly to the population if it had not been for the fact that Renaud was invited, in 1991, to the program 60 minutes on the American television network CBS. Renaud argued that the explanation for this paradox lay in the two or three glasses of wine that most French people drank daily with their meals. Renaud then became a celebrity, and, in the United States, the sales of red wine increased significantly. 2. The Healthy Components of Wine Following Renaud’s appearance on this television show, he was asked by the United States Government’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Control to demonstrate, with hard data, what he was stating. In other words, he had to demonstrate that the regular consumption of wine was beneficial to health. Consequently, Renaud published his work in the prestigious Lancet Magazine , in 1992, in which he demonstrated his postulates. The circle was thus closed with the recommendations of the Mediterranean diet proposed by Ancel Keys, with wine as an incidence factor in the reduction of coronary diseases. With these results, scientists set out to find out which components or