How, to whom and how much you can drink white wine, so that it is real­ly a plea­sure and “to your health!”

benefits of white wine

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The composition and calorie content of white wine

White wine is obtained by fer­ment­ing grape berries, but with­out the skin. There­fore, it has a gold­en or straw col­or. White wines are dry, semi-dry, semi-sweet and sweet, and they are made from one or more grape vari­eties (by blend­ing). Vari­eties Sauvi­gnon Blanc, Pinot Gris, Chardon­nay, Sémil­lon, Viog­nier and Pinot Blanc are used to make dry white wines with an obvi­ous sour­ness. Wines such as Gewürz­tramin­er, Mosca­to, Mus­cat, Sauternes and some Ries­lings are usu­al­ly sweet­er, with fruity notes.

The calo­rie con­tent of 1 glass of white table wine is 120 kcal, which is giv­en to wine by alco­hol.

A glass (and this is approx­i­mate­ly 150 g) con­tains:

  • 3.8 g car­bo­hy­drates;
  • 1.4 g sug­ars;
  • 0.1 g pro­tein;
  • 7.4 mg sodi­um;
  • 0 fat;
  • 0 fiber.

And with all this, in a glass of wine about 15 g of alco­hol. But cups can also be dif­fer­ent — keep in mind that each addi­tion­al gram adds about 25 calo­ries. In addi­tion, the calo­rie con­tent and sug­ar con­tent can vary depend­ing on the type of wine: the least of them are in Sauvi­gnon, in Chardon­nay and Pinot Gri­gio a lit­tle more.

More calo­ries in white semi-sweet and sweet wines — up to 150 kcal, as well as up to 15 g of car­bo­hy­drates, and this is main­ly sug­ar.

Health benefits of natural white wine

Con­nois­seurs say that white wine is the most dif­fi­cult to fake, so the like­li­hood of buy­ing fake Chardon­nay or Tramin­er in the store is min­i­mal. And if we talk about the ben­e­fits of white wine, then, of course, we mean a real nat­ur­al prod­uct. And talk­ing about the ben­e­fits is quite real, and even nutri­tion­ists include dry white in a bal­anced and healthy diet plan — thanks to its enzymes, it helps to digest food faster and improves diges­tion. This is where the com­mon expla­na­tion for why the French, whose cui­sine actu­al­ly con­tains a lot of fat­ty meat dish­es, man­ages to stay slim: they sim­ply skip a glass or two of white grape wine at lunch and din­ner.

White wine con­tains small amounts of trace ele­ments, in par­tic­u­lar mag­ne­sium, and vit­a­mins, for exam­ple, B6. But it is hard­ly worth seri­ous­ly con­sid­er­ing a glass of white wine a day as a source of vit­a­mins and min­er­als to main­tain health. Name­ly, a glass a day, and no more, is allowed to drink by health experts for women, and a max­i­mum of two glass­es a day for men.

In fact, the almost com­plete absence of resver­a­trol in white wine (this antiox­i­dant is found in the peel), which has a ben­e­fi­cial effect on the car­dio­vas­cu­lar sys­tem, seri­ous­ly reduces its ben­e­fits. But doc­tors admit that in small dos­es, white wine helps to cope with stress, has a ben­e­fi­cial effect on the con­di­tion of the lung tis­sue, slight­ly low­ers the lev­el of “bad” cho­les­terol in the blood, and also reduces the risk of devel­op­ing type 2 dia­betes. But only in small dos­es!

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Who can not white wine and why

Wine, like oth­er alco­holic bev­er­ages, can­not by def­i­n­i­tion be drunk by humans:

  • with diag­nosed dis­eases of the heart and blood ves­sels, stom­ach and liv­er, dia­betes, men­tal dis­or­ders — alco­hol com­pli­cates the course of the dis­ease and inter­feres with the work of drugs;
  • tak­ing cer­tain drugs, in par­tic­u­lar antibi­otics, for flu and colds, sleep­ing pills and anti­de­pres­sants, for blood pres­sure, anal­gesics and antipsy­chotics — alco­hol can change the effect of drugs, cause intox­i­ca­tion and alco­hol poi­son­ing;
  • those who have been vac­ci­nat­ed, includ­ing against covid — exces­sive dos­es of alco­hol adverse­ly affect immu­ni­ty and can dis­tort the effect of the vac­cine;
  • chil­dren and ado­les­cents — it can affect the devel­op­ment of the brain, liv­er, bones and hor­mon­al func­tions;
  • plan­ning to dri­ve — alco­hol dis­pers­es the con­cen­tra­tion on the road, which can cause an acci­dent;
  • aller­gy suf­fer­ers — wine con­tains aller­gens such as yeast, mold, ethanol, acetalde­hyde and sul­fites, which can pro­voke symp­toms of a run­ny nose and suf­fo­ca­tion.

Is white wine allowed during pregnancy?

Doc­tors still can­not decide on a safe dose of alco­hol for expec­tant moth­ers. So the best option is not to drink at all. When a moth­er drinks at least a cou­ple of sips of wine, alco­hol pass­es through the pla­cen­ta into the blood of a child, for whom this is a real stress. As a result, a mis­car­riage may occur, the baby may be born pre­ma­ture and weak. If the expec­tant moth­er often looks at the glass, a child with a fetal alco­hol spec­trum dis­or­der may be born, and these will be prob­lems with devel­op­ment, health, speech, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion in the future. Is it worth the risk?

Can breastfeeding mothers drink white wine?

Doc­tors say that if you real­ly want to, then you can, but not more than the stan­dard dose and 2, and prefer­ably 3 hours before feed­ing. More alco­hol can inter­fere with the flow of breast milk, as well as dis­turb the baby’s sleep and ear­ly devel­op­ment.

What dishes to serve with white wine

Dry white wine is con­sid­ered to be the begin­ning of any meal: it is served as an aper­i­tif, even regard­less of the entire menu. But there are a great many vari­eties and types of white wine, and in order for each of them to cor­rect­ly reveal its bou­quet and aro­ma, choose the right snacks. It is impor­tant that food and drink do not “com­pete”: bright and com­plex wines are suit­able for sim­ple dish­es, and sim­ple and “under­stand­able” wines for fine dish­es. Here are 10 clas­sic white wine pair­ings:

  • Sauvi­gnon Blanc, Pinot Gri­gio and Chenin Blanc with fried pork;
  • Chardon­nay for seafood;
  • Caviar under cham­pagne brut (very dry white sparkling wine);
  • Oys­ters under Chablis;
  • Sauvi­gnon Blanc under Cae­sar sal­ad;
  • Ries­ling for chick­en meat;
  • Sauternes for liv­er dish­es;
  • Sauvi­gnon Blanc and Pinot Blanc with toma­toes and cheese, herb pie or sushi;
  • Fish dish­es and meat shank with Pinot Gris;
  • Apple pie with cin­na­mon Gewürstramin­er.

Recipes with white wine

The dish will acquire a unique taste if you add a lit­tle white wine to it dur­ing cook­ing. It will play its culi­nary role in white meat dish­es, fish, mush­rooms and even desserts. Are you ready to give up a glass of wine in the evening? Then take it to the kitchen!

Rabbit in white wine

Chardon­nay is best served with rab­bit stewed in wine, and buck­wheat as a side dish.

You will need:

  • 1 rab­bit car­cass;
  • 1 l white semi-sweet wine;
  • 2 onions;
    150 g bacon;
  • 1 Art. l. Adjikas;
  • 1 bunch of pars­ley;
  • 250 g sour cream;
  • Provence herbs to taste.

Cook­ing:

Soak the rab­bit overnight in white wine. In the morn­ing, drain half of the wine and add chopped onion and bacon, adji­ka to the rab­bit. Sim­mer for an hour on a slow fire. Then add spices and sim­mer for anoth­er hour. At the end we put chopped pars­ley and sour cream.

Fish soup with white wine

Try this soup in com­bi­na­tion with white dry or semi-dry sparkling wine.

You will need:

  • 0.5 kg fil­let of cod;
  • 21 toma­toes;
  • 500 ml fish broth;
  • 1 sprig of basil;
  • 3 Art. l. olive oil;
  • 1 clove of gar­lic;
  • 300 ml of white wine;
  • Salt and pep­per to taste.

Cook­ing:

Grind toma­toes with a blender. Fine­ly chop the gar­lic and fry it in a deep fry­ing pan in hot oil. Quick­ly add the fish pieces to the pan. Pour white wine into a saucepan and sim­mer a lit­tle. With­out remov­ing from heat, beat the fish with a blender. Pour the fish broth and toma­to puree into the pan. Salt and pep­per the soup, bring it to a boil, remove from heat. When serv­ing, dec­o­rate the fish soup with basil sprigs.

Mushrooms in white wine

It is bet­ter to serve red wine with this dish, and pota­toes as a side dish.

You will need:

  • 0.5 kg of champignons;
  • 3 st. l. Ted­dy bear;
  • 1 st. white wine;
  • 3 art. l. soy sauce;
  • 10 g but­ter;
  • 3 sprigs of pars­ley.

Cook­ing:

Coarse­ly chop pre­pared mush­rooms. We pre­pare the mari­nade by mix­ing hon­ey, 1 table­spoon of wine and soy sauce, and dip the mush­rooms into it for 15 to 30 min­utes, no longer. Fry the mush­rooms in hot oil in a fry­ing pan. We fry the mush­rooms over high heat for a max­i­mum of 5 min­utes, until they let the juice go, imme­di­ate­ly set aside and cov­er with a lid. Let it stay like this for 20 min­utes.

what to serve white wine

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Creamy white wine sauce

This bright sauce per­fect­ly empha­sizes the taste of fish dish­es: baked salmon, boiled pike perch or fried carp.

You will need:

  • 75 ml of white wine;
  • 150 ml cream;
  • 1 onion;
  • 100 ml of fish broth;
  • 20 ml of olive oil;
  • 50 g but­ter;
  • 2.5 g gin­ger;
  • salt and lemon juice to taste.

Cook­ing:

Saute chopped onion and gin­ger in olive oil. Pour white wine into the pan and boil for 5 min­utes. Add pep­per, but­ter and lemon juice until you get the desired taste. Beat the sauce with a blender until a thick fluffy mass is obtained.

Pears in white wine

This del­i­ca­cy can be served with dessert wine.

You will need:

  • 4 pears;
  • 750 ml of white wine;
  • 1 st. Sahara.

For cream:

  • 1 st. fat cream;
  • 1 Art. l. Sahara;
  • 1 h. l. car­damom

Cook­ing:

Peel the pears and pour over the wine so that they are com­plete­ly immersed in it. Cook them over very low heat until they are soft. Cool and remove, cov­er­ing the pan with a lid, in the refrig­er­a­tor for 4–5 days. We take out and cook again until the liq­uid turns into a thick syrup. Remove from fire and cool. Serve with cream: beat cream, sug­ar and car­damom with a mix­er. Driz­zle with white wine before serv­ing.