Hello Her Campus Fitness Readers,
I hope you all had an enjoyable Lutefest! For this week’s blog I thought with the combination of Lutefest as well as me living in the land of wine lovers, I decided it couldn’t be more fitting than to write about the pros and cons of wine consumption – in moderation of course. New Zealand is filled with wineries, and wine connoisseurs come here to taste the best of the best. When I traveled to the North Island of New Zealand for a month in January I made a stop in a beautiful sea-side town called Napier. It was there where I met my friend Amanda at a hostel. Ironically, Amanda is from Wisconsin but is living in New Zealand for a year working as a Nanny. Amanda asked me if I wanted to go wine tasting with her, and I did! My favorite winery we went to happens to be the oldest in New Zealand called Mission Estate Winery– it was lovely, and although it was an overcast day, it didn’t seize to surprise me in its beauty.
[Photo: (top) Me at the Mission Estate Winery; (bottom) A view of the courtyard of the Mission Estate Winery]
What I took away from that experience (and which I pretty much already knew) was that I am a white wine and rose kind of girl, leaning towards the sweeter side.
Also, I need practice on the proper stlyle of drinking wine – still working on that! I want to be perfectly honest though, I don’t want this blog to encourage drinking, because that’s definetly not my point. Frankly, the best type of alcohol consumption is none at all.
However, if you choose to drink responsibly, wine has some definite health benefits, but like anything, over-consumption will rack up the calories quick. In a typical serving sized glass of wine (which is about 3.5-4.0 fl.oz) there are 85 calories. The sweeter you go, the more calories you will consume. I know it’s hard to imagine how much “one glass of wine” really is, and when I tried to figure that out I went straight to YouTube to watch wine pouring demonstrations. I will save you some time and say one glass of wine is a little less than half of a wine glass.
I was looking up different calorie counters and I wanted something more specific than your typical “There are 85 calories in a glass of red wine.” Here is a good list of popular wines and how many calories are in one glass of each:
Most wines come in under the 100 calories per glass (4oz).
80 calories White Zinfadel, Sauvignon Blanc, Marsala
85 calories Chablis
90 calories Riesling, Chardonnay, White Burgundy, Cabernet Sauvignon
95 calories Red Burgundy, Red Bordeaux, Beaujolais, Merlot, Rhone, or Rose
100 calories Mosell, Pink Champagne, and Chianti
105 calories Champagne dry
110 calories Sangria and Sauterne
160 calories Muscatel and Madeira
165 calories Tokay
185 calories Ruby Port
Studies have shown that wine in moderation has its health benefits. These include lowering your risk of heart disease, reducing your risk of Type 2 Diabetes, and slowing brain decline as you age.
A good website on the health benefits of wine and studies done about wine is: http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/8-health-benefits-of-drinking-wine So, the next time you have that glass of pino gricio, first of all think smart – don’t over do it, –secondly, just enjoy it!
The list of calories for specific wine glasses came from this wine blog: http://winefeeds.wordpress.com/2009/02/01/how-many-calories-in-wine/