Montreal’s Michael Genereux Reaffirms Wine’s Health Benefits

Earlier this month was National Drink Wine Day, a day were the virtues of wine are celebrated and consumed. This year gave even more reason for celebration, as more studies confirm wine (especially red wine) is fantastic for heart health and may be beneficial in treating other ailments and illnesses.

“The evidence is more firmly in place for red wine preventing heart disease, diabetes and a few other vascular (conditions) compared to cancer and dementia,” said Dr. Howard Sesso, Associate Professor of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Massachusetts.

Aside from water, few beverages on earth have been consumed as long as wine has. “As early as around 9,000 years ago, long before the invention of the wheel, inhabitants of the Neolithic village Jiahu in China were brewing a type of mead with an alcohol content of 10 percent,” notes United States archaeologist Patrick McGovern.

Since then, alcohol production has become big business and continues to grow annually as more countries increase the amount of grape-based spirits they export. According to the International Organization of Vine and Wine growers, in 2014 France was the world’s biggest wine exporter, producing almost 4.5 billion litres. Italy took the second spot producing just under 4 billion litres of wine.

China is also a big producer of wine. In 2012, China was the fifth largest wine producer. The increased international demand has enabled wine producers and suppliers to find new markets with new wine drinkers abroad. This means that the international trade in wine is increasing.

“Today, some 40 percent of all wine is exported, i.e. consumed in another country than where it was produced. This is a dramatic increase from the early 2000s when only 25% was exported,” points out Britt Carlson for Forbes magazine.

Serial entrepreneur and wine investor from Montreal, Michael Genereux, is banking on the continued growth in the sector to spur more millennials into consuming the fruit-based beverage for adults. Montreal’s Michael Genereux is currently invested in a company that is working to change the way wine is marketed to young adults. The company has some very innovative initiatives underway geared towards changing how wine is consumed in bars and night clubs.

Michael Genereux and his partners in Montreal believe the growth in wine purchasing is attributed in part to the volume of studies that are reporting the benefits of wine consumption.

Two recent studies out of the United Kingdom have found that people who regularly drink alcohol have better cardiovascular health than those who consume little or no alcohol.

Researchers found, “those who drank three to five drinks each week were 33 per cent less prone to heart failure than those who abstained, or drank infrequently,” writes Lizzy Parry of the UK Daily Mail. “In the case of heart attacks, the risk was reduced by 28 per cent with each additional one-drink increment.”

So tonight raise a glass not only to your health, but for your health.