The world’s largest wine company by volume, Constellation Brands which owns brands such as Robert Mondavi, Clos du Bois, Ravenswood has had to refocus to coop with the recession.  In the past year it sold jug brands Almaden and Inglenook and the  Paul Masson winery to Wine Group LLC for $134 million in cash.  It is closing R.H. Philips Winery facility and moving production to Woodbridge facility (Mondavi’s bargain brand). 

Wine may fight gallstones, a study at the University of East Anglia’s school of medicine reveals that a daily glass or two of wine may help prevent gallstone formation.  It found that drinking 6 ounces per day offered a 32% lower risk of gallstones.  The more the participants drank, the lower the risk, but the researchers noted that the dangers of excessive alcohol eventually outweighed the benefits. 

Resveratrol, the red-wine compound (found in the skins of grapes and in red wine) that can’t seem to do anything wrong, is the focus of several newly published studies.  One particular report comes from the University of Heidelberg’s professor Gabor Szabo, who argues that since the red-wine compound does so much, it cannot work only as an antioxidant, reducing oxidative damage to cells.  

A daily glass of red wine may reduce the risk of lung cancer in men, even in smokers, according to a research study published in the October 2008 issue of Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention.  Nonsmoking men who drank a glass or two of red wine a day were 4% less likely to get lung cancer than nonsmoking men who did not drink wine.  Smokers who drank red wine were 60% less likely compared with smokers who did not drink wine.