Wine Myths, Dark & Dirty Secrets of the Wine Industry, Wine Biohacks & More!

Hello, everyone. This is Ben Greenfield. I have been in California for the past week, and I've actually been a very good boy. I've been being very careful here in California because of what we're going to talk about on today's podcast. And that would be California's juice of choice. That's right. Wine. I know there's been a lot of wine podcasts kind of floating around out there lately, like healthy wine podcasts. I. I guarantee the wine discussion that we have today is not the same old, same old version of some of those podcasts that you may have already heard in this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show.

It's not even more alcohol. It's actually around the standard of what a typical Cabernet or Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc is. But we did it with no residual sugar. So many wines that will be out there, that will go on the drier side or wanted to look at a lower calorie, they did it by lowering the alcohol content, and that wasn't our objective. Grapes, typically that are raised at elevation, cooler climates and kind of a. I don't know if you want to call it a rougher terrain, but more of a mountainous region. Most of our grapes come from over 2,000ft of elevation. It has an impact on the growth of the grape.

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Hey, folks, it's Ben Greenfield here. And a few months ago, I released this article. The article was called Dark and Dirty Secrets of the Wine Industry. Four Ways to Make Wine Healthier, and what kind of wine fit people should drink. Well, in that article, I talked about a ton of serious issues with wine. Stuff like arsenic and overpricing, lack of sustainability, high levels of sulfites and amines and ochratoxins, boatloads of unnecessary sugars, high PH levels that actually increase the possibility of contamination by unwanted organisms in the wine, less than stellar taste, plastic polyethylenes, a ton of problems that plagued a modern wine industry and actually caused a lot of people, including my wife, Jessa, to get things like headaches. Or me myself to get things like poor sleep from a nightly glass of wine. And at the end of that article, which I'll link to in the show notes for this podcast, you can get the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com HealthyWine at the end of that article, I highlighted that I'm now drinking different kinds of wine. I've kind of switched up what I choose when I get wine and I make specific choices and one of the wines that I've been drinking in particular and that I actually, I have this habit now in the evenings, one of my eight year old boys who know how to open wine better than I do, they'll open the wine for me. They get it. They do the latte frother technique that I learned from Tim Ferriss where they stick a latte frother in there and they froth it for about 60 seconds, then they bring it to me. The bottles that I've been choosing lately are these bottles of cabernet called Fitvine Wine. Fitvine Wine. And in today's podcast I have the co founder of Fitvine Wine who is a real almost like a biohacker when it comes to figuring out how to make wine healthy. He's also a national level black belt competitor in taekwondo. He's a crossfitter and of course, as a wine enthusiast and a father of two boys, he's a man after my own heart. Mark Warren of Fitvine Wine. So Mark, welcome to the show, man.

Thanks for having me, Ben. Very excited to be on and, you know, talk with you about this.

Yeah, no problem, man. And I'm kind of curious to hear your wine story because I personally used to be a total wine geek. Like when I graduated from college for the first, well, I worked in a pub where we served wine, so I had to study wine all through college. Then when I graduated, I got the wine Bible and I started going to blind wine tastings. And my wife and I almost every single week were at some kind of local winery doing wine tastings. And that all culminated with us doing a bicycling tour of Italy in which we literally rode our bikes from Rome up to Florence and drank wine all the way up from Rome to Florence. Eventually I got into like Iron man and stuff and started to drink less than the copious amounts of wine that I had been into up until that point. And I don't, I don't do as much geeking out on wine as I used to, but I used to be big into wine and I'm curious What your story is with wine, like how you kind of, how you kind of got into this industry.

Yeah, mine's not nearly as a romantic story as traveling with your wife up and down the coast of Italy. But I did grow up on a lot of homemade wine. You know, being part Italian, it was always in the house. And I think a lot of that stuff back then though, tasted horrible intentionally.

You guys, you guys actually made it.

My family did.

Really?

My grandfather did before he passed. And then my stepfather's family was Sicilian and they made their own wines back then. You know, I started, God, 9, 10, 11 years old. They'd give you a two or three ounce pour during holiday dinners or something. And you know, it tasted to me like gasoline. Now, whether or not that was intentional because they really didn't want us to drink alcohol or not, I'm not quite sure.

Yeah, yeah, the homemade wine thing is interesting. My wife actually has a giant vat. We found an elderberry tree out on the edge of our property, and she has a giant vat of elderberry wine actually fermenting out in the garage right now. And I'm. She said it's not going to be ready until June, but every time I walk past it, I'm. I'm pretty curious as to what it's actually going to taste like. So the whole homemade wine thing can be a risky business. I agree from a taste standpoint, but now you're doing a lot more than homemade wine. I mean, you have this full on wine company. So how did that actually emerge? When did that enter the picture?

Yeah, a few years back, as you mentioned, was always in fitness. One of my other co founders, Tom, we built a couple businesses together. He had played hockey all through college. And you know, we've always tried to stay healthy just being active, whether, you know, surfing, paddleboarding, skiing. And we've always enjoyed wine. But we felt like there was a whole tying that into what we'll call the active lifestyle. Not so much you don't have to be an athlete like yourself, a professional triathlete, but the everyday person that wants to stay healthy, that, you know, has a family, career, they're busy, they try and work out, you know, two or three days a week, or be active, whether it's yoga, jogging, something, but still want to enjoy a glass of wine. And we felt as we researched it more that wine is very intimidating to people because it's not like if you drink beer, you usually either drink domestic or import. If you drink import, you like your specific crafts. If you drink hard Alcohol, usually there I drink vodka or gin, rum, bourbon, and then they're kind of branded with whatever it is, and that's as far as it goes. But wine, there's so much choice. There's a store that's a national store. One is right down the road for me. It's called Total wines. They have 8,000 bottles of wine. So, yeah, many people can walk in and they're very, very overwhelmed.

But. But that's. I mean, in my opinion, that's not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, like, when I was in the wine, that was one of the cool things was being able to, for example, have a sommelier walk up to your table at a. At a fancy restaurant and dump, like this entire Bible on the table. And then you got to go through it and have a little conversation about, you know, the different flavors and the nuances in. In literally dozens and dozens and dozens of different types of wine. And then you narrow it down and you choose the perfect one to go with, you know, your fish or your quinoa or your rabbit or your steak or whatever it is that you're eating. Like, I. I don't really personally think having a lot of options is an issue as much as I think some of the issues are what I began to discover when I started to look into the wine industry and some of the things that you and a lot of other people, like my friend Mark Sisson, I know he's been looking into this. And Dave Asprey, another guy who does a lot of biohacking, he's been looking into this. And there are some issues with the wine industry. That's what I'm doing. I'm curious to hear you talk about is. Is what exactly is going on with wine that goes above and beyond just the fact that there's a. A billion of them out there.

Yeah. And that's kind of what the next step of what I was gonna lead that into is that, you know, the vast amount of choices, that's kind of the first hurdle for people. But then people don't know what's in wine or the quality of wine and price. It's not like price can dictate that. So it's not like, oh, just stay away from three dollar bottles of wine. You'll be fine. There's plenty of wine out there that's in the 15 to $20 range. It has the same issues as some of the $2 wines. And the more we researched it ourselves and got into it, you know, because this is. It's not well known Knowledge, you know, as a primary thing is the government allows 74 different additives to wine. So it's almost looked at now that wine can, you can look at wine like food.

Well, when you say additives, what do you mean?

So there's fillers, there's certain chemicals that you can add sugar or sugar concentrates, that they can add multiple things to adjust tastings. So it's, I mean, unnecessary things that don't need to be in there. Just like when you're buying your food, what's the difference of buying 99 cent ground Hamburg to grass fed or you're picking up something and it's good, 37 ingredients on the back of the box instead of just being natural. So it's kind of gone down that path, unfortunately, and that's in the issue really, Ben, is it's not all wine. But how do you decipher which wines are like that and which aren't because it's not on the label.

Well, one of the things that I noticed and sorry about interrupting you, but I wanted to mention this article that I read about California winemakers and how they got sued over arsenic in wine. This was part of a bunch of articles that appeared in the headlines a couple of months ago where they talked about how they were showing that wine, like the typical wine from California had like four to five times the maximum amount of arsenic that the EPA allowed for in drinking water. But what I don't understand is how does arsenic get into wine? Like what. What's the process and the winemaking process via which something like that would actually happen.

You know, it's coming out of the grapes and then also the pesticides. So if they're spraying the grapes, you know, it's, there's not a, you know, the scientific breakdown of, I don't know the exact, you know, I can't tell you it's these three things that are causing it, but it's, it's typically coming from the grapes being sprayed and the lack of proper filtration and fermentation. They're not taking the time for the wine to mature like it should inside its fermentation process. And they're turning things around too fast to just mass produce it. You know, that, that can be some of the, the results of it as well as the quality of the grapes. You know, are they sprayed? Are they gmo? You know, what's happening to those grapes before they're even being processed for the wine? So it's.

So grapes can be gmo, Really? I thought it was just like Beets. There are a few others, like beet and corn, some, some forms of wheat. But. But grapes also. They're genetically modifying grapes now too, huh?

That's, that's what we've heard. I mean, it's interesting. You know, unfortunately, unfortunately, they're kind of going down the path of anything with that. But so it's, it's really paying attention to the source of where you're getting your stuff from. And then, you know, everything takes time. So the longer something takes time, the more, of course, it costs more money. So if you're a large conglomerate and, you know, if you bought a smaller winery or you're doing something, you bought a brand and you want to make it more profitable, they're cutting corners. So cutting those corners and doing things that shouldn't be done or causing after effects like arsenic showing up in wine.

What about, what about, and this is something I hear about in farming, that they like, turn over the soil too quickly in farming, and that, that results in lack of minerals and some of the fruits and the vegetables that we eat due to poor soil practices. When it, when it comes to wine and like the soil that wine is grown in or the, the irrigation practices of wine, is that something that, that varies from winery to winery as well? Like what, what should you look for as far as, like the way that the wine was irrigated or the soil it was grown in?

Yeah, and that goes into what's called the terrier. And that's, you could have an entire podcast on that because it goes into some of the teachings of what they call the old European wineries, that they protect the land that only will grow a certain way, that they, you know, some of the, the European laws don't even allow them to irrigate in certain areas or do certain things to the soil. So there are, there's multiple levels. I mean, I know it's not the, it's not a yes or no answer, but there are multiple levels of what the water can do. Ultimately, irrigation is changing the growth of the grapes, whether it's too much or too little water. If the grapes don't grow enough and they're smaller, they're going to be sweeter. So if you want a higher sugar content. So a lot of times they can manipulate those things. But soil does have a very large impact on the taste of the wine. And to answer your question, turning it over too much or too little, that's not my background of farming. So I don't know. I won't try to give you the right Answer of, you know, what if they do too much or too little on how it's affecting it? But soil does have a very large impact on the taste of the wine and the impact of the grapes as well as the water does. Because the water, if you're trying to force water into it and you're trying to basically over bloat the grapes, it's going to have an effect on its internal contents.

Hmm, interesting. Now, what about the type of water being used? Does that matter? Like, if the water is, you know, I guess like when we return to this, this concept of like arsenic or some of the other things that I know are in water now, like, you know, everything from birth control pills to fluoride to chlorine, things along those lines. Does the quality of the water that's being used matter?

Again, I don't have the exact answer on that, Ben, but I know that again, going back to some of the old European winery laws, they only allow rainwater. So I'm sure that if you're taking, you know, tainted water, it's going to affect it. So if they're irrigating with unhealthy water, there has to be some sort of impact there. And that's, that's the stuff that's not currently being identified, or if it is, it's not being put out there yet. So I'm sure if, if wines are starting to flag more with things like arsenic, that, that will get stricter with the government.

What do you mean? That rainwater? You mean like they don't use irrigation at all? You only get, get water on the wine when it rains from certain old.

Wineries in France, in Germany, yes. And some of the areas of starting to lighten up on that, like Spain, just kind of loosen up their, their holds on that. So some of these wineries, that is the case.

Okay, got it. So we've got arsenic, we've got potential for gmo, whatever might be found in the water, if the water is, is used in the wrong way to irrigate the wine. Are there, are there other common chemical additives or issues that people should be concerned about in the wine that they're drinking or that they should look for?

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's more the additives than chemicals. I mean, you know, the chemicals of flag, you know, really ended up being arsenic, but it's, it's the amount of sulfites, the overabundance of them. You know, a lot of wines are sitting upwards of 150 parts per million, which is a lot Sugar. You know, in California, they call it chapitalization. You're not legally allowed to add sugar in California. You can in Bordeaux, France and Oregon. But California and other areas do allow a grape concentrate to be added, which is the same thing as adding sugar. They're looking to make it sweeter.

What's a grape concentrate?

It's like grape juice. So it's like a concentrated grape juice to affect the content of the wine and the acid control. So what they'll do is if the PH is off and trying to balance it out, instead of doing it naturally, they'll add stuff like calcium carbonate, which is basically chalk, or like an acid, like a tartar acid or malic acid or citric acid, to again, try and bring the PH levels to where it should be.

Really? So. So what is it about ph? Like what? Like, why would you have to do that to adjust the PH of a wine versus the wine just having the correct PH from the get go?

Well, the ph is crucial. The PH is what's really controlling the taste, the texture, the smell in your mouth. And if that's off, it's, you know, it's not going to taste very good. But yes. So it should be done naturally. So part of how we do it naturally is source in particular grapes. The grapes that we source, where they're tested in the beginning for what their PH levels are. So you're starting out with a. And again, I'm not the chemist. One of our co founders, Zach, is. He could speak better to this in chemistry details. But you're going to hit a range, so you don't want to be too high or too low, because then no matter what, it won't come out. So the grapes that they're sourcing from the beginning are sitting within a particular range so that during the fermentation process, we do an extended fermentation. They're checking that PH level throughout so that they can make sure that it's getting optimized and not being too high or too low or having to add anything to do it. So our wines sit at about 3.4 for the pH level. If I remember correctly, off top of my head, I think cab optimal, like perfect level is like 3.35. And I think the chardonnay and seven blancs should sit somewhere in the range of like 34-341. So we're very, very, very close to usually being spot on with it, which, you know, makes a huge difference with the wine.

Okay, so. So that's because of the actual grape that you're using or the time at which you're harvesting the grape. And because of that, that means that you don't have to add like, sugar, extra sugars, or added like grape juice or grape concentrates because you're actually choosing a grape that has the correct ph from the get go. Is that right?

Yes, that and the extent of fermentation.

Well, why wouldn't everybody just choose that grape from the get go? Like, why wouldn't a commercial winemaker just choose a grape with the correct ph rather than adding sugar or grape concentrate?

Because it costs more money. And then what do you do with those grapes if they don't match? So if they're, you know, they're harvesting tons of grapes and, you know, you've got a, you know, five tons that aren't exactly where you want it to be, and you're pushing out, you know, millions of bottles or millions of cases a year, you know, you're really pushing down that needle of what's coming to. And it takes longer. So, you know, our turnaround time for our wine is a lot longer than what a lot of these larger brands are doing to make their wine.

Okay, what else affects ph? You were just about to say something else, I think.

Well, going back to the irrigation. So if they're, like I said, if they're overflowing, you know, or, or not giving enough water and that grape becomes sweeter, that's also going to affect its ph level. Like all those things inside the grape will be affected based on its water.

Okay, got it. So we've got water and ph. Now, the other thing that you mentioned was sulfides. And I wanted to ask you about this because you said like 150 parts per or some of the amounts of sulfites in wine. But my understanding, and I've looked into this a little bit with my wife because I thought that her getting headaches after she drank wine was due to the sulfites. But it looks like a lot of foods, like, for example, potato chips, for example, have extremely high levels of sulfites in them. And a lot of other foods have sulfites, you know, deli meat and dressings and a lot of snack foods and cereals and I know, like herbs and spices have, I mean, if you look at the label, they'll have sulfur dioxide or potassium bisulfite or sodium sulfite. And it seems like a lot of these foods would be giving you big headaches too, in the same way that wine does if it was just the sulfite. So is it really like Are sulfites really an issue when it comes to wine? I mean, is that something you should be even trying to control or is it something else in wine that could be causing things like what people think are wine allergies or headaches?

Yeah. So, I mean, the short answer is yes. The long answer is still yes. And the reason, and it's the reason why it's different than a potato chip or a particular fruit or something is because it's not. It's not the sulfites by themselves. So it's a combination. So the combination of sulfites with alcohol and the combination of sulfites and sugar and additives and everything else that's in there are affecting people now, you know, there are very few people who are truly allergic to the sulfur. I mean, if they're. And they can't eat a lot of things and they can't take certain medications and stuff, so they can't drink wine at all. But the sensitivities that people are having tend to be a combination of numerous things. Whether it's the wine just wasn't filtered correctly, whether it's filtered through wheat and it's now not gluten free, which it should be. You know, the additives, the sulfites combine with the additive. So it's.

What do you mean? You filter wine through wheat?

So wine naturally should be gluten free. But, you know, these are all things that we hear coming about. There's companies that have been cutting corner and filtering through wheat, which you know is not good. So that has an impact on the wine and how it's going to affect people. I mean, people who don't have allergies but may have some sort of gluten sensitivity and they can drink a glass of wine and have no impact. They drink another glass of wine, suddenly they're like stuffy and feel like they're congested. And that's a mix of like, what's being done filtering the wine, the sulfites, the additives, and what's in it. So it's just, it becomes too much of what's inside the wine. I mean, you shouldn't have to have that many sulfites in the wine to stabilize it.

I don't understand why you'd have to filter wine through wheat. How does that even happen? Like, why would you choose wheat as something to filter wine through?

I don't. You know, from what we hear, it's cost, it's very cheap. You know, I, I wouldn't even consider it. So I'm not Quite sure. But, you know, these are the things that, you know, we. That have been starting to trickle out of some of the corners that are being cut, you know, when you're. When you. I mean, some of the things you see out there, when you see wine out there for 3.99 a bottle, you know, and that store had to make a profit. The distributor had to make a profit. So you could imagine.

Yeah, Two Buck Chuck, baby. I used to go through a bunch of Two Buck Chuck. That was my go to.

And they were flagged as one of the companies out there with arsenic.

So, you know, it's good tasting wine, though, for $2. Turns out it had a bunch of crap in it. But I'm curious, like, if you're not gonna filter wine through wheat, what do you filter wine through?

So we filter through diatomataceous earth and micron pads. And the micron pads are. I think it's 0.45. I mean, they're the tightest as they can be. So it's top of the line. You can't get any better. We do a double filtration, and the white wines are being cold stabilized, which the wines brought down to 34 degrees. And it helps any of the impurities that could be in there to raise to the top. And they filter it again. So again, it's more time. So what we're doing takes more time than some of the other. The other ways of doing it, but it makes for a cleaner wine. So we're. And it costs more money. So our wine is being made for. And it costs us probably at least two, if not two and a half times the cost of what similarly priced wines are being made for out there.

Got it. So in terms of. I want to return to the sulfide issue again. I don't want to. Want to kick this horse to death too much. But one of the things that I understand that people get sensitive to and that can cause migraines and headaches from food are histamines and other forms of what are called amines. Is there a way to reduce those from the wine that you drink? Because again, like I mentioned, I'm still trying to figure out why my wife doesn't get headaches from your wine. And I'm not convinced that the sulfides. But do you know much about amines like histamines or if the way that a wine is produced can increase or decrease the amount of histamines that are in it?

You know, and I. And I don't have the answer for that, Ben. And I know that some wines get flagged for mold or, you know, I had a customer reach out to me and ask me if we used a particular glue to seal something on there or whatever. And she said that the glue was known for having some sort of histamine to it. I've never even heard of it, but, I mean, we get questions asked us by customers that they find stuff, and it brings knowledge to us that I don't know if it's just some of the agents they use, whether it's bottling or sealing the wine or. That's what it was. It was the glue and sealing the barrels that had something in it that caused the wine to then be affected. I had never heard of it before. So, you know, I guess there's other things like that. But typically the allergen piece or the histamine piece, from the way I understand it would be more of a tracking back to a mold. So if the wine, again, was not. Ph can affect that as well. So if the ph is off, you know, that can lead for things inside the wine to grow.

Well, I know that's the deal with coffee. Like, I've talked with Dave before, who does bulletproof coffee, and he talks about how they don't soak the coffee beans for a long period of time. Like, it's some kind of, like, a continuous flow process, the way they. They do their coffee. So it has lower levels of mold in it. And apparently. And. And I know there's. There's controversy out there about this. Apparently a lot of other coffee makers do the same thing, and this has been going on, like, since the. The seventies or whatever, that. That a lot of them are doing, like, a continuous flow process where the. The coffee beans don't soak for long periods of time. Is there a variation in soaking times for different types of grapes? Like, is there a difference between, like, how long your grapes are soaking? Or. I think it's called maceration or something like that. Like. Like soaking or maceration compared to.

To other wines that I. I'm not going to guess that. Okay. Because that's. That's more of Zach's forte. So I could. Unfortunately, I don't have that answer. I could get that answer for you.

We got to get Zach here. We got it. We got to ask him. Does. Is that true, though? Do grapes actually get soaked in the winemaking process?

Yeah, I mean, they're gonna be. Part of that is when they're being cleaned, you know, is when they first run through to, you know, remove anything that was as they're being, you know, pulled. So, you know, whether or not it's being done longer than others, I think that comes down more to, you know, sitting inside the fermentation process.

Okay.

You know what I mean? Like inside the fermentation, that's where the longevity will be different. Like ours, we do an extended fermentation. So I know that sure makes a huge difference on the wine.

What does that mean? What is extended fermentation?

So, you know, we're some of the wines being turned around in, you know, three to four days and we're doing ours in a 10 to 15 day time frame in that initial fermentation. So that, but that's where we're focusing on that PH level, you know, instead of, let's just, you know, pull it out in three days and then add what we need to, to get things where, taste wise, where we want it to be.

Yeah, okay, that makes sense. And that's also, and this is something I, I like about your wines I talked about in that article. Is that why they're higher in alcohol?

Yes.

Okay, got it. So when you ferment for a long period of time like that, from what I understand, you're, you're adjusting the PH in a way that allows you to not have to like add extra sugars and concentrates and stuff. But when, when you're fermenting for a long time, because my wife does kombucha.

Right.

And, and you add a bunch of sugar to kombucha, but then the bacteria ferment the sugar and, and you don't get it. And then product that's high in sugar with wine, when you're doing a long fermentation is basically what's going on. The, the sugar is getting converted into higher amounts of alcohol. So the end product is a wine with less sugar and more alcohol.

Right.

Okay, got it. Now is that why you do that? Like just to create a wine with more alcohol? You just like to, to. Are you just a closet drunk?

Yeah, it's actually not, it's not even more alcohol. It's actually around the standard of what a typical Cabernet or Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc is. But we did it with no residual sugar. So many wines that will be out there, that will go on the drier side or wanted to look at a lower calorie, they did it by lowering the alcohol content. And that wasn't our objective in the beginning. You know, our wines do have a little less calories and carbohydrates, but that wasn't our objective. We weren't looking to make a locale wine and create some kind of numbers game. It was more focusing on a clean wine that had no residual sugar. And it just. The byproduct of that happened to bring down the carbohydrates and calories a little. But we also wanted to make sure that it maintained its alcohol. You know, a typical Cabernet does sit in that 13 and a half to 14.142 range, and ours is at 13.9. So we didn't want to, you know, bring forth a wine that people felt that it was not up to par with a typical Cabernet or Chardonnay that they were drinking because it had less alcohol. Because that will. It does make a difference in its taste. If you've had wine that sits in the nine, ten, ten and a half range, it's. It's a dramatic difference taste than a 13 and a half.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No, I noticed a big difference. So this is basically a long fermentation. On your website, you say that your wines go through what's called a malolactic, so secondary fermentation to lower the PH levels and make like a clean, good tasting wine. Is that the same. Is that just like fancy word for long fermentation? Malolactic, Secondary fermentation?

Yeah. And it's just. Yeah, it's a type of fermentation. What's being done. And in that process, it's, you know, it's clean, so it's. It's top of the line. So there's no weird things in there or, you know, we've heard of eggshells and everything else that they can add or put in to try and, you know, inside of adjusting PH levels. So it's basically a clean way of doing the fermentation process. So it's not having any effect on the win.

Okay. So that. That allows you to get your PH levels at the right level so you don't have to add sugars or additives or things like extra sulfites.

Correct.

Okay, got it. Now, what about mold? You. You mentioned mold earlier. I. I know that folks have talked about ochratoxin or. Or ochratoxin or however you want to pronounce it in wine. Do you think that's an issue? Is that something that you've tried to control or what's going on as far as mold. Mold is concerned?

Yeah, I mean, you know, ochra toxins. I mean, I've not had that actually come across any conversations about our wine or Anybody else's wine. So I don't, you know, I'm not gonna discount somebody write an article about or whatever when I know that it had come up as well about coffee. And, you know, our wine does get tested by an independent lab. So we don't have issues with mold or arsenic or any other, you know, thing like that. So we're, we're aware of. I mean, it's, it's a live thing. You know, wine is, it's a, it's a live item. So, you know, it can, anything can generate, you know, mold or mildew or anything. So, you know, if you don't do things properly, you know, you can have negative effects from it. So we do, you know, make sure that we're constantly testing the wine and being, you know, aware of our processes. And that's why we do spend extra time and extra money and do top of the line filtration and fermentation and fermentation to, you know, protect the wine and make clean wines.

Do all wineries test their wine like that?

No.

Okay, so, so what's going on? Like, like you're taking the wine and you're sending it off to some. Like, what, what's, what's a lab test that tests for wine? Like, why would you do something like that?

A lot of, well, there's different levels of it. So, you know, some. Most liquor companies and wineries in beer will send it out to test to, you know, make sure it's coming in. But they're saying for alcohol content or calories or carbs. But we went the extra step. I mean, we did the top of the line litany of every test that could be out there just to see if there was, you know, where we're saying, this is what we're doing. We want somebody to independently say, yes, there's nothing in the wine. You know, it's. It's clean. There's no arsenic flagging or mold or whatever. We check for calories, carbohydrates, resveratrol, everything. So anything that they could test for, we did. Really?

Do you, do you produce those testing work like, like, is there a place somebody could go download that?

No, we haven't done that yet.

You should.

I know there's been a little. And I won't, you know, get into it too much, but there's been a little kind of pushback by what's called the ttb. They're the federal regulation board of the ATF that overlooks alcohol. We've had some gentle push and shoves because we tried to put the calories and carbohydrates on there. We did it in the first couple of labels. They made us take it off. Yeah. We had to adjust some of our language because we said for the active lifestyle, that had to be removed. We had beneficial compounds that had to be removed. So they make you. There's a very long list of what you cannot say.

I didn't know that. Well, that is true. When you look at a lot of wines or alcohol in general, a lot of times it doesn't tell you carbs or calories or anything like that.

Correct. And in Europe, it does. So, you know, in the United States, we've been fighting for a long time.

I don't know. Whenever I've had wine in Europe, it just comes to your table in a giant carafe and you drink it. Barely even see the bottle. It just. Just goes straight down the hatch.

Thought it was, you know, beneficial to go that route. They lobbied for it.

That is true. I've always wondered why they don't have labels on. On the wine that you. That you bring to the table. And so the. So the issue is what, again, why wouldn't they allow that?

They don't. They don't want you to make health claims. So, you know, the beer industry lobbied for it once they decided they wanted to go the route of the calorie fight. You know, I have a light now. I have an ultralight now I have the super light, you know, and they all fight for, you know, five, less calories or something. So when they decided to go that marketing route by cutting alcohol and, you know, adding water, they lobbied for it, and they got it. So the wine industry hasn't done that, and it's, you know, still a protected thing, and they don't want it out there.

You talked about resveratrol, and, you know, when it comes to making health claims about wine, I know we've got, like, resveratrol, and there's, you know, there's all sorts of antioxidants in wine, you know, like polyphenols and anthocyanins and all sorts of stuff that you get from the grape skins. One thing that you were telling me about was that you can actually choose grapes or grow grapes in a way that concentrates the antioxidants. Can you talk about that? Like. Like how you actually concentrate these specific antioxidants that are in the grapes?

Yeah. So it's grapes typically that are raised at elevation, cooler climates, and kind of a. I don't know if you Want to call it a rougher terrain, but, you know, more of a mountainous region. Most of our grapes come from over 2,000ft of elevation. It has an impact on the growth of the grape. Grapes almost have to kind of fight for, you know, fight harder to be in that type of region. And it does affect their. The strength level of, you know, those compounds in the grapes and then inside the fermentation process. Because that extended fermentation process being done, it's fully getting all those out of the grapes, you know, where, you know, you're cutting that time short. It cuts time from, you know, allowing the full extraction of those beneficial compounds to the grape.

That's interesting. That's. I was doing an interview with a guy who creates like this. This plant herb formulation that I drink called Tian Qi. It's like a bunch of Chinese adaptogenic herbs. And he said that he specifically chooses herbs out of China where they. They grow them in these extremely hardy conditions like on these farms. And, you know, we were joking back and forth about how they, like, whip. Whip the herbs and beat the herbs, but. But it really is true. Like, they grow them under extremely harsh conditions. Conditions. And it's interesting because when you look at wild plants, the amount of antioxidants in wild plants, they. They get concentrated when the plants are grown in harsh climates. And so what you're saying is, is you're. You're going out of your way to choose grapes that are grown in, like, these high cool areas with less irrigation so that the grapes have to go through a harder time. So they produce more endogenous antioxidants.

Yeah, and it's. So it's. The antioxidants. And then that happened to also be the grapes that had better PH levels, more consistent PH levels that, you know, work right into what we were looking to do.

Yeah, plants are interesting like that. Like, have you ever heard of this book called Eating on the Wild side by Jo Robinson? She goes into how when you get kale, what you do is. Or any other type of, like, dark, leafy green, you rip it up at night, like the night before you're gonna eat it or put it in a smoothie, and it thinks it's being eaten by a wild animal, and so it produces a bunch more endogenous antioxidants. So the next morning when you eat it, you're actually getting more antioxidants than if you just, like, you know, taken it whole out of the bag or out of the garden and throwing it in your blender.

Wow, that's amazing.

Yeah, super interesting. So. So you can basically do the same thing with, with grapes. You're beating up the grapes, you get more concentrated amounts of resveratrol and polyphenols and stuff like that.

Yeah, because it's, you know, it's the grape like, so the grapes are almost like they're fighting for their lives and it's in. You know, we're not the only ones who do it. And there's a lot of small vineyards in Europe to do it. And in the US Actually, the first one to kind of really drive that route was Gus Jackson, who founded Kendall Jackson.

Okay.

He took things out of the typical areas of where grapes were being grown. He was going after specific, like hillsides, and he was very much into the terrier of the terrain and the soil and stuff like that. And it does make a difference in the grapes.

Where do you grow your grapes?

Most of our grapes will be in Lodi, California. But based on yields, we can, we work some with some other farms when needed to source additional grapes. And again, they'll, they have to meet our, our standards of what we're looking for.

Okay, that's like in the Sierra foothills, right?

Correct.

Okay, cool.

Cool.

All right, so, so basically, when, when it comes down to implications for health, what we're talking about is less sugar or less like concentrated carbohydrates and more antioxidants like that. That would be the, that in, in a nutshell. And then, and then less sulfites and less, less arsenic or better laboratory testing for any of these artificial additives and more concentrated antioxidants.

Correct.

Okay. And, and of course, the biggie for me, More alcohol.

Yes.

Which actually a lot of people, a lot of people think that's a bad thing. I think it's a, it's great. Like, I, I love it when I can drink a glass of wine and it, it spins the dials in my, in my brain just a little bit more. Again, not that like I'm a one glass of wine a day type of person, because I actually think that, that having more than one drink a day, for me personally, I don't feel that great. I self quantify my sleep and the amount of time that I spend in deep sleep cycles and how I feel the next day and I test my testosterone levels and I know that a glass of wine a day is the perfect area for me. So I always, every night it's either a glass of wine or else I take kombucha and I put a shot of vodka in and I squeeze half A lemon into a kombucha. And those are my two drinks of choice. And I actually did a podcast on Kombucha last month where we talked about how kombucha actually gets converted to gluconic and glucuronic acid, which are both liver cleanses. And so you're drinking alcohol and at the same time it's kind of cleansing your liver. So that's my other drink of choice. But I do have more questions for you. You talk about how your wine is biodynamically and organically farmed. What's that mean for wine to be biodynamically farmed?

Well, really, I mean, in the US they don't actually put a legal label on biodynamics. So really the difference is just how you're, what you're doing in raising the grapes and how you're farming. So you're. And that's us, as I said, we're taking longer times for filtering, double filtering and the extent of fermentation. So it's biodynamic. It's kind of a more of a loose term of. More of. Can be really open to interpretation. Organic is controlled by the US government of what the actual term is. So we're not certified organic, but all our grapes are pesticide free. To go through that certification is a long process which at this time we're not investing in for many other reasons. But there's two types of organic. So what they'll, they'll say is the first type of organic is that we use, you know, whether you're using certified organically grown grapes, avoiding any synthesized additives or anything like that. So again, we're not. That's why ours doesn't say organic on it because we haven't gone through the certification for it. But we use all pesticide free grapes and there are no additives. The secondary step to that is organic wines, which again are made from organically grown grapes. But also there are no sulfites added at all. And it's just the whatever sulfites have been naturally found in the wine. So that has a much different shelf life to the wine. So we won't go that path. We found that we've been able to make a nice, full bodied, clean wine with minimal sulfites added. So it's are sit at about 35 parts per million, which is very low. But they still contain more than, you know, that organic wine.

You said other wines are at, did you say 150?

Yeah. So that's not all wines. I mean you know, there's, I couldn't tell you how many thousands of different wines in the world, but a typical wine will sit somewhere in the range of 75 to 150 parts per million.

Okay, got it, got it. Yeah. I still think it's something else other than the sulfites that are causing issues. Again, because I watch my wife and she drink. I mean, she consumes like packaged foods or, or foods that do contain some sulfites and doesn't get headaches. That's always the, the different kind of wines. I, I think it's the, I think it's, it has something to do with like this soaking process that you talked about or the amount of tyramine or histamine in some of these non organic wines. Or. I know we can't say you guys are organic because you're not like certified organic, but these, these wines that use pesticides and, and you know, and stuff like that. So either way, though, either way, though, you've got no residual sugar, lower amounts of carbohydrates, and way less sulfites or way fewer sulfites. Okay.

And to pinpoint it, Ben, I mean, just like. Yeah. I mean, you know, you've worked with people, thousands of people around the world when it comes to nutrition. Everybody's different. Everybody's body is affected differently. That's why nutrition coaches, you know, can struggle sometimes because you could line up 100 people and all 100 of those people will be affected differently by foods. So the same thing is, you know, to kind of just say a blanket statement of it's, this is tough because everybody's body reacts to something different. So it could be one thing in the wine for somebody and another thing in there for somebody else. So it's, but definitely making a cleaner wine does make it less impactful.

Yeah. Okay, got it. Now, another thing that you mentioned was, you talked about, I think you used the word cold stabilized. We were talking about, about the filtration process. And you said you use like diatomaceous earth and micron pads rather than wheat to filter your wine. But you also mentioned something about how it's cold stabilized. What does that mean?

So white wine should be cold stabilized. So we cold stabilize it, brings it down to 34 degrees. And what happens is it allows any kind of impurity in the wines to kind of raise up inside the, the vats to then be filtered out. Because if not, if that's not done and you go put your white wine in the refrigerator, it can crystallize and that crystallization can be the impurities. So. And it can be sugars or whatever else in there. So it's just another step to help, you know, keep the white wines clean.

Okay. Okay, got it. Now, there is a lot of talk right now about healthy wines. I know that, like I mentioned, my friend Mark Sisson has talked about wine. He was recently on the Joe Rogan podcast and he was talking about how he's drinking this, this wine, coal, I think it's called Dry Farm Wines. And I've tried those too. I actually had a bottle of dry farm wines last night because they sent me some to try. And I know that Dave Asprey, another guy who's, who's a friend of mine, he's also talked a lot lately about healthy wines and choosing the special kinds of wines, kind of using processes like we've just talked about. I have, I've tried your guys wine and I've tried the dry farm wines. And both, frankly, they're really good wines. But one thing that I noticed, and again, I'll just be totally straightforward, and I had a conversation with the folks at Dry Farm Wines. They seem like awesome people and their wine is good, but your wine is better. And the reason that I like your wine more is because it's darker and more rich. And I thought that their stuff was kind of watery. Why is that? Because. Because I know that you both use like biodynamic processes and you both use like wine grown at high elevations and, and you know, concentrated for antioxidants, and you're all kind of like jumping through these healthy wine hoops. What. Why is it that your wine seems darker and more rich and more flavorful when I drink it.

And be honest with you, I haven't tried their wines. But I'm excited that there's other people out there, you know, trying to push the same message we are. So I'm excited for those guys. I know that they're looking, you know, there are subscription basis and I don't know if they'll stay that way or if they'll ever enter stores. So. But two things I could see, you know, one, all their wines are European wines. They, they pull from small, you know, wineries inside of Europe.

Oh, really? So. So none of them are like California or Washington or anything from what I look at.

And I could be wrong, but from what I initially looked at, most of my thought were all European wines. But their wines are, and it may not sound significant, but it is significantly less alcohol. They say everything's under 12 and a half percent, but from what I look at, a lot of them sit around that 11% range. So the alcohol does have an impact. So that impact or that alcohol range being lower is going to be part of the fermentation. So like we, you know, said when we do that extended fermentation, so that flavor and that deepness is going to come out of that time frame. So if they have to shorten theirs in order to cut down that, that abv, you know, that could potentially be why it's not as bold or as deep.

Because. Because some of your guys wines are close to 14%, right?

Yeah. Cabernet is 13. Yep. Yeah.

I love, like, and like I mentioned, like, I like my wine with more alcohol. And, and again, like these dry farm wines, they're good and I've had them. But dude, I swear by your guys's wine, I give it to all my friends and they love it. And I still, I mean, let's, let's not fool ourselves. We're not Talking about like 500 bottles of Bordeaux here. I still use all my hacks. Like I, I take your wine and pour it out and, and I use a latte frother or my kids use the latte frother. We throw. We froth it, you know, just like beat the heck out of it for like a minute, which makes it taste even more amazing. That's my little wine hack. But yeah, I mean, I like your wines. Of the couple of brands of healthy wines that I've tried, they're dark, they're rich, they're tasty. I mean, kudos. I like them. They're tasty. You know, and kind of our goal.

Too, Ben, was that, you know, we talk to the point of, you know, the active lifestyle, but we want the general public to enjoy it. We don't want them to say, oh, it's a healthy wine. This is going to, you know, tastes like crap. And we've done hundreds of tastings, you know, up and down the coast and with numerous people. We've had those people who come up to the table and they're a little nervous and they drink those 2, 3, 400 bottles of wine and they're, they've said for better lack of words. They're like, I expect this to taste like crap. And they're like, it's very good because they automatically assume like, oh, it's healthy, you know, it's not going to taste good. And they're used to a nice bold cab or something. So our goal was to, you know, have that, you know, that full flavor and full body, but still be smooth, it'd be drinkable. So for the person who's not the real wine person, but is interested in, you know, starting to get into it and they're, you know, maybe a little nervous of what to drink and they don't want to be punched. You know, a lot of some cabs can give you that real big hit. So it was a combination of having a full body but drinkability to it so that, you know, it could go towards, you know, the. The everyday wine drinker and them enjoy it and make it, like you said, a glass a night. That's what we want is people to enjoy it on regular basis. Yeah.

That has freaked out some of my friends before. When I pull out my wine and it's got like a picture of a. It's like a runner, like a sprinter on the front of your guys wine, which makes people think that maybe it tastes like crap because it's healthy, but it actually, it tastes really good. What, what flavors do you have? What. What varieties?

So we initially launched with our Cabernet Sauvignon and our Chardonnay. Most recently, we just released our Sauvignon Blanche. And then coming in the very, very, very near future ahead of schedule is our Pinot Noir.

Okay, got it. That's. That's cool. I don't really care that much about your Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc because I don't drink white, period. Well, no, I occasionally do. When I'm. When I'm eating fish, I'll have. Or I'll have it as a. As a starter. Like if I'm occasionally doing a dinner party, you know, and we're doing multiple courses, I'll start with the white and then move to the red. But I, I swear by your Cabernet, my wife and I go through a bottle of your Cabernet. I think once every. We're at like once every two or three days now. We go through a bottle of your Cabernet. We have big wine glasses, and the cab is like 16 bucks. Most your wines are like, in that 16 to $20 type of range, right?

Yes. The Cabernet and chardonnay are both 15.99, and the sauvignon blanc is 17.99.

Okay, cool. And we've got a discount. If you're listening in, the discount code you can use is Ben 10. Ben. Tenitfinewine.com assuming you're 21 years of age or older, please do not break the law. Fitvinewine.com and then the 10% discount code is BEN10. And I'll also make sure that I link to that and a lot of the other stuff that Mark and I talked about, like the articles, the article that I wrote, and then also some of these articles about nasty crap and wine. If you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com HealthyWine, that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com healthy wine. By the way, Mark, when's the Pinot Noir come out? Because I actually like Pinot Noir more than I do cab.

If I let the hat out of the bag. It's actually being bottled this week.

Sweet.

It'll be ready for shipment within our fulfillment centers probably in about two weeks.

Sweet. All right, cool.

I'll be sending you some.

I was gonna say I better get my hands on some, so don't worry. Sweet. Sweet. Well folks, if you're, if you're into wine or even if you're not into wine and you're considering stepping off that cliff, you should check these guys out. Fit Vine Wine. You go to fitvinewine.com you can use 10% discount code BEN10. Grab yourself a Chardonnay, a Sauvignon blanc, Cabernet. Sounds like a Pinot Noir. Pretty soon I will, I will verify. This stuff is good. I still think you should beat the hell out of it with a latte frother like I do and drink it out of a big old fashioned fishbowl size wine glass and then I'll leave you with my last hack. And that is, I rarely actually have the wine with dinner unless I'm having the big old steak because I like to use it as a palate cleanser between bites of steak. I drink my wine right after my workout because the fructose in the wine actually is used to restore your liver's glycogen levels and so it's less likely to get converted into traffic triglycerides or fats and more likely to just refill your energy stores when you drink it post workout. So that's always my go to is I finish my workout around like 6 or 7pm I'm usually not eating dinner until 8 or 8:30pm and the only thing that I have during that two hour window is a nice glass of this fit fine wine. So thanks to you, Mark, for making that happen.

Oh, thank you.

And making it guilt free. Yeah, more, more than guilt free. I, I feel like I'm recovering faster because I get my antioxidants. Well, cool. So again, BenGreenfieldFitness.com healthy wine is where the shownotes are. Or you can go to fitvinewine.com use discount code BEN10 to save 10%. Mark, thanks for coming on and geeking out on this stuff with me and creating a few more alcoholics in the world.

Sounds good. Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.

All right, cool. Well, folks, this is Ben Greenfield and Mark Warren signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have a healthy week.

You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice.

Vice. Sam.