Is taking resveratrol as good as drinking red wine?

Wine—red wine especially—contains tannins and polyphenols and of course, resveratrol. These compounds have their own distinct health benefits…and interestingly enough, some types of wine have more of these compounds (especially resveratrol) than others. So which one do you pick?

Short answer: red wine. Why? The reason has to do with how red wine is made. Most wine is made by mashing grapes up into a pulp, called the crush. Then, yeast is added and it’s all fermented in a giant vat. Mashing the grapes (instead of just squeezing them like in a juice press) allows the juices to come into contact and absorb the flavors and compounds that are only found in the seeds and the skins.

Both red and white wine are made this way. The difference is that with white wine, the pomace (that’s the left-over skins and pulp and seeds) is quickly separated from the grape juice before fermentation. On the other hand, the juice destined to become red wine is fermented with the mushy stuff—this allows much more of the resveratrol from the grape skin to make it into the wine. It’s also where the rich, complicated flavor comes from!

While you’ll note that red wine clearly is the winner in resveratrol content compared to its paler counterparts, you’d still have to drink hundreds of glasses to get the same amount of this nutrient as you’d find in a single resveratrol supplement. (Which we’d hardly call “healthy.”)