Did you give up wine in January?

The undisputed worst month of the year, in the cold and the dark of post Christmas exhaustion – you deprived yourself. In the month where you resolved to achieve this year what you failed to do last year – you decided it was a challenge best accepted without enjoyment? 

A wise friend proposed an alternative: “Gentle January”. Instead of deprivation, guilt and pressure – it would be a month of moderation, of quality not quantity, of balance and being kind to yourself.

Chief Executive of the British Liver Trust, Andrew Langford agrees. Dry January isn’t the answer. “There’s little benefit if you see it as a penance, cross the days off the calendar and then return to unhealthy drinking.”

Meet the girls:

Stella eats processed food all year round. Mass produced and factory made, she knows it makes her feel sluggish and has real health implications – but she takes a month off to detox and cleanse each year.

Isabelle tries to eat mostly real food, not necessarily organic, but quality preservative free home-made food to live and eat well all year round.

Either of these ladies sound familiar?

It’s the same with wine. Not all wine is good for you……..but some actually is, and there is no need to deprive yourself!

Natural wine has been around, well, forever, since before wine corporations began trying to improve on nature and mass produce this once very natural crop.

Like craft beer, natural wine enthusiasts come for the special flavours and aromas. But perhaps what keeps them coming back is that when made naturally, these rebel wines are just simply better for you. Easy going, unpretentious and enjoyable – both while your drinking them…….and the morning after!

With low or no sulphur, and without chemical intervention; ‘drinking natural’ from these small artisan growers, boosts antioxidants and increases endorphins. It reduces hangovers and can lower the risk of heart attack by 24%. (2016 Global Study, McMaster University Canada)

In Gentle January you can pick a bottle of natural wine from these local wine shops:

Terroirs East Dulwich

La Cave de Bruno

Bossman Wines

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