Studies and Polyphenols
Is Sparkling Wine Healthy? What the Studies Really Say
No, sparkling wine is not a health drink: according to WHO Europe and the German Nutrition Society, there is no amount of alcohol without risk. The widely cited Champagne studies from Reading were small or conducted on rats and don't qualify as a drinking recommendation.
Where Does the Reputation That Champagne Is Healthy Come From?
A few glasses of sparkling wine a week are supposedly good for the heart and memory: headlines like this crop up regularly, especially around New Year's Eve. They mostly trace back to work from the University of Reading in England. There, a team led by nutrition scientist Jeremy Spencer studied the effects of polyphenols in Champagne—plant compounds from grape skins and seeds credited in lab studies with antioxidant, meaning cell-protective, properties.
In 2009, the team reported that Champagne temporarily improved blood vessel function in healthy volunteers, similar to what had previously been described for polyphenols from red wine and cocoa. A 2013 paper followed, led by Giulia Corona. Older rats were given a small daily amount of Champagne, adjusted to their body weight, for six weeks and afterward performed better on a memory test: averaging about 70 percent correct choices instead of 50 percent.
What Do the Champagne Studies Actually Show?
On closer inspection, little remains that translates to everyday life. The blood vessel study was small and only measured short-term effects after a single serving. Whether this translates into long-term benefits for heart and circulation over the years remains unanswered. The memory study was done on rats. Results from animal experiments don't simply transfer to humans, and certainly not as a recommended number of glasses per week.
What was scientifically interesting was mainly one detail. Small phenolic compounds like gallic acid, tyrosol, and caffeic acid were long considered biologically not very active, yet showed measurable effects in the trials. That's a finding for basic research. A recommendation to drink Champagne to prevent dementia or heart disease cannot be drawn from it. The headlines about three glasses a week stretched the results considerably.
Is a Glass of Sparkling Wine a Day Healthy?
The major health organizations now answer this question clearly. The World Health Organization's Regional Office for Europe stated in early 2023, in the journal The Lancet Public Health, that no amount of alcohol can be considered safe for health. The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies alcohol as carcinogenic to humans, in the highest risk category. Current understanding holds that the risk doesn't begin only with intoxication.
In August 2024, the German Nutrition Society replaced its previous alcohol intake guideline with a position paper. Its reasoning: there is no risk-free amount, and even small amounts can raise the risk of various diseases. The DGE therefore recommends avoiding alcoholic drinks altogether. Those who drink anyway should above all avoid large amounts and binge drinking. Children, teenagers, pregnant women, and breastfeeding mothers should not drink any alcohol at all. For sparkling wine, the same rules apply as for beer, wine, or spirits.
Polyphenols Without Alcohol: What's Left of the Health Promise?
Whatever polyphenols are in sparkling wine come from the grapes. White sparkling wine is pressed gently, the skins ferment along only minimally, so it naturally contains fewer of these compounds than red wine, which ferments with the skins. Anyone interested in plant compounds from grapes can also find them in the grapes themselves and in many other fruits and vegetables, with no alcohol at all.
EU law draws a clear line here. Under Regulation (EC) No. 1924/2006 on nutrition and health claims, drinks with more than 1.2% ABV may not carry health claims. So a producer cannot advertise that their sparkling wine is good for the heart. Sparkling wine is an indulgence, not a remedy. Anyone who drinks it is best off keeping the amount small; anyone who'd rather skip it altogether now has a wide selection of alcohol-free sparkling wines to choose from.