Just a glass of red wine a day could improve a woman’s sex life. Thought it was just an old wives’ tale?  Well now it has been scientifically proven in a study by Nicola Mondaini, a urologist and andrologist from Tuscany. The research is also presented in a book edited by Mondaini called “Vino e Eros”, which is to be presented in Sicily in July this year.

"The need for the research stems from a lack of evidence in literature of the link between wine and sex.  So in 2005, I transferred from the Florence General Hospital to the so-called ‘Chianti hospital’. I decided to start the research by sending a specially prepared questionnaire to around a thousand women aged between 18 and 50" explained Mondaini.

To be more precise, it was a questionnaire on the Female Sexual Function Index, used to assess the female sexual function through 19 questions on six different aspects: desire, interest, lubrication, orgasm, satisfaction and pain, in the four weeks preceding the completion of the questionnaire. The result: women who consumed 1-2 glasses of red wine a day had a better overall sexual functionality than the teetotallers and than those who drank only occasionally. The process which produces this effect is, however, unknown. “However, we know that wine is made from alcoholic ingredients that are able to disinhibit, and a polyphenolic ingredient that has an effect similar to oestrogen” says Mondaini.

“Wine has always been associated with a lust for life, with love, with sensual delights. Scientific literature is full of articles arguing the health benefits of wine for the human body, particularly in the prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancer.  There have been some feeble attempts to show the effects on sexuality but nothing has been scientifically proven” he continues. Now there’s an official study which has also been featured in an article entitled ‘Regular moderate intake of red wine is linked to a better women’s sexual health’ and published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, the world’s most recognised andrology journal.

But there is help for women who don’t drink. “I don’t believe that wine has an effect on sexual desire, which stems from the hypothalamus region of the brain. It is important that there is, above all, a very strong emotional understanding” explains Marco Marchese, a psychologist and psychosexologist from Palermo. “And this is why I advise my patients, rather than drinking wine together, to cook together and share moments and emotions”.