Ah, the holidays. They tempt us with sweets and treats and alcohol and parties and by the end of December, half the population is scanning the internet for the latest and greatest diet to make October’s pants fit again. Some are practically begging for a cleanse or a booze-free January so they start to feel like themselves again. I could have a bookstore the size of the New York City Public Library and fill it with with nothing but healthy cookbooks, diet books, journals for aspirations of weight loss and so on, and people would line up on New Year’s Day to find a guidebook for their best year yet.

Oh yes, Happy New Year to you! Did you have a happy holiday and ring in the new year with a bang? Did you make any resolutions for 2020? It’s a week in now…how are those commitments holding up? Are you wavering yet? I read a USA Today article that says most people have quit their new year’s resolutions by January 17th! Ha! Research shows that unless we make a habit of something, it’s way harder to stick with it. A diet? Hard. A lifestyle? Do-able. But who on earth wants to make a lifestyle of steamed veggies, grilled chicken, cottage cheese, and water (instead of wine) for the rest of their life? Not me, that’s for sure.

What if I told you your lifestyle could be full of delicious food, parties with friends, and even wine, and that you would live to be a hundred? (Wow, that sounded a little too much like a home shopping sales pitch…but wait, there’s more!) There are a few places in the world where people do just that and have a higher proportion of their population live healthily past 100 than most other places in the world. These magic fountain-of-youth places are called Blue Zones and they are: Sardinia, in Italy; Okinawa, Japan; Loma Linda, California; the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica; and Ikaria, an island in Greece.

As these regions were studied, it was determined that they all shared certain common characteristics - diet, lifestyle, movement, connection, etc. Now, thanks to this research, anyone can implement the lifestyle that keeps people in the Blue Zones so healthy.

There’s an entire community now dedicated to the Blue Zones, replete with newsletters, meal planners, travel opportunities, and more, so I’m not going to try to repeat it all here. But, there are a few pieces of the puzzle that I think are especially important: eating well, spending time with friends, and drinking wine.

THE BOOK
Let’s start with eating well. We all know that diet matters. What we all seem to disagree about is what the ideal diet should consist of. Personally, I love to eat. I love the flavors and the textures and the thrill of a perfectly cooked meal. Traveling is one of my favorite hobbies because it allows me to try new and exotic foods! Needless to say I’ve never been a fan of anything that restricts my desire to eat. Enter the Blue Zone style of eating (notice I didn’t say “diet”). From umami rich noodles to heaps of fresh bread and olive oil to waffles, soup, ceviche, and more, there are endless possibilities of life-extending foods to eat. The founder of the Blue Zones community has now collected his top one hundred recipes that will help you live to be one hundred years old. It’s called The Blue Zones Kitchen and it’s the foundation of our Book + Bottle pairing this month.

Just published in December, the book sold out almost immediately, requiring another print run. Our copies are currently on backorder but should be arriving shortly in our online store. I guess everyone wants to eat like the healthiest people on earth. With almost more stories than recipes, what you get is a full experience of the five Blue Zones around the world: gorgeous photographs from National Geographic photographer David McLain, stories of the lifestyles of the folks who seem healthier and happier than everyone else, nutritional tips like how to serve olive oil to get the most health benefits, and, of course, the recipes.

One favorite is the spaghetti with walnut pesto from Sardinia which takes an overused weeknight staple and turns it into a rich, decadent meal. A personal tip here - you can add an anchovy or two to the food processor to add even more umami flavor and healthful oils to enrich the recipe without any fishy taste. Or, make the sweet and spicy carrot salad from Okinawa and see how just a few ingredients can take boring carrots to complex heights! There’s something for everyone, and you might knock out another new year’s resolution — saving money — by cooking these recipes: beans, grains, and veggies are pretty inexpensive.

This will be a cookbook that you sit down and read, an inspiration and a starting place rather than an every night go-to for specific recipes. So pour yourself a glass of wine, sit down at the kitchen table, and start reading your way to old age :)

THE WINE

Speaking of pouring yourself a glass of wine, did you hear me say earlier that drinking wine is one of the keys for a long, healthy life? Well, that’s great news for us here at the wine bar! The trick to drinking the Blue Zone way is to do it in moderation, with food, and with friends. The food and friends part shouldn’t be difficult — you’re invited into Book + Bottle to share a glass and a snack with your closest friends any time (well, once we open!)! But moderation? That means only one to two glasses a day. The silver lining: you can drink wine every day!

Red wine is especially beneficial. Red wines, unlike most white ones, are made by fermenting the grape skins in addition to just the juice. The skins contain compounds called Resveratrols that protect the body against cancers, heart disease, and dementia. These antioxidants, in addition to a healthy diet and exercise, help to keep us young and thriving and drinking with friends into old age.

And, did you know that some red wines are even healthier than others? The wine we selected for this month’s pairing is called Cannonau. It’s a red wine from Sardinia that’s actually the same grape as Grenache or Garnatxa. And it’s delicious. I tried it for the first time months ago because a friend told me it was considered the healthiest wine in the world and I was shocked at how good it was. That was a bottle that, shared with friends, went down awfully easily. Anything in the name of health! When I saw the excitement around The Blue Zones Kitchen mounting, I knew that it would make a great pairing with the healthiest wine in the world. Turns out, Cannonau has a section written about it IN The Blue Zones Kitchen so it really is the perfect match.

Cannonau is like fresh berries bursting on your tongue while the bright sun filters through a pergola on a crisp day while the breeze blows an herbaceous scent across a glistening swimming pool. Very Mediterranean. No joke — that’s what it tastes like. I picked this one up at Bern’s Fine Wine in Tampa for about $20 and suggest that you do, too.

If you want to live forever, this is honestly the best place to start. So grab your cookbook, your best friends, and a bottle of wine, and get to living!

If you want to order the Blue Zones Kitchen, visit our online store.

Other Blue Zone books to read:

The Blue Zones: 9 Lessons for Living Longer, by Dan Buettner
Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zone Way, by Dan Buettner
The Blue Zones Solution: Eating and Living Like the World’s Healthiest People, by Dan Buettner
The Blue Zones of Happiness: A Blueprint for a Better Life, by Dan Buettner

Fun things to do with your friends:

Take a walk together
Share a bottle of wine
Share a meal
Read together. Silently, together, you know what I mean.
Play a game
Share stories on a porch
Hit up your local bookstore | wine bar to check out the new books and have a glass of wine!

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A Wine a Day: January 2020 Book + Bottle Pairing