Wines for the Ages

In either 2019 or 2000, journalist Dan Buettner visited Okinawa researching the uncommon longevity of the Okinawans. From that visit, he gained the interest and funding from Disney’s National Geographic to explore other areas where people were living longer. Meanwhile, in 2000, physician and demographer Gianni Pes and Michel Poulain, respectively, were looking at longevity in Sardinia, which held the highest concentration of men living at or over 100. They coined the term “blue zone” in their work and eventually published it in their 2004 article for Experimental Gerontology. The next year, National Geographic published Buettner’s cover article “Secrets to Long Life,” and the issue sold like hotcakes. National Geographic funded more trips for Buettner, who immediately trademarked the term “Blue Zone.”

Over the next few years Buttener, Pes, and Poulain would work together looking at the Nicoya Peninsula and Ikaria, Greece. Finally, in 2008 Buttener published his book Blue Zones: Lessons from the World’s Longest-Lived People. After that came more articles and more books, as Buettner and crew molded their research into America’s next pop-social science phenomenon.

The idea is that a “blue zone” is a place where people live longer than in other places while maintaining a reasonable quality of life. Buettner, Pes, and Poulain identify a number of factors that contribute to this phenomenon, diet being one of them — hence 2015’s Blue Zones Solutions: Lessons on Living and Eating from the World’s Longest Lived People and Buttener’s 2019 cookbook (‘cause there’s gotta be a cookbook). Lucky for all of us, wine is a part of that diet.

Which wines? Can you get some of them?

Join us this Friday for Blue Zone wines.