(Telegraph) - "A glass of good wine is a gracious thing”, wrote Sir Walter Scott, “for it reconciles poor mortality to itself”.  Two glasses (or more) can be better still, a panacea that retards the ageing process. Put simply, it runs like this. Many of the infirmities of age are due to ''wear and tear’’, warranting running repairs – new hips, knees, lenses and so on.

But this does not account for the more generalised decline of physical fitness with age and the tendency for common conditions such as diabetes or raised blood pressure to become more prevalent in later years.

Rather blood tests for ''inflammatory markers’’ in those in their seventies and beyond are consistently elevated, suggesting that some of those ''chronic diseases of ageing’’ might be exacerbated by low-grade inflammation in the tissues. And, if so, then the anti-inflammatory polyphenol compounds present in wine might be a useful preventive measure.