It probably won't be anytime soon that your doctor writes a prescription to be filled at a Lodi tasting room, but we seem to be getting closer.

I've heard from a number of friends that their doctors have unofficially recommended a glass of red wine a night to keep the heart healthy.

The latest news of the benefits of consumption in moderation just appeared on the widely-popular Time.com Web site.

Reporter John Cloud cites a new study published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research which claims, "...after adjusting for all covariates, abstainers and heavy drinkers continued to show increased mortality risks of 51 and 45%, respectively, compared to moderate drinkers."

Translation: those that did not drink any alcohol were dying off faster than even those that drank heavily.

Over the course of 20 years, the researchers watched 1,824 outpatients between 55 and 65 years old to see who was passing away.

"Just over 69% of the never-drinkers died during the 20 years, 60% of the heavy drinkers died and only 41% of moderate drinkers died."

Supposedly one reason why moderate drinkers outlived the others is because they were experiencing the least stress after a couple of drinks.

So how can a wine-newbie get started?

First off, give your doctor a call to see if any of a number of known health issues would be worsened by alcohol.

Next, if you're looking for just a glass a night, you might want to consider that Target Wine Cube I "investigated" a month ago.

After sitting in my fridge since July 30, I found that the Pinot Grigio in the bag in that box was still pretty much the same as the first glass, if not a tad sweeter.

The only bother was that the spout stopped pouring even though I could hear wine sloshing inside. A simple dismantling of the box and a pair of scissors quickly solved that problem.