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04/16/13Wanna live longer? Drink red wine.

Sure, you can do other things to stretch your life expectancy—eat a plant-based diet, walk five miles a day or simply laugh with friends—but I’m quite fond of this boozy tip, which I learned while interviewing Dan Buettner at last year’s Mountainfilm in Telluride. Dan is the Founder and CEO of Blue Zones, an organization that identifies populations around the world that live longer and ultimately, better lives. With the help of National Geographic and the world’s finest longevity researchers, he pinpointed five so-called Blue Zones—locations around the globe where its residents, due to a handful of environmental and physical factors, reach age 100 at a rate 10 times greater than in the United States.

Those five locations? Okinawa, Japan; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Ikaria, Greece; Loma Linda, California; and my favorite of all, Sardinia, Italy, a small mediterranean island whose population drinks copious amounts of Cannanau, a red wine with three times the level of antioxidants and flavonoids than other wines. This, as Dan explained to me, is particularly beneficial to the population’s heart health. It also helps that Sardinians eat bean rich diets, respect their elders and walk regularly, but hey, any excuse to lift a glass of vino is a good one to me.

As you’ll see from the above Minds of Mountainfilm interview, which aired on Outside Television, Dan is an incredibly interesting individual. I mean really, if you had the keys to a long life wouldn’t you want to share it with the world? So take a look and learn how to live a long, happy life. And in the meantime, calculate your biological age and overall life expectancy by using Dan’s ingenious Vitality Compass: Answer 36 simple questions and you’ll get customized suggestions to help you feel younger and get more fulfilling years out of life—wine or no wine.