A Tuscan pharmacist has recreated a Chianti-based elixir for long life from an 18th-century recipe invented by one of his ancestors.

Giovanni de Munari found the recipe behind a shelf when he was repairing his pharmacy in Asciano near Siena, one of the oldest apothecary shops in Italy.

He and his wife mixed up the ingredients and produced a potion they said confirmed recent discoveries about the health-giving properties of red wine.

''They may not have known the names of the chemicals back then, but they were sure red wine, and Chianti in particular, was a boon for old age,'' de Munari said.

''We achieved such a convincing result that we're now collaborating with a Treviso-based distillery to make the elixir on an industrial scale''.

Because of the anti-oxidants and other chemical substances it contains, red wine has been credited with warding off heart disease and other age-related illnesses.