We're basically talking risk and probability here. Having a high cholesterol (especially if the LDL cholesterol is high as well) increases your risk as does smoking, being fat, drinking too much, being older and having a family history of heart disease
None of this will stop the occasional racing snake from dropping down dead from a heart attack or the odd fat bastard lasting until their 100th birthday. It just changes your place on the list of people that are going to have one this year/decade etc.
Statistics and probability are dark arts to most people, hence the fact that certain news agencies think that '50% of all doctors are below average' is news. My father (who is a statistician) likes to say that the 'average' human being has one tit and one bollock. It's probably slightly less than one of each but you get the idea.
Reducing your cholesterol will probably reduce your cardiac risk. Cholesterol lowering drugs are generally well tolerated but a significant number of people have quite debilitating side effects.
There are no absolutes in medicine except that we will all die eventually of something and for about a third of us it will be heart disease
Enjoy the red wine!
BtD