World of Wine: Cause of headaches from wine a head-scratcher

Nov 11, 2015

(Inforum) - What gives you a headache? Loud noises? Going without a meal or two? A glass of wine or Champagne? For the purpose of this column, let's stick with the wine source of headaches.

I'll go to the root of this concern. I've had a couple of people ask me why when they drink some red wine or "Champagne" (could just be sparkling wine they are referring to) they get headaches. My quick answer was possibly the sulfite the wineries add to their wines, but to my mind that couldn't be the complete answer, as all wines in America and those from Europe contain them as well.

Some folks have said that the "organically" produced wines that claim to be sulfite free don't give them headaches when consumed. I don't pretend to know all there is in making wine, but I do know that sulfite presence is a byproduct of wine fermentation.

I posed the question to one of North Dakota State University's current grad students, Brittany Olsen, who is completing her master's degree on wine grapes and canopy management. She agreed that sulfites cannot be the whole story, as there are amino acid precursors in grapes and wine that can be converted by microorganisms — some lactic acid bacteria and others — into biogenic amines, one of which is histamine, the same compound that can give someone a runny nose. Another is tyramine, which is often mentioned as the source of headaches and is found in a wide range of foods.

Together or individually, they may be the cause of headaches. However, others have speculated that certain kinds/amounts of tannin could affect this as well, releasing serotonins, and since they are neurotransmitters that can cause dilatation and constriction of blood vessels in the brain, may result in headache development.

In digging into this further since Brittany aroused my curiosity, I find other researchers blow the sulfite theory out of the water completely: A glass of cabernet contains 10 mg of sulfites, while 2 ounces of dried apricots contain 112 mg of sulfites. Research has shown that roughly something around 1 percent of the American population are classed as sulfite sensitive, and those that are should steer clear of wines in addition to other sulfite-treated foods.

What about NSA (No Sulfite Added) labeled wines? They still contain sulfites from the fermentation process, but more often than not, those wines are subject to oxidation, making them undrinkable. Without the addition of sulfites after fermentation, the stability of the wine would be compromised. According to those who have tasted wines labeled NSA, they are flat and tasteless and not worth drinking.


Share: Delicious Digg StumbleUpon Reddit Furl Facebook Google Yahoo Twitter

Comments:

 
Leave a comment





Advertisement