Medical accounts of red wine headaches go back to Roman times, but the experience is likely as old as winemaking – something like 10,000 years. As chemists specializing in winemaking, we wanted to try to figure out the source of these headaches.
Many components of red wine have been accused of causing this misery – sulfites, biogenic amines and tannin are the most popular. Our research suggests the most likely culprit is one you may not have considered.
The common suspects
Sulfites have been a popular scapegoat for all sorts of ailments since it became mandatory in the 1990s to label them on wines in the US. However, not much evidence links sulfites directly to headaches, and other foods contain comparable levels to wine without the same effects. White wines also contain the same amount of sulfites as red wines.
Your body also produces about 700 milligrams of sulfites daily as you metabolise the protein in your food and excrete it as sulfate. To do so, it has compounds…