Red wine headache

Speculative causes

Many wines include a warning about sulfites, and some people blame them for headaches or allergic-type reactions. However, this idea may be mistaken. Foods like dried fruit and lunch meat actually contain more sulfites than red wine. Sulfite reactions are not classified as a true allergy and are more common in people with asthma, often causing breathing trouble or skin issues rather than headaches. Wines with less than 10 mg/L of sulfites—whether added, from soil, or produced by yeast—do not require a sulfite warning. Labels such as "100% Organic," "Organic," "Made With Organic Grapes," or even "Natural" can still contain sulfites and must state this on the label, though rules vary by country. Red wine intolerance is often linked to histamine, a biogenic amine involved in immune responses, stomach acid, and nerve signaling. Histamine levels differ across wines. One study found red wine has much more histamine than white wine, but another showed some red wines have very little. An analysis of 100 Austrian red wines from 2004 found wide variation in histamine content. This inconsistency, along with the fact that symptoms are not reliably reproducible in patients, casts doubt on whether headaches after drinking red wine are truly caused by histamine.