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Whether you are a wine lover with a huge cellar collection or a social wine drinker, who has a bottle of wine every so often, you have experienced a terrible headache after a nice night out or a wonderful get-together at home, haven’t you? Wines do produce headaches for different reasons. Whether you had red wine or white wine, there are several reasons that can explain how your wonderful evening has turned into a nightmare with an awful migraine.

> Red wine headache (RWH Syndrome)

The red wine headache must have been an issue for you, correct? And it’s strange that you don’t get these nasty headaches after drinking white wine. So, no matter how much you enjoy drinking red wine, those reds keep on bringing the ache on. Why is that?

Red wines get their color by phenolic flavenoids known as tannins, which is a group of chemicals derived from the stems, seeds and skins. During the fermentation process, these phenols penetrate into the grapes. After the fermentation process is completed, some of these phenols become part of the sediment that is shaped as the wine ages.

If the wine has not been properly cellared and carefully decanted, it holds all these phenols intact and it becomes rough. So, if you drink a young red wine that holds all its phenols you are very likely to suffer from a terrible headache within three hours. These headaches are related to the histamines in wine that cause allergic-type reactions. Because of the histamines, our blood vessels expand or contract causing pressure in the head, and, eventually, a headache.

> Sulfites

Many people often blame sulfites in wines for causing headaches. All wines naturally contain sulfites, but they are only responsible for causing allergies and asthma. People who have allergic sensitivities are easily affected by the reactions that sulfites trigger in their interaction with blood.

Because nearly 1% of the population is allergic to sulfites lacking a digestive enzyme that allows the normal processing of sulfites in the food, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) required that wines state on their labels “contains sulfites”. This has been wrongly perceived by many people who thought that because it is stated on the label sulfites are responsible for the headaches. However, the language is intended only to warn the people who are in fact allergic to sulfites. There is no scientific proof that sulfites alone cause headaches.

Moreover, sulfites are naturally contained in white wines, which do not cause headaches, but also in many common foods such as pickles, dried fruit, luncheon meats and flavored gelatin. These foods probably do not cause headaches, so here is another proof that sulfites in wine are not responsible for the headaches.

> Cheap wines

Cheap wines cause headaches because they contain high amounts of preservatives proportionately to their vintages mix. Because different years are mixed in order to get their vintages to taste the same, they need to have more preservatives. Instead, expensive wines that are a single vintage do not need too many preservatives to balance their taste.

There is no guarantee that the next time you will drink a red or a white wine, you will not get a headache. At least, try to avoid wines that have repeatedly caused you a headache and drink moderately. There is not much you can do to change a wine’s chemical synthesis; but there is so much you can do to fine tune your drinking levels, your mood and your wines of choice.