Histamine Update

[Thomas]

I can't see any other way of knowing than to either test the wine or consume it. The whole thing has to do with the ripeness of the grapes at picking, the length of skin contact during fermentation, and who knows what other factors. The early wines like B Nouveau, and Rose wines should pose less of a problem, but sticking with white wine is likely the best bet--even then, wines like Gewurztraminer, which is a pink grape, and which often goes through a period of skin contact before fermentation completes, might be a problem.

My suspicion is that the human body reacts with its store of histamines as a way of protecting against a perceived invasion, which is why the reaction is strong.