headaches and tanin related?

[winer]

For years I have passed on drinking red wine, because even two or three glasses would give me a pounding headache. I recently found a Chilean Merlot (which is good and CHEAP) that I can drink (within reason of course [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/wink.gif[/img]) without suffering any difficulties.
1. What is it in red wines that causes headaches? Is it the amount of tanin in the wine?
2. Are Merlots in general low in tanin?

[yinyang1018]

Hi Winer. I'm not sure if the tannin level is what's giving you a headache or not. I believe white wine also has tannins.

One of my co-workers also thought that she couldn't drink red wines, but she found a Gamay Beaujolais that she just loves and doesn't hurt her head or her checkbook. Maybe someone else would know about tannin levels?

[wondersofwine]

Bucko is one of the board members and a physician. If you check under Wine & Health thread--particularly the heading "Wine Allergies" from December 2001, Bucko discusses the histamines in wines as being the source of most headaches.

[Thomas]

...the histamines are not in the wine, they are in-waiting in your body; when triggered they build up. A portion of the hundreds of components in grape skins trigger histamine build-up, and some people get headaches from the build-up. The reason red wine is the culprit is simple: to make red wine one ferments the grapes on the skins to extract color--the skins contain the histamine-build up components. White wine is fermented as juice, with no skins (except for those occasions when a winemaker gives white juice brief skin contact before pressing).

Perhaps, some red wines pick up less of the components that trigger histamins and so a headache does not follow, or perhaps, some grape varieties have less of the components in their skins; the only way to know if you will get a headache is to drink the wines and rule out the ones that get you.

And then there is the possibility of allergies to the wood used to age the wine...

I often get a nasal build-up (no headaches) that makes me sneeze soon after drinking a glass of many--but not all--reds.



[This message has been edited by foodie (edited 08-02-2002).]

[Bucko]

There is histamine in wine.... red the highest. I think I quoted an article that lists the actual count in red, white and beer.

[Thomas]

Sorry, I was under the impression that histamine is in the blood, a chemical that reacts to a perceived threat; or is it both in the blood and in some foods, or is it in the blood because of some foods? Where do the histamines come from that attack us when we have a common cold?

I suppose I need more enlightenment on this one.

[This message has been edited by foodie (edited 08-03-2002).]