Wine Allergies - facts and fictions

Following in the line of musings written on “winedrinker’s misconceptions” comes this little piece…

Perhaps the single most common complaint/request tandem regarding wine heard in this or any wine shop is “I’m allergic to sulfites. Do you have any sulfite free wines”? Now just for the record, I am not a physician, and since this is the case, I have not done any actual physical exams or any battery of allergy tests on this or that drinker, but in learning the science, it is MORE than safe to say that 99% of people who think that they are allergic to sulfites in fact are not. We’ve all read in passing, perhaps hundreds of times, the “Contains sulfites” advisory on the backs of wine labels emanating from every region in the world, but what are these substances, and why are they in your wine?

The first thing to make clear to all wine drinkers is that SULFITES ARE A NATURAL PRODUCT OF WINEMAKING. No wine, unless it has undergone a process to definitively REMOVE all traces of sulfites in its midst, contains sulfites, no exceptions. More sulfites are ADDED to finished wines since the presence of sulfites in wine prevents oxidation, and therefore makes an effective hedge against premature aging (for the wine, not you). So why is it that most people are not/could not be allergic to sulfites? First, the complaints that I’ve heard are almost always directed at RED wines, and sometimes, somewhat comically, red wines from specific places - I’ve heard on more than several occasions “Spanish wines give me headaches” or “Burgundy makes me sneeze”, or similarly, “The wines in (country “X”) never make me sick when I’m there, but I can’t drink them here.” Now it is POSSIBLE (and I stress the word “possible”) that wines that are destined to be carted to the little trattoria just down the road from the winery are made differently than those that are slated to be shipped thousands of miles across the seas, but I think there’s MUCH more psychology than physiology afoot in such claims…

Now chemically speaking, sulfites are most effective as a preservative when they are present in wine in a free, UNBONDED form. And because many grape acids eagerly want to form bonds with the added sulfites, and also because white wines are almost always more acidic than red wines, more sulfites have to be added to white wines to overcome the X number of milligrams of sulfites that have been rendered less effective via bonding with the acids. And because white wines nearly always contain HIGHER levels of sulfites than reds do, one would be much more likely to complain of headaches from white wines than red. What’s more, SWEET white wines are always even more heavily dosed with sulfites than dry whites are. This extra heavy dosage is done to retard a pontential second fermentation of the high levels of residual sugar found in sweet wines. So again, scientifically, “stickies” should elicit the greatest number of complaints about allergic reactions to wine. Admittedly, far fewer dessert whites get drunk by the average drinker than dry reds for example, but the complaints about headaches from red wines still outnumber the complaints about sweet whites by what seems like a factor of at least 10 to 1, so something’s still not right…

To me what reduces the “I’m allergic to sulfites” to a very small pool of those who actually ARE allegic to sulfites is the fact that dried fruits - raisins, apricots, pineapples, etc. - are treated with FAR higher levels of sulfites than any wine EVER is, and the bad reactions to these sulfites almost always afflict asthmatics who from it experience the characteristic extreme shortness of breath associated with the ailment. So unless you experience asthmatic symptoms from drinking wine, and get the same symptoms in an even more exteme way from eating dried fruits, it is HIGHLY improbable that you are allergic to sulfites. So, if red wines are the main source of allergic reactions in wine drinkers, the real culprit must be something other than sulfites…

Another oft-cited source of allergies in wine are HISTAMINES. Clearly, histamines do cause allergic reactions in humans, which is why we take ANTI-histamines to counteract their effects. Further, red wines do indeed contain higher levels of histamines than white wines, but recent research has shown that histamine levels in wine are FAR too low to cause any ill reaction in all but the most histamine sensitive. Nonetheless, those who are especially sensitive to histamines do exist but their numbers are miniscule, so this interaction seems to be unable to account for the far larger number of those who complain of wine allergies…

The latest research however seems to indict certain PROTEINS as the real source of allergies in most drinkers. During the fermentation process, the yeasts used to convert sugar into alcohol create certain proteinaceous compounds that can trigger the oft-cited, mild “flu-like” symptoms associated with wine allergies like headaches and sneezing. But as I allude to above, there are lots of folks that like to point the finger at the wine that they drank as the culprit for their reactions, but these same folks also often forget that this wine was consumed over plates and plates of not so ordinary foods, potentially making what they’ve eaten as likely candidates for the reaction as the wine (or wines) that they washed it all down with…

So if you absolutely cannot live without wine, and get allergic reactions from what you THINK might be traceable to the fermented grape juice in your glass, go to an allergist and have him or her run a full battery of tests to once and for all confirm or refute that wine is (or is not) the source of your discomfort. In all likelihood, you’ll find out that your NOT allergic to ANY of these compounds, and you can then celebrate by opening a nice bottle…

TOM CIOCCO