Why do I get a headache when I drink just one glass of wine?

The wrath of grapes?
It is probably not the alcohol which gives you the head-ache. It is almost certainly not sulphites; there are10 times more sulphites in prepared salads or dried fruits than in a glass of wine. It may be any of the additives allowed and used widely when wine is produced on an industrial scale. The point is that these may be used but don’t have to be used. Try a real wine from a real producer first before you give up altogether – you may rediscover the joy of wine.

If you grow the grapes and make the wine yourself, you can determine the style and flavour in the vineyard not in the factory. Nature works with you or against you – that’s part of the fascination!

Wines stocked by Shaftesbury Wines are made by small producers or Co-ops, not multi-national industrial producers. Most farm as organically as they can and have as little interference as possible. For example, if you hand-pick and hand-sort the grapes you don’t need to add a lot of finings to remove the bits afterwards. Most use the minimum they can; at least one uses no finings at all. The less you mess, the fewer additives you need. You really shouldn’t have to use Potassium Ferrocyanide to remove heavy metals unless you have really nuked the vineyard!

The following list is for the EU (Some restrictions apply to quality wines) and the USA; Australia has a few different ones but is very similar.

• fumaric acid
• lactic acid
• malic acid
• tataric acid

• acacia (gum arabic)
• calcium alginate
• casein
• edible gelatine
• isinglass
• milk/lactalbumin
• potassium alginate
• potassium caseinate
• silicon dioxide
• proteins of plant origin
• ovalbumin (egg white)
• alumino silicates
• ferrous sulfate
• classic filtration aids (diatomaceous earth, cellulose, etc)

• polyvinyl-polypyr-rolidone (PVPP)
• activated charcoal

• lactic bacteria
• potassium carbonate
• potassium bicarbonate
• calcium carbonate
• homogeneous preparation of tartaric acid and calcium carbonate

• copper sulfate

• oak chips
• metatartaric acid
• water (USA only)
• Aleppo pine resin (EU only - Retsina)
• granular cork (USA only)

• concentrated grape must
• rectified concentrated grape must
• saccharose
• tannin
• wine spirits or distillates
• oxygen

• catalase
• cellulase
• glucose oxidase
• proteasa
• beta-glucanasa
• pectolytics
• carbohydrase
• ureasa

• Oleic acid (mono and di-glycerides)
• fresh lees
• ammonium bisulphite
• thiamine hydrochloride
• yeast cell walls
• soy flour
• yeasts for wine production
• ammonium phosphate
• diammonium phosphate
• ammonium sulphate
• ammonium sulphite

• ammonium disulphite
• sorbic acid
• sulfur dioxide
• argon
• nitrogen
• potassium bisulphite
• dimethyl dicarbonate (DMDC)
• carbon dioxide
• potassium metabisulphite/disulfite
• allyl isothiocyanate
• lysozyme
• potassium sorbate
• ascorbic acid

• potassium ferrocyanide (EU)
• ferrocyanide compounds (USA)
• calcium phytate
• citric acid

• calcium tartrate
• potassium bitartrate
• yeast mannoproteins

• Elimination of sulfur dioxide by physical process
• Centrifuging
• Micro/ultra filtration
• Reverse osmosis
• Evaporation
• Thermal treatments
• Electrodialysis (USA only)
• Ion exchange resins
• Spinning cone column
• Thermal gradient processing
• Thin-film evaporation under reduced pressure
• Metal/sulfide reducing matrix sheet
• Volatile fruit-flavour concentrate

*Sequestration: the combining of metallic ions with a suitable reagent into a stable, soluble complex in order to prevent the ions from combining with a substance with which they would otherwise have formed an insoluble precipitate, from causing interference in a particular reaction, or from acting as undesirable catalysts.