Question:
I have developed a slight allergy to sulfites. Most of the commercial
wines have too high a sulfite content (to extend their shelf life) for
me to drink.
Does any one know of a brand (s) which is low in sulfites? One that is
still drinkable?
Answer:
There is a lot of misinformation out there about sulfites. Almost no
one is allergic to them. A few years ago there was a big scare
regarding problems with asthmatics and salad bars in restaurants. It
turns out that many restaurants were routinely spraying their salad
bars with sulfite to stop them from browning. For those of you who
know how sulfite works, you can imagine the problem. Here you have
large quantities of free sulphur about to have an acid based salad
dressing put on it. Of course there would be a large release of
sulpher dioxide gas which would then be inhaled by the customer.
Asthmatics are very sensitive to that form of sulpher dioxide and in
fact, some could die from it. Now this is a long way from the concept of a few parts per million of
bound sulfite in a wine.
I think that most people confuse the headache and blushing caused by
amines in red wines, with sulfite content. Think about it. You take a
drink of wine, your face gets red and your nose gets stuffy and later
you have a headache. Doesn't that sound like an allergy. But to what?
Almost all red wine contains amines in various quantities, so if you
get this reaction to red wine but not white, guess what, you're
allergic response is to the amines, not the sulfite. Typically white
wines (commercial) have more sulfite than reds, so if you don't react
to white wine, you've been believing the wrong thing.
Also you might want to check out the sulfite content of dried fruits
like raisens. They typically have about 10 times the sulfite content
of red wine, so if you can eat them, once again, its not the sulfite
that's the cause.
One variety of red has an extremely low amine content, Lemberger. You
might try a bottle of this excellent red and see if it works better
for you.
One last note, there is a difference between the sulfite that is
dissolve and or bound in the wine, and sulfite that is in a gaseous
form. Everyone will cough or choke if they breathe the fumes, very few
will have problems with drinking the stuff.
If anyone wants reference material on this subject I'd be glad to put
some of it together.
By the way, I'm not saying I like the idea of adding lots of sulfite
to wine, quite the contrary. I believe that the less used the better,
but some is necessary to protect the wine from microbial instability.
I refer to previous postings regarding the relationship of ph to
sulfite requirement.
What are amines? I'm not familiar with the term. I do have a problem
with red wines and not whites that I've been trying to figure out for some
time. My feet swell, I get headaches and get stuffy. But I prefer reds,
so you can imagine the annoyance. Are there reds out there that would NOT
affect me like this? Yes, that is a very common observation. I think it arises from media hype in the
80's. Sulfite gets the blame and nobody knows of amine. I know lots of female
who have reaction to red wine but none to white - don't know of any males who
have this problem. Some days I wonder just what it was that caused it. Now I
have a better understanding thanks to you. Not one of the persons I know who has trouble with reds has any trouble with
raisins [ who does? It is unheard off! ] - including one lady who has a fairly
serious allergy problem. I definitely would like to see some more information on this. As it pertains to
red wines in particular. Reducing the amine would be great. Once I observed
consumption of a red wines by a lady who was surprised it did not produce the
usual negative reaction. I thought it may have been some other factor than the
wine - ignorant as I was of amine - thinking -it was a low sulfite wine.
Matter of fact I have a pinot noir in secondary that was destined to be a low
sulfite wine for the reasons so commonly thought to be the facts. Your post may
be timely enough to make sure it does not become a source of amine.
