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This page is for information only based on our personal experiences. If you suffer from these symptoms, you may have something other than a sulphite intolerance and you are advised to seek professional medical help.

Feel ill after wine?
Does drinking wine make you feel ill? Hot flushes? Shortage of breath? Vomiting or diarrhoea overnight? Banging headache next day? (caused by other chemicals). Do you avoid wine in favour of other drinks as a result?

Well don’t despair, it may not be the wine! You have all the symptoms of a sulphite intolerance and there may be a solution to get back to drinking wine again.

Our Story
About six years ago my partner, Jane, had a bad reaction to some wine we were drinking in Prague. She was violently ill all night but we put this down to quantity as we were having a very enjoyable weekend! On our return the same thing happened a few more times with Jane being ill each time she drank ,wine in particular, but also with draught lager, and as we’ve since discovered with some processed foods and nuts in particular.

As you can imagine this was unbearable to Jane. She thought she would have to stop drinking wine. In fact the draught lager incident nearly killed her as she struggled to breathe and this understandably made her panic which exacerbated the situation. Fortunately my sister, a high level nurse, was present and she was able to avert disaster.

This made Jane all the more determined to find out what was wrong with her. She was referred to specialists for allergy tests. This went on for a couple of years without making any progress. However, having learnt to control her breathing when struck by this shortage of breath, Jane was experimenting with drinking small quantities of various drinks. Having discussed the problem with friends we found that a lot of them, especially the girls, were having similar problems to a lesser extent.

The Problem
To cut a long story short, we tracked it down to the chemicals added to the drinks, usually as a preservative, in particular sulphites. Jane can drink pure lager, such as German Pils brewed to the purity laws, with no problem whatsoever. She still cannot drink any UK brewed lagers though. The same with wine. Factory produced brands, and this includes most of the popular wines in the supermarkets and in the tenanted pubs of the large pub companies, tend to be very highly chemicalled and Jane can tell at one sip if it’s going to affect her.

Sulphites occur naturally in the grape skin, in tiny traces, so all wine must have it on the label. However many of the factory produced wines have extra sulphites added and there’s no guide on the label how much sulphite a wine contains. By law a wine can contain up to 350 parts per million of sulphites, but a good wine usually contains less than 40 ppm. Therefore a cheap factory produced wine can easily contain 10 times more sulphites than a good wine!

The Answer
We’ve always drunk good wine at home and noticed that Jane didn’t react to these. It was only when we ate out and had to gamble on an unknown wine, or when we went to friends houses for dinner or they brought wine to us, that the problem recurred. So the answer for Jane is to drink good wines, very low in chemical additives. Where to find them?

Virtually every recommended wine on our list is fine for Jane to drink. This doesn’t guarantee that it will be safe for anyone else, but if you suffer from the same symptoms, it could be worth a try. Of course you don’t have to buy the wine from us. You’ll find good wines with very low chemical content elsewhere. I recommend going for smaller producers, preferably family owned vineyards and wineries, steer well clear of any factory brand and don’t go for the very cheap wines. To make them at this price they’re almost certainly factory produced. And if you’re not used to drinking wine, take it easy. Too much in one hit when you’re not used to it can make you violently ill anyway, as your liver has a panic attack realising that the easiest way for it to get out of a full night’s work is to make you sick!

Good luck, take it easy and hope this works for you. Check out this link for more information. http://www.winepros.org/wine101/wine-health.htm