Sulfites are a natural byproduct of wine making. In large jug wine making as in the US additional sulfites may be added. Shipping wines is a loss leader at any rate.

Hi SeaUrchin, interesting thread. My SIL, born and raised in Rome does not drink wine here in CA, even wine imported from Italy. It gives him a terrible headache too. Growing up in Rome the wine never bothered him.

I will be interested in others answers, but know without a doubt that your problem
is not in your imagination.

\

I, too, get a headache and feel like I've been drugged on half a GLASS of any wine I drink in the US.

Let me first say that I will not pretend to be a wine expert. I will just relate what I've been told by people who represent themselves to me as wine experts...one of them being a cardiologist of Italian descent.

The explanation that I have been given is that US LAW requires a certain amount of sulfites be added to ALL wines sold in the USA...regardless of their country of origin...as a kind of preservative.

However, other countries do not have these same laws. Therefore, wines served in those countries usually will not contain any extra sulfites which might be added during processing.

In addition, the wines in Italy are usually "fresher"....not sitting on the shelf for long periods of time. The restaurants are much closer to the wineries.

On our first trip to Italy, at dinner on the first evening I drank half the BOTTLE by myself and did not feel the usual ill effects. I was convinced that the wine had been "watered down" by the restaurant.

The next night...at a different restaurant...the same thing. I could not imagine that all the restaurants in Italy were "watering down" the wine.

For our visit to Tuscany I had hired a private guide for one day and I asked him about this since his family had owned small wineries for generations.
This was the explanation he gave me.

Later, when we returned to the USA, this story was confirmed to me by others.

I know there are some folks who have other theories. But this is MY story and I'm sticking to it.

Please note: I posted the post at 9:55pm to answer SeaUrchin's thread.

The next post re: Bruce Chatwin, which shows as my post in NOT MINE.

Fodor's is a problem again!! Do not know what is going on, but very irritating to have a post showing I posted when I did NOT.

Ok, guess Fodors got the posts on this thread corrected, so ignore my last post.

Excerpts from the following website:

http://waterhouse.ucdavis.edu/winecomp/so2.htm

There are many erroneous ideas about sulfites.

All wines contain sulfites. Yeast naturally produce sulfites during fermentation.

No other country requires a sulfite warning label, except the U.S., but virtually all winemakers add sulfites, including those in France, Italy, Spain, Australia, Chile, etc, so, the wine you drink in foreign countries contains sulfites, but you just are not being warned about it.

Sulfites do not cause headaches. There is something in red wine that causes headaches, but the cause has not yet been discovered.

Many people seem to connect their headache with the sulfite warning label, but sorry there is no connection.

I use sulfites in my wine, and have no problem and no headaches.

Hi, Budman: Thank you for that information.

First of all, I think that some people are more sensitive to sulfites. Not everyone will have the same reaction. Most people won't have any reaction at all.

But I've heard many stories from people who say they can drink wine in Europe with none of the ill effects they feel when drinking wine in the USA.

So there has to be SOME explanation!

All wines contain sulfites naturally. They are a by-product of fermentation. About 1 in 100 persons may have a sensitivity, not allergy, to sulfites. There is no such thing as wines that contain no sulfites, or sulfite-free wines. Grape skins not only host the yeast that ferments grapes into wine, they also contain vinegar bacteria that can spoil new wine. Sulfites (sulfur dioxide and its salts) helps to prevent the spoilage, and it inhibits the growth of molds and bacteria, curtail oxidation (browning), and also preserve flavor.

Getting a headache after drinking wine is usually the result of three factors: sulfites, amines, or overindulgence. Many people incorrectly blame sulfites for their wine headaches. If your headaches are severe only when you drink red wine, you can rule out sulfites as the culprit. Many highly-processed foods have had sulfites added to them (pickles, dried fruit) and, contrary to popular opinion, white wines contain even more than reds.

There are less sulfites used in wine production today than at any other time in history. Better technology, equipment, and sanitation practices all contribute to less bacterial spoilage, and therefore less need for adding sulfites.

To this day, there has yet to be found a better way to keep wine from spoiling than the use of sulfite.

This same debate (about sulfites being added to wine) occurred on the Slowtalk forum a few months ago. The writers who knew most about wine and winemaking seemed to agree that some sulfites are produced naturally by fermentation, and that virtually all winemakers (in the US and around the world)add sulfites as a preservative. The consensus was that US winemakers, because they have to place a warning label on the bottle when the sulfites exceed a certain level, are more conservative with sulfite use, and that the amount of sulfites is disproportional to the cost of the wine (i.e., the cheaper the wine, the more sulfites it is likely to contain.) I'm convinced that wine tastes better in Italy because you're in Italy when you drink it. If you brought te same wine home tothe US, you'd be a little disappointed.
Here's the link:
http://slowtalk.com/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=759607521&f=862600685&m=53410834411&r=20210444411#20210444411

Verrry confusing. I drink wine at lunch and at dinner in France and in Italy and rarely feel the effects. I have to limit my glasses of wine here to no more than 2 at a time over a period of a week or I get a headache.

It is strange if they all have sulfites. I did ask at a winery in Italy if they added sulfites and they said no so I thought it was only exported wine that had it.

I'll look at slowtrav now, thanks for the input to this odd concern.

Many U.S. wines are 'big' wines, as loved by Robert Parker, and have higher levels of alcohol than many European wines. The same is true of the majority of Australian wines and is starting to be the case with the increasing number of European wines made by flying winemakers to suit what is perceived to be the international taste.

We are just back from Italy. I drink a good amount of wine when in the US. I drank far more in Italy, with no ill affects. Although many bottles listed the alcohol content as equal or greater to that in the US, we never felt the wine or had hangovers or headaches from it. Many a time in Tuscany, we split a bottle for lunch and went on touring with no ill effects. Doing that at home would necessitate a nap followed by a headache when we woke up. Wish we could have the same wine here in the states!!!!

Dry red has the lowest level of sulfites, sweet white the highest -- reflecting the different levels of residual sugar of those types of wine.

Price or quality of wine is no contributing factor, though.
Most expensive "ice wine" (with the highest amount of residual sugar) needs the highest amount of sulfites (because that sugar is the food for bacteria and for unwanted fermentation).

How much of a hangover you will experience is more a matter of the quality of wine, whether you drink it late at night without food, or with a hearty fat lunch, etc.

Wines in Italy definitely contain sulfites. I would be surprised if it is not added to wine which is intended for longer storage (i.e. better quality fuller bodied wine) as it prevents spoilage. As for headaches, perhaps you should try fuller/lesser bodied wine and see the difference

I, too, am amazed at how much I can drink in Italy/France with no ill effects. When we've gone in winter we tend to stay over dinner for hours and have, on occasion, had 2 bottles of wine (for two!). Not only do I not get drunk, there's no headache and no hangover.

If it's not the sulfites, maybe it has to do with all the walking? We'll walk 12-15 miles a day (4 times what we do at home). Might that have anything to do with it?

I don't know that I have anything to add here. Plus I see this thread was started 3 years ago but....I have always assumed that the reason I can drink so much more when I travel is that I'm just pre-disposed to staying on my feet in the afternoon and getting up early. I tend to drink way more wine when I travel and I never have a hangover though here 2 glasses of red and I'll have a headache in the morning for sure. I thought it was just me.

My old question! is still a mystery to me. I can polish off a bottle at lunch in France or Italy and just feel slightly buzzed. If I did that at home I would be a wreck for the rest of the day.

"Slightly buzzed" is different from a headache. So which are you talking about. And "buzzed" will depend on the amount of alcohol in the wine --different types have more alcohol so that makes a difference.
As I said at the very beginning and others reiterated, sulfites are IN wine. JUG wines (less expensive wines) in the US may have extra added.
AND some people DO get migraine headaches from the sulfites in wine, and the nitrates/nitrites in things like lunch meats.

There is a slight misconception, about where the sulfites come from.
A minor part of the sulfite level results from natural fermentation - between 10-30mg/liter.
Yet, that is not enough for making the wine last many years.
The major chunk of sulfites is ADDED after fermentation - from up to 160mg/liter for a dry Red, and up to 400mg/liter for a heavyweight White.

In the EU, wines did not have to identify sulfites on the label until 2005. The US started much earlier to mandate labeling. So you still find many older Europeans wines with no "sulfite warning". That does not mean, though, that they do not contain sulfites.

My husband and I just returned from Italy and when we were in Tuscany we were told that when sulfites are added in Italy, they are added to the grapes before they are processed (with a small amount making it into the wine), whereas in the US, they are added after (with higher amounts of sulfites in the wine). Being scientists, my husband and I are considering an experiment where we test the sulfite levels of several types of wine from the US vs. Italy. Some sulfite content is inevitable, but we are told that the amounts vary greatly.

I'll be sure to post any results

The "sulfites in wine" controversy just goes on and on, but for no reason. All wines contain some natural sulfites and virtually all wines are made using sulfur dioxide and/or sulfites at various stages in the process. There is no systemic difference in how or when sulfites are added to Italian wines vs. US wines vs. any other wines anywhere, the exception being the relatively rare wines that are intentionally made without sulfites, and advertised as such - they're as likely to come from the US as they are from Europe, or the rest of the world. Only the US requires wines containing sulfites (again, the vast majority) to indicate that on the label, a practice that most of the rest of the world finds ludicrous. That law has certainly contributed much to the misunderstandings.

A little Googling will produce many reasonably authoritative discussions on the subject. Here's one to start with: http://wineintro.com/basics/health/headaches.html. (That said, I agree that the testing program you outline sounds like more fun.)

At last, a voice of reason!

What about fluoride in wine? Sulifites in wine is certainly something to be aware of especially if you know you are sensitive to them. But perhaps the U.S. allows more fluoride in the grapes/vineyards .. and wines than imported wines? Also .. the radiation issue is all around us .. especially in California wines. The radiation issue is not such a big concern in some of the imported wine countries.

Fluoridation?

Radiation in wine?

Which countries depend most heavily on nuclear power? They aren't in North America.

Which country had Chernobyl? Not in North America.

California is of course subject to wind borne radiation from the Japan meltdowns. The California CDPH and the Feds have been monitoring ambient radiation and especially milk.

Q. How much radiation was found?
A. The amount of radiation identified in the tests was ten thousand times below amounts that would pose human health concerns.

Q. How does this compare with radiation we are exposed to daily?
A. Radiation is all around us in our daily lives, and these findings are a minuscule amount compared to what people experience every day. For example, a person would be exposed to low levels of radiation on a round-trip cross-country flight, watching television, and even from construction materials.

You will die from cirrhosis of the liver long before you ingest enough radiation or fluoride (!) from wine to hurt you. I am tempted to say that tinfoil hats offer significant protection, but instead I will say, "Relax."

I've found that if you add a thin cork lining to the foil, the hat offers even better protection.

That one got a chuckle out of me, uhoh_busted!

Not about to get involved in the radiation discussion, other than to say that any wine bottled prior to mid March of last year cannot possibly contain any radionuclides from Fukushima.

It's been a long time since someone has posted on this thread but I am going to revive it and hopefully get some ideas...

I have taken my mom to Italy twice now and each time she has gotten this weird reaction on her face. It has swelled up and it's hard to describe since it's not a typical swelling. It's almost like she is burned and it has a elephant-man look to the swelling... where her jowls jut out strangely. SO, all I can think of, since it's happened twice now, is she HAS to be allergic to something she is getting in Italy. We drink a LOT of wine in Italy (why not right?) and I was thinking it had something to do with the wine? This is an interesting thread that caught my eye when googling the effects of sulfites. Any experts here know of any allergies to wine outside the US? I'm sure we can all be allergic to any little thing and not really know it but wondered how plausible it would be that it had something to do with the wine? Ideas?

Sounds like the culprit is histamine.

Sorry to hear about your mum. Certainly there are sulphites in Italian wine.
Celiac?