On friday night I had 2 glasses (approx 10 oz. glasses) of wine. The wine was 12% alcohol. I drank the 2 glasses over the course of an hour and 1/2. I am 6’1 and weigh 240. I know for a fact I was not intoxicated. But I woke up saturday (yesterday) morning with a hangover headache that would kill Andy Capp.
I’m a long time experienced drinker. I usually don’t get hangovers. In fact, because of my size/weight, I don’t get drunk on 2 glasses of wine.
The wine did contain sulfates. Is that the answer?
Tell me about sulfates. There must be something about them, because wine that has it says so on the label. Is that what caused the killer headache?
Sulfur dioxide is added to wine in the form of sulfites (eg sodium sulfite). This is done to controll malolactic fermentation and oxidation.
SO2 is added in larger quantities to white wine, since the SO2 is a bleach it can affect the colour. Also reds have a higher pH and phenolics which inhibit the SO2.
You can get headaches from histamines in the wine or apparently the sulfite. Was it a whit you drank?
Try purchasing a sulfite free wine. Same effect? If so it may be the histamines, which i think is a more common cause of wine related (and not due to alcohol) headaches.
In Australia wine with SO2 added has “Preservative 220” written on the label. Not sure if the same is the case in Milwaukee.
Histamines are present in many other foods such as cheeses, meats and fish.
Sulfites are present in other foods such as dried fruits. Makes many people feel short of breath.
It is possible the headache was not wine related. Could have been a coincidence.
Armed with these facts you should be able to devise subtle and ingenious experiments to determine if SO2 (sulfites) or histamine or alcohol or something else was the cause. Have fun.