{"id":39373,"date":"2017-07-17T05:00:17","date_gmt":"2017-07-17T09:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=39373"},"modified":"2017-07-16T14:33:45","modified_gmt":"2017-07-16T18:33:45","slug":"debunking-some-myths-about-sulfites-in-wine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2017\/07\/17\/debunking-some-myths-about-sulfites-in-wine\/","title":{"rendered":"Debunking some myths about sulfites in wine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By way of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/myths-about-sulfites-and-wine\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Scientific American<\/em><\/a>, here&#8217;s a bit of clarity from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.quickanddirtytips.com\/health-fitness\/healthy-eating\/myths-about-sulfites-and-wine\" target=\"_blank\">Monica Reinagel<\/a> about the issue of sulfites in both red and white wine and what relationship it has to wine headaches:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Myth #1: Organic or bio-dynamic wines are sulfite free.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In order to be certified organic, a wine must not contain added sulfites. However, sulfites are produced naturally during the fermentation process as a by-product of yeast metabolism. Even though no sulfites are added, organic wine may contain between 10-40 ppm sulfites.<\/p>\n<p>You may also see wines labeled as being made from organic grapes, which is not the same as organic wine. Wine made from organic grapes may contain up to 100 ppm sulfites.<\/p>\n<p>If you do get a hold of wine made without sulfites, I don\u2019t suggest keeping it in the cellar very long. Wine made without sulfites\u2014especially white wine \u2014 is much more prone to oxidation and spoilage.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Myth #2: Red wine is higher in sulfites than white wine<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ironically, the exact opposite is likely to be true. Red wines tend to be higher in tannins than white wines. Tannins are polyphenols found in the skins, seeds, and stems of the grapes. They also act as antioxidants and preservatives so less sulfite is needed. <\/p>\n<p>In fact, while European regulations allow up to 210 ppm sulfites in white wine, the limit for red wine is only 160 ppm.<\/p>\n<p>Other factors that affect how much sulfite is needed are the residual sugar and the acidity of the wine. Dryer wines with more acid will tend to be lower in sulfites. Sweet wines and dessert wines, on the other hand, tend to be quite high in sulfites.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Myth #3: Sulfites in wine cause headaches<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The so-called \u201cred wine headache\u201d is definitely a real thing. But it\u2019s probably not due to sulfites. For one thing, white wine is higher in sulfites than red wine but less likely to cause a headache. That suggests that it\u2019s probably something else in red wine that\u2019s responsible for the notorious red wine headache. Other candidates include histamines, tyramine, tannins, not to mention the alcohol itself!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By way of Scientific American, here&#8217;s a bit of clarity from Monica Reinagel about the issue of sulfites in both red and white wine and what relationship it has to wine headaches: Myth #1: Organic or bio-dynamic wines are sulfite free. In order to be certified organic, a wine must not contain added sulfites. However, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,16,131],"tags":[872,347],"class_list":["post-39373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-science","category-science","category-wine","tag-chemistry","tag-debunking"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-af3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39373"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39374,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39373\/revisions\/39374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}