Newly bottled wine gives me a headache

[murphyaii]

I've just bottled a magnum chardonnay from a wine kit from north italy.
I added some tartaric acid to it to give it some body just before bottling.
I've noticed after a glass or two as you do,

that i get a slight migraine.

does it need some time to mature?

 

[Arne]

Scroll down to the skeeter pee forum and have a look at Norcal's post about skeeter pee giving him a headache. He has been trying to figure it out and might have some ideas to help you. Arne.

 

[NorCal]

Hey Arne, thx for the post referral

Being a person that does not get headaches in general, I was really curious to understand why Skeeterpee gave me a headache. In my case, I isolated it down to tannins. Here is my theory on why some people are sensitive to white wine and some red wine.

Red wine is higher in tannins than white, while whites are higher than reds in sulfites. I believe those are the two biggest drivers for headaches in wine and two of the elements that trigger headaches. What was the SO2 addition in the wine?

One way to test would be to pour a glass and put it in a shaker and splash rack the heck out of it and the let it rest for a few hours. That should dissipate a lot of the SO2.

 

[wineforfun]

whites are higher than reds in sulfites.

Not following this, help me out.

I sulfite mine the same and assume(maybe wrongly) that commercial wineries do too.

 

[NorCal]

I'm no expert, but it is widely recommended that white wine is maintained at .8mg/L vs .5mg/L for red. I believe this is tied back to the higher tannin and alcohol levels, which aid the red wine to a greater extent than the white wines.

 

[murphyaii]

i did add tartaric acid at the final stage before bottling

could this be the issue with chardonnay?

 

[grapeman]

I don't see how extra tartaric acid would cause headaches. It will lower the pH and raise the TA of the wine. It will not add body to the wine, only acid.
Arguments rage all the time as to what causes headaches from wine. Some say it is sulfites, some say tannins, some histamines and some say alcohol. While it is possible for all of them to cause you a headache, a kit wine following directions is not likely to do so. It seems everyone wants to tweak the kits hoping to make them better but you risk winding up with something not as good as it was intended to be. Follow the directions and let it age the recommended amount of time and you should get a nice drinkable product. Unless you have the right test equipment to check all the numbers properly you are taking chances just adding extra things to your wine.