Preservative Low Wine Could Mean Less Headaches!

17 June 2013

Preservative Low Wine Could Mean Less Headaches!

OK, first things first – technically, because alcohol is a natural preservative if you are going to get pedantic about it there is no such thing as ‘preservative low wine’, other natural preservatives are the tannins from the grape skins and oak barrels. Also the fermentation process of winemaking actually produces ‘bound’ sulphur, which again acts as a natural preservative – why do you think wine doesn’t go out of date? People seem to assume it’s only when sulphur is added is when its adverse to your health, when in actual fact the total amount that counts in terms of allergic reaction.

In the UK Wines that are certified as organic have no added preservatives at all, as opposed to regular wines which are labelled on the back as ‘contains sulphites’ or occasionally labelled as ‘contains sulphites’ or ‘preservatives 220’. However if the label doesn’t have anything like this on, it doesn’t mean that is sulphur free, it’s simply the case that the winery didn’t label it.

Not all countries demand that wines label their additives, in Europe there aren’t requirements for labelling, but in the US sulphite content has to be labelled. So why is content labelled? Well the main issue is that sulphites added to wine can cause headaches; this is especially true for cheap supermarket wines where sloppy techniques are used to make the wine, and this is covered up by adding lots of sulphites to the wine, improving flavour.

Sulphites are present in both red and white wines and can sometimes cause asthma-like symptoms in an estimated 5 to 10% of patients with asthma. Symptoms such as these usually occur with people with severe asthma, or someone whose asthma is poorly managed. These reactions can be small to even life threatening.

Cheer up! It’s not all bad, while wines made without sulphites don’t last so long, winemaking techniques and use of the screw cap, which because it can reseal the bottle requires less sulphites than the traditional cork, means that new and exciting sulphite free wines are coming to the UK. Don’t expect any wine to be 100% free of sulphites, because even with no sulphites added, wine does naturally have a very small amount of sulphite which naturally occurs.

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17 June 2013

Preservative Low Wine Could Mean Less Headaches!