Why Does Wine Give Me a Headache, But Mead Doesn't?
“I love wine, but after one or two glasses I get a headache. I don't get that with your mead” is one of the more satisfying comments we hear from customers at Undisturbed.
They're not talking about a hangover the following morning. For some people the headache arrives while they're drinking wine, sometimes after only a glass or two. Yet we have customers who enjoy a bottle of Rhubarb Mead with none of these symptoms.
So what's going on?
Wine-induced headaches are a recognised phenomenon, scientists have been investigating them for decades, and some recent research provides a particularly interesting explanation.
Most importantly, alcohol may not be the whole story.
The wine headache is not a hangover
First, it's worth separating two things that are often confused. A hangover occurs after drinking, usually the next day.
An immediate wine-induced headache can begin while drinking or within a few hours. In the case of red wine, susceptible people sometimes report it after only one or two glasses.
What's in wine besides alcohol?
Wine is extraordinarily chemically complex.
Fermenting grapes produces ethanol, but the finished drink also contains hundreds of other compounds originating from the grapes themselves, fermentation and ageing.
Potential explanations for wine headaches have included:
histamine and other biogenic amines
sulphites
tannins
phenolic compounds and flavonoids
acetaldehyde and the way our bodies metabolise alcohol
Despite plenty of theories, researchers haven't established one substance as the cause of wine headaches.
And the answer may not be the same for everybody.
Are sulphites responsible?
Sulphites are probably the most famous suspect. Mention getting a headache from wine and someone will inevitably blame the sulphites.
Sulphite sensitivity is real. Sulphites can provoke reactions in susceptible people, particularly some people with asthma. But the evidence that sulphites explain the typical wine headache is surprisingly weak.
That doesn't mean an individual can't be sensitive to them. It means that “sulphites cause wine headaches” is too simple an explanation for what scientists observe.
Other components of wine remain under investigation.
What about histamine?
Histamine is another interesting candidate. It occurs naturally in fermented foods and beverages, including wine, and concentrations can vary considerably between wines.
Some people have a reduced ability to break down dietary histamine, and headache is among the symptoms associated with histamine exposure in susceptible individuals.
Again, however, this doesn't appear to explain every wine headache.
Which brings us to a much newer theory.
A new suspect: quercetin
In 2023, researchers from the University of California published an intriguing study investigating the peculiar phenomenon of the red wine headache.
Their attention turned to quercetin.
Quercetin is a flavonoid naturally found in grapes and numerous other plants. Red wine can contain substantially more flavonoids such as quercetin than white wine.
Normally, when we drink alcohol, the body begins breaking ethanol down into another compound called acetaldehyde.
Acetaldehyde isn't something we want hanging around. Higher concentrations are associated with unpleasant effects including flushing, nausea and headaches.
Fortunately, an enzyme called ALDH2 helps convert acetaldehyde into acetate, which the body can process more easily. The researchers found something interesting.
When quercetin is metabolised by the body, one of the resulting compounds can inhibit ALDH2 in laboratory testing. That creates a fascinating hypothesis.
Drink alcohol and your body produces acetaldehyde.
Drink alcohol alongside a compound that interferes with the enzyme responsible for clearing that acetaldehyde, and more acetaldehyde could potentially accumulate.
For a susceptible person, the result might be a headache.
Why red wine in particular?
This could also help explain something researchers have struggled with for years: why red wine seems particularly troublesome for some headache sufferers.
Red wines generally contain considerably more flavonoids than white wines because of the way they're produced with grape skins. Quercetin concentrations also vary enormously between wines. Even the amount of sunlight grapes receive can influence their quercetin levels.
That could potentially help explain why somebody might happily drink one alcoholic beverage—or even one type of wine—but develop a headache from another.
It is an elegant theory. But it is important to call it what it currently is: a theory.
The 2023 research demonstrated the biochemical mechanism in laboratory testing. Human trials are still needed to establish whether this is what actually causes red wine headaches.
So why might mead be different?
This is where things become particularly interesting for us. Wine and mead share two important things: fermentation and alcohol. But they begin with completely different agricultural ingredients.
Wine begins with grapes. Traditional mead begins with honey and water.
Mead therefore isn't simply wine with honey substituted for sugar. Its starting chemistry is fundamentally different.
There are no grape skins, grape seeds or grape-derived tannins. The particular mixture of phenolic compounds and flavonoids entering fermentation is different.
Mead certainly contains its own array of plant-derived compounds. Honey is itself chemically complex, and different floral sources produce remarkably different honeys.
So we can't scientifically make the leap from “mead contains no grapes” to “mead cannot cause headaches.”
It is entirely plausible that somebody who reacts to a non-alcohol component of wine may have a different experience drinking an alcoholic beverage made from a completely different raw material.
What our customers tell us
This is where our interest in the subject began. At tastings, events and conversations with customers, we've repeatedly heard variations of the same observation:
“Wine gives me a headache. Your mead doesn't.”
We don't know whether the explanation is quercetin, histamine, another wine component, the particular composition of our mead, individual physiology—or some combination of these.
And we certainly wouldn't suggest that mead guaranteed to be a headache-free alcoholic drink. What we can say is that the observation itself isn't scientifically absurd.
Wine is much more than ethanol and water. Mead is much more than ethanol and water. They are fermented from fundamentally different ingredients and consequently contain different mixtures of compounds.
If alcohol itself isn't what a particular person is reacting to, changing the source of the fermentation could change their experience.
Mead isn't honey wine
This also illustrates why calling mead “honey wine” can be misleading. It is a useful shorthand for explaining an unfamiliar drink, but chemically and agriculturally, mead isn't a variety of wine.
Wine gets its fermentable sugars and much of its chemistry from grapes. Mead gets its fermentable sugars and much of its character from flowers, via honey.
Different source. Different fermentation substrate. Different drink. For most people, that difference is simply something to taste. For the people who tell us they can enjoy a glass of mead when wine gives them a headache, it might mean something more.
Science hasn't yet given us the answer, but it's a question worth asking.
Sources and further reading
Devi, A., Levin, M. & Waterhouse, A.L. (2023). Inhibition of ALDH2 by quercetin glucuronide suggests a new hypothesis to explain red wine headaches. Scientific Reports, 13, 19503.
Panconesi, A. (2014). Wine and headache. Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain, 54(6), 967–975.
