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If a glass of red leaves you flushed, congested or with a headache before you've finished it, histamine is usually the first thing people blame. Sometimes fairly. Often not.
Here's where histamine in wine actually comes from, how much is in a typical bottle, which styles carry less, and why the research on this is messier than most articles admit.
What is histamine?
Histamine is a compound your body makes on its own. It plays a part in immune response, stomach acid production and signalling between nerve cells. It's the thing antihistamines are named after, because it's what drives the sneezing and swelling of an allergic reaction.
It also turns up in food. Anything fermented or aged tends to carry it: cheese, cured meat, sauerkraut, soy sauce, vinegar, beer and wine. That's not contamination or poor practice. Histamine is what bacteria produce when they break down the amino acid histidine, and fermentation is bacteria doing their job.
How does histamine get into wine?
This is the part the usual explanations miss, and it matters because it tells you which bottles to avoid.
Histamine is not really about the grapes. It forms when lactic acid bacteria convert histidine into histamine, and that happens overwhelmingly during malolactic fermentation, a second fermentation that converts sharp malic acid into softer lactic acid.
Malolactic fermentation is what makes a red taste round rather than tart, and it's what gives an oaked Chardonnay its buttery quality. Nearly all red wine goes through it. Most crisp white wine doesn't.
That single production choice explains most of the difference between reds and whites, and it explains why two bottles of the same grape can be wildly different. The bacterial strain used matters more than the variety on the label. Winemakers can now screen cultures for the histamine-producing gene before inoculating, and co-inoculating the bacteria alongside the primary yeast rather than afterwards has been shown to reduce biogenic amine levels.
Skin contact plays a smaller supporting role, and poor storage or hygiene can push levels up further, which is why wine on tap has been found to carry considerably more than the same wine bottled.
How much histamine is in wine?
Less than the internet suggests, and with an enormous range.
A 2019 study published in Molecules analysed biogenic amines across red and white wines and found median histamine concentrations of 7.30 mg per litre in reds against 2.45 mg per litre in whites. The researchers attributed the gap directly to malolactic fermentation.
Broader survey data tells a similar story with wider spread. Reference values from 100 Austrian red wines averaged around 8 mg per litre, with the lowest at 0.45 and the highest at 27. Cooler-climate wines came in noticeably lower than southern ones. Most white wine sits under 1 mg per litre.
For context, the wine trade generally treats anything under 0.1 mg per litre as histamine-free, since that's the usual detection limit, and describes wine up to around 0.25 mg per litre as low histamine.
Worth noting that histamine levels in wine have been falling for decades, largely because cellar hygiene has improved.
Is histamine actually what's causing your symptoms?
Here's where honesty is more useful than a clean answer.
The same 2019 research found that dietary exposure to biogenic amines through normal wine consumption sits below the recommended maximum levels for acute exposure. In other words, a couple of glasses of bottled wine doesn't deliver a dose that would trouble most people.
But it also documented a case where six young people developed histamine-mediated symptoms after around three glasses of wine served on tap, which tested at nearly 10 mg per litre. So susceptible individuals can react at levels below the general toxicity threshold, particularly where storage has pushed the concentration up.
And then there's the finding that complicates everything. Research by Kanny and colleagues, examining wine intolerance directly, found no correlation between the histamine content of a wine and whether people reacted to it. Sufferers reacted to low-histamine wines and tolerated high-histamine ones.
That doesn't mean histamine is irrelevant. It means it's one candidate among several, and that anyone who has ever concluded "it must be the histamines" on the basis of a bad evening is working from thinner evidence than they realise.
What else could it be?
Four other suspects, all more plausible than most people assume.
The alcohol itself. This is the one worth knowing. Alcohol inhibits diamine oxidase, the enzyme that breaks histamine down in your gut. So even a low-histamine drink can leave you less able to clear the histamine already in your system from food. A lower-strength wine may help someone more than a lower-histamine one.
Tannins. Concentrated in red wine and long associated with headaches. High tannin usually correlates with longer maceration, which also correlates with higher histamine, so the two are difficult to separate in practice.
Sulphites. Almost universally blamed and mostly innocent. Around 1% of people are genuinely sensitive, more commonly among people with asthma. We've covered this properly in our guide to sulphites in wine.
Volume and dehydration. Unglamorous, and frequently the answer. If the reaction only shows up after the third glass, the third glass may be the variable.
What is histamine intolerance?
Histamine intolerance describes a situation where the body struggles to break histamine down efficiently, usually because of low diamine oxidase activity. Histamine accumulates rather than clearing, and symptoms follow.
Reported symptoms include flushing, particularly across the face, nasal congestion or a runny nose, headache, hives or itching, nausea, and fatigue. Because that list overlaps with an ordinary hangover, a mild allergy and simply having drunk too much, self-diagnosis is unreliable.
If you consistently react to small amounts of alcohol, it's worth a conversation with your GP rather than a decision made from a blog. Genuine histamine intolerance is diagnosed clinically, and several of the symptoms above can indicate other things entirely.
Which wines tend to be lower in histamine?
There is no such thing as a histamine-free wine in ordinary retail, and any wine sold as such has usually been specifically lab-tested and certified by a specialist producer.
What you can do is pick styles where the production process gives histamine less opportunity to form. As a general guide:
The ProWein trade guidance for merchants advising sensitive customers points the same way: young whites aged in stainless steel, caution around oak and malolactic fermentation, and an eye on tannin levels.
Being straight about our range
We don't lab-test our wines for histamine, and we're not going to tell you they're low histamine when we haven't measured it. Nobody in mainstream UK retail does, and anyone claiming otherwise without a certificate is guessing.
What we can tell you is which of our wines are made in the styles described above, so you can make your own call.
Crisp, unoaked whites made in stainless steel:
Traditional-method and tank-method sparkling:
Given that alcohol interferes with the enzyme that clears histamine, the lower-strength end of our range may be worth a look regardless of style. Our lightest wines sit at 9 to 11% rather than the 13 to 14% common in supermarket bottles.
Common questions
Does red wine have more histamine than white? Generally yes, roughly three times as much on median figures, because nearly all red goes through malolactic fermentation and most crisp white doesn't.
Is there a histamine-free wine? A handful of specialist producers, mostly in Austria and Italy, make and certify wines below 0.1 mg per litre. They aren't widely available in UK retail.
Do antihistamines help? That's a question for a pharmacist or GP, not a wine retailer. Mixing medication with alcohol carries its own considerations.
Is organic or natural wine lower in histamine? Not inherently. Some low-histamine specialists happen to be organic producers, but organic certification says nothing about malolactic fermentation or bacterial strain.
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This article is general information about wine production and is not medical advice. If you react consistently to alcohol, please speak to your GP. Please drink responsibly. UK guidance is no more than 14 units a week, spread across three or more days, with several drink-free days.
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