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Finding a solution to one of my biggest triggers

I have been getting migraines since my early twenties and I am now 55 years old. I have many triggers but one of them which I have pretty much nailed down is from drinking specific kinds of wine. One might say there is an easy solution to that, just stop drinking wine, but having grown up in the wine industry, in Napa, this is not as easy as it seems, nor do I particularly want to do so, at least not completely. I did notice however that when I traveled to France and Italy I had no problem drinking the wines and in fact could polish off a whole carafe with no headache at all! So I began to wonder what is it in the wines of California that consistently gave me, and many other people I speak to, a splitting headache, even sometimes after consuming just a few sips!

I am fortunate to have a cousin who is a chemist and winemaker and has been making wines for over 25 years. When I shared with him my issues with California wine he was not at all surprised as he explained it had something to do with the fact that they have been making the wines higher and higher in alcohol over the last fifteen years or so in order to appeal to the current critics' palates and thus achieve the highest ratings. This might be good for wine sales but not good for people who are sensitive to naturally occurring histamines, ethanol, yeast,sugar mixed with high alcohol levels which all wreak havoc together and result in a serious migraine almost instantly upon having one sip.

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