By Christine Ansbacher

You’ve had a memorable holiday, wine tasting, or gourmet restaurant dinner, with wonderful red wine, and you go to bed glowing. But the next day, you wake up with a killer headache. You’ve heard it’s something about the sulphites in red wine that cause headaches and vow to resist red wine from now n. It ain’t necessarily so. For most people, the sulphites in red wines are not the culprit. White wines actually have more sulphur added to them than red wines.

Here’s the scoop on how you can avoid so-called “red wine” headaches. Do NOT do any of the following:

Drink wine if you are sensitive to histamines.
This is likely the biggest reason for your headaches. Histamines are a natural part of red wines, and taking an antihistamine pill several hours before you know you will be drinking red wine may well solve the problem. If you have any concerns about histamines in general, ask your doctor.

Drink wine on an empty stomach.
The more food you eat, the less likely it is that you will get a headache.

Drink wine when you are dehydrated.
Common sense: Drinking water dilutes whatever is causing your problems.

Drink wine when you are especially fatigued.
If you tossed and turned the night before, this can affect whether you succumb to a headache.

One other cause of headaches is the tannins in red wines. Experimentation can help you determine which wines to avoid and what works best, so you don’t feel compelled to give up drinking red wine completely. First, try red wines low in tannin, beginning with Beaujolais Nouveau and Beaujolais-Villages, with the lowest amount of tannin, and continuing in order of tannin with Barbera, Valpolicella, Dolcetto, Pinot Noir, Saumur Champigny, Chinon, Bourgueil, and Cabernet Franc. You’ll learn which wines you tolerate and which trigger a headache.

Tannins in full-bodied red wines that have at least five to eight years bottle age have mellowed and may not be as likely to cause headaches. Finally, if all else fails, turn to unoaked white wines like Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio, Muscadet, Pinot Gris, Albarino, Sancerre, Pouilly-Fume, and Pinot Blanc. These white wines contain no tannin because they aren’t aged in oak barrels (which leach tannin into the wine); and white grapes don’t contain tannin in their skins as red grapes do.

Christine Ansbacher, DWS, CWE is a wine expert and the author of Secrets from The Wine Diva: Tips on Buying, Ordering and Enjoying Wine. To order her book and see video clips of her on TV sharing practical tips that will save you time, money and aggravation go to http://www.thewinediva.com/wine-book