Winegraines (how to prevent a hangover)
I experience Winegraines so infrequently that I never really put much thought into them. Until this wine....
The wine pictured is a Californian Petit Syrah and Petit Verdot from Odd Lot. It is for all intense and purposes a really nice wine; big, bold, black and red fruit flavours - medium tannins, and a slight sweetness that hits you on the finish. Best of all it's under a tenner at £7.99 (I think I got this from Aldi) and allows you to try two grape varieties that you might not normally choose.
I drink much sweeter, much heavier, much more tannic wines than this one so it got me thinking what made me suffer when I drank this one. It was a pretty instant Migraine as well, coming on within a couple of hours of drinking it with no prior warning that it was coming before it hit, and it continued to a hefty hangover the next day despite very little wine consumed in comparison to my (cough errr) ‘normal’ intake.
After reading up on it, I realised on this day I did everything wrong. I was dehydrated, stressed and went for a high abv percentage wine.
What is a Winegraine?
A headache or migraine bought on by the effects of drinking wine. They come in 2 forms:
a sudden tension migraine that can appear after 30mins - 3 hours after drinking. These tend to be experienced more in people who tend to get Migraines anyway.
One we’re all more familiar with, a hangover headache that comes the next morning (when blood sugar levels have resumed back to more normal levels).
What causes it?
When it comes to the latter of the 2, the main culprits at this stage are going to be dehydration and alcohol levels. These 2 things will affect every single one of us - the more alcohol we drink, the more our body has to process it in order to flush it out of our systems. Alcohol is a diuretic, which means your body increases it’s production of urine, and also expels more salts out of your system leaving you dehydrated.
When it comes to the former, more sudden migraine as well as people who suffer from very bad hangovers, then we can look further than alcohol into other things that grace our wine glasses. I’m talking tannin, sugar and histamines.
Tannins: These are found in the grape skin, stalk and seeds. They contribute to the drying effect and grippy furry feeling you get in your mouth when you drink red wine. Tannins aren’t found in white wine because there is no skin contact in production (unless we’re talking orange wine). These don’t cause a huge amount of problems for the majority of us, but some people have a sensitivity to them.
Sugar: Remember I said alcohol is a diuretic, well your body needs lots and lots of water to process sugar. The combination of both sugar and alcohol leaves your body super thirsty. When your body is thirsty your brain tissue starts to loose water and your brain starts to shrink which as you can imagine, hurts. So maybe we can blame a shrinking brain for when we make stupid decisions when drunk??
Histamines: When your body is allergic to something, it produces histamines. If you suffer from hayfever you’ll know what histamines are, they give you dry eyes, make you sneeze and cause your head to pound. Well, some more aged wines can cause the production of histamines. I just want to caveat that taking antihistamines doesn’t seem to have any scientific benefit, so it isn’t fully known if this is a contributor or not.
So what can I do?
Below are my top tips to hopefully help you avoid your future winegraines
💦Stay hydrated (i mean this is just a good life tip), but in particular when you are drinking. It’s also worth drinking some sports drinks that help replenish any salts you may be loosing
❗️Alcohol itself is a trigger, so if you find you have headaches, not just with wine, then lower your consumption or lower the abv percentage of your drinks.
🤯Be less stressed (yeah good one Jenni..), but when it comes to alcohol consumption there are studies that show not only winegraines but also hangover effects are increased by the feeling of stress up to 48 hours before consumption. So be more chill man ✌️
🍷If you think you struggle with red wine it could be the tannin, try sticking to low tannin reds (e.g Pinot Noir) or stick with white.
🍬Stick with dryer wines, or if you have any sweetness in your wine remember to stay super hydrated