1985 Austrian diethylene glycol wine scandal
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
Next time you drink a glass of wine, pay attention to yourself and the people with you.
Did you sneeze soon after? Did your sinuses feel swollen? If yes, that’s your allergic reaction to the sulphites.
There’s almost no wine that doesn’t have sulphites.
> Sulfites occur naturally in all wines to some extent. Sulfites are commonly introduced to arrest fermentation at a desired time, and may also be added to wine as preservatives to prevent spoilage and oxidation at several stages of the winemaking. Sulfur dioxide (SO2) protects wine not only from oxidation, but also from bacteria.
I ask because a friend of a friend spoke about this a few years ago, and was very convincing in an amateur sleuth kind of way, but I didn’t have the knowledge to be able to judge what he said. Plus, medical experts I know thought it was nonsense. Therefore I remained skeptical. But this topic keeps reappearing occasionally around the place and I do wonder if there’s truth to it in the way that some things can be that take many years to be recognized. I love concrete, genuine information.
Look for the allergic responses like sneezing and swollen sinuses - ask them about it. Ask how they feel the morning after drinking wine (in moderation) - sinusy? Nose need blowing?
Though the same person who told me this alleged that sulphites tended to cause other allergic reactions, such as blotchy skin / hives. I know one friend who gets those drinking wine.