Why Wine and Cheese Nights Wreck You – and What It’s Really Telling You About Your Gut

You know the story - you’ve been planning this night for weeks. You sit down for a glass of red and a cheese platter with friends. It starts off relaxing. But a few hours later you’re flushed, itchy, wide awake, can’t stop pooping and/or battling a throbbing headache. Sound familiar?

You might think it’s the stress/sensitivity to dairy or blamed the preservatives in the wine. But this is only a close relative of the truth. In reality it runs far deeper – right into your gut.

The Truth: It’s Less About the Food and More About Your Gut Imbalance

Histamine is a natural compound found in many foods like aged cheese, wine, pickles very ripe fruit, and fermented products. Even superfoods like spinach, raw cacao and strawberries are high histamine. It’s also produced inside your body, where it helps regulate immunity, digestion, and blood flow.

The trouble starts when your body can’t break histamine down fast enough. That’s when overload occurs and symptoms appear – redness, itching, headaches, runny nose, bloating, anxiety, panic attacks, diarrhoea even insomnia. Many people call this histamine intolerance.

So, they do their research and cut out all the “high-histamine foods.” And sure, that may calm things down for a while. But long term, it’s little more than a band-aid fix.

The Problem With The Low-Histamine Diet

Avoiding histamine-rich foods might seem logical, but it misses the real issue. Your body isn’t reacting because you ate too much cheese. It’s reacting because your gut isn’t handling the histamine from the cheese/wine/olives properly.

The 2022 study Intestinal Dysbiosis in Patients with Histamine Intolerance found that people with histamine issues had fewer histamine-degrading bacteria and more histamine-producing bacteria in their gut.

That means your gut might be adding to your histamine load even before food hits your plate. Even more importantly - it means this could be a treatable/reversible issue!

Meet Your Histamine Hero’s (and Hooligans)

Healthy guts contain bacteria that help degrade histamine, like:

• Faecalibacterium prausnitzii

• Bifidobacterium adolescentis

• Coprococcus comes

• Blautia obeum

But in histamine intolerance, these tend to be low. Meanwhile, troublemakers like Clostridium, Proteus, and Enterobacter may take over – bacteria known to produce histamine.

Add reduced DAO enzyme activity (which normally breaks down histamine), and you’ve got the perfect storm: high histamine, low clearance, ongoing symptoms.

How It Feels

Histamine overload doesn’t always show up as allergies.

It can look like:

• Headaches or migraines after wine, chocolate, or aged foods

• Itchy skin, hives, or flushing

• Runny nose, sinus congestion, or watery eyes

• Bloating, cramps, or loose bowels

• Restlessness, anxiety, or insomnia

• PMS or heavy periods

If that sounds like you, it’s worth looking into the balance of your microbiome.

Fix Your Gut, Fix the Reaction

Healing histamine intolerance means rebuilding your gut balance, not just restricting foods.

That process might include:

• Restoring histamine-degrading bacteria through probiotics and prebiotics

• Reducing histamine-producing strains through dietary change and supplemental support

• Supporting DAO production with nutrients and lifestyle

• Repairing gut barrier function

• Gradually reintroducing foods to expand tolerance

When you fix your gut, your threshold rises – and those “wine and cheese nights” might not be your enemies anymore.

Testing Is the Missing Piece

If you’re tired of guessing, microbiome testing can reveal exactly what’s happening in your gut.

At Food Intolerance Australia, we use advanced gut health and food intolerance testing to uncover bacterial imbalances, DAO status, and triggers unique to you.

You’ll also receive free access to my Ultimate Bloat Buster 7-Day Gut Reset – a step-by-step plan to support gut repair while you await your results.

Book your Gut Health & Microbiome Check today and find out what your gut is really trying to tell you.