Originally Posted by
Maverick28 
...red wine just totally wipes him out...
I don't know why it's wine that specifically does it to him, he can have a large number of ciders and still be fairly functional, with walking/moving and talking.
Wines can contain high concentrations of sulfates to control the fermentation process. That's one thing some people can't deal with. I don't know the side effects of consuming it.
I would place both wine and cider on a similar scale of alcohol content. I can also boost the alcohol content of ciders, higher than that of wine. This is pretty normal practice to maintain a sweet fruity character but in doing so, there's more sugar for the yeast to eat resulting in a higher AC.
Again, the trick is that it doesn't taste like a high AC beverage and it's much lighter than beer. People tend to drink more of it, almost treating it like a beer.