In all of my years as an amateur wine-maker, I've used progressively less and less sulphites until, finally, I don't even consider it for most batches. Much of this trend was because of complaints of headache from the current bed-mate/intervention team-leader. Maybe if I could keep a batch around for a year or so I'd consider it, but my major problem is keeping the production ahead of the consumption. Is it necessary? Not in my world.