Vegan wine!?

A vegan wine is a wine that contains no added products of animal origin. Of course, many will ask: "Can a wine from grapes contain animal products?". The answer is yes. Often in the winemaking process, proteins of animal origin are used. Find out how.

Gelatine, egg white (albumin), fish glue, casein and potassium caseinate are the most common animal proteins used in winemaking in the clarification process.

Before bottling, clarification agents are added to remove suspended sediments in the wine keeping the wine from being cloudy. These clarifying agents, also called "glues", are removed after attracting the residues that remain in the wine, but it is enough so that the wine cannot be considered vegan.

Gelatine

In oenological products, gelatine comes in grains or sheets obtained from animal proteins.

Egg Whites

Widely used in cooking to clarify broths, egg albumen is sold fresh, frozen or in powder and is a traditionally used clarifying agent.

Fish Glue

Ichthyocola or fish glue comes from the swim bladder of fish (initially just sturgeon). After processing and dehydration, they are available for use in the wine clarification process, amongst other applications.

Casein

Casein is the main protein in milk. Among numerous uses, it is a clarifying agent, often in the form of potassium caseinate.

So how is wine clarified to be considered vegan?
Because some products, such as egg white or casein, have allergenic characteristics, and due to the growth of veganism, studies on the applicability of vegetable-based proteins were made, such as wheat, peas, potatoes or lupins, for use in wine clarification.

How to know if a wine is vegan?
The V-Label and Vegan Flower, awarded by independent entities, attest to the certification. In the Barnivore wine directory, you can also find several Portuguese and foreign producers whose wines are Vegan Friendly.

However, some wines are vegan but not certified. In those cases, it is difficult for the consumer to know that the wine is vegan.

Some producers privilege vinification with minimum oenological intervention and choose not to clarify the wines. For that reason, many of these so-called natural wines present a cloudy appearance. The silkiness that gives it this appearance is composed of yeasts and grape particles left over from fermentation, which do not alter the wine's flavour and can be perfectly ingestible. This turbidity gives the wine its "funky" appearance appreciated by many.

But, to complicate things, there are also natural wines that have a clear appearance for being clarified, but in a natural way. In natural clarification, there is no addition of any clarifying agents, whether of animal or vegetable origin. An example of natural clarification is gravity filtration, a process in which suspended particles fall to the bottom of the tank under the effect of gravity and are then removed by racking. Natural clarification can also be through the use of filters.

We can say that many natural wines are vegan for the reasons mentioned above. But as there is no legislation on the subject, some producers choose to perform a clarification caused by using oenological products of animal origin. And, it is enough if the producer uses egg white as clarifying agent, for example, for the wine to no longer be considered vegan. In conclusion, although there are many natural vegan wines, it is difficult for the consumer to have this information. If they are not certified, only confirm it with the producer.

Therefore, if you practice a vegan diet, we recommend choosing wines with V-Label certification, Vegan Flower or Barnivore website-listed wines.

And to finish, we leave you two suggestions for vegan wine producers. Click on Kelman Wines and MAINOVA.