The term “vegan wine” may sound redundant. After all, wine is made from grapes, so shouldn’t all wines be vegan? It is true that wine is made from grapes, but the part that makes some wines vegan and the others not isn’t in the ingredients; it’s due to the fining process.
During the natural wine making process, young wines contain small molecules including tartrates, proteins, phenolics and tannins which cause the wine to appear hazy and cloudy. Most wines that you pour out of the bottle, whether white, red or rosé, have a clear appearance. To achieve this look, the wine has to go through the fining process.
Creating Vegan Wine
The non-vegan fining process uses agents such as animal protein, egg whites, fish protein and milk protein, which are also known as isinglass, gelatin, albumin and casein. These processing aids are not exactly vegan friendly. However, vegan wines do not use these particular aids during the fining process and replace it with clay-based agents. Vegan wine undergoes the fining process with the aid of agents such as activated charcoal and bentonite, creating the same clear appearance.
Vegan Wine Options
Due to the increasingly animal-friendly lifestyle choices many people are making these days, vegan wine is in demand. The following list shows just a handful of some vegan winemakers.
- Yalumba Vegan Wines – As of the 2011 vintage, Yalumba wines offers a full list of their vegan wines.
- Bonterra Organic Vineyards – All of the white wines produced at Bonterra Vineyards are vegan friendly. Just look out for their reds, as those do use egg whites in the fining process.
- Frey Vineyards – The vineyard formulates all of their wines without using any animal byproducts in the wine making process.
- Gold Mountain Winery – This winery prides itself on its value, wine quality, environmental stewardship and wine purity.
- Thumbprint Cellars – By the looks of it, they seem to assure that all of their wines are vegan-friendly. You can check the details of each of their wines on their site here.
- Vinavanti Wines – Their black label wines are made without any animal-based processing aids because they’re not fined or filtered. However, the winemaking practices for their white label wines vary.
Vegan wines are being created and purchased worldwide. This allows those who do not consume animal products to enjoy wine in its purest form. If you’re shopping for a bottle of vegan-friendly wine, consider checking out Barnivore. They list specific vegan wine (as well as beer and liquor), as verified by multiple members of their community.