What is a vegan wine?
Vegan wines are those which have been made without using any animal products. Many people have made a choice to adopt a vegan diet. However, there is often some confusion whether wines are vegan or not.
Organic is vegan, isn’t it?
Organic and Biodynamic wines are also not automatically vegan wines. An organic winemaker could also use organically farmed eggs to fine their white wine. Fining is the process to make wines clear and remove solid particles that make a wine cloudy.
This would not be allowed in a vegan wine. Instead, a vegan wine would need to use bentonite or another method such as only racking the white wine.
Racking is when a fresh wine is left for some time to allow any solid particles to fall to the bottom of the vessel the wine is stored in. Then the wine is removed carefully without disturbing those solid particles and put into another storage vessel as a wine. That wine has much more clarity than it did before racking. This process is regularly used in wine making, whether that wine is vegan or not.
Can you tell the difference?
Not really. Although you may be able to tell the difference between a fined wine and one that is bottled unfined / unfiltered. Those will have less clarity when you look at them if you have disturbed the layer of sediment.
There is no taste difference.
Are vegan wines better for you?
As yet, there is no evidence for that. It is purely a choice of whether you wish to have a plant based diet or not.
How do you know if a wine is vegan friendly?
Typically, if a wine is vegan friendly it will stay that on the label. Usually the back label. Some countries have a certification available to the wineries and will display an easy to see symbol on the label. Others will simply have a statement such as ‘This wine is vegan’.
Otherwise, you will need to search the internet to find your information. The producer’s website is a great place to start. We have checked our wines and have noted which wines are vegan on each wine page.
