What is vegan wine

Fining agents are processing aids, not additives, as they are eventually filtered out of the wine. However, traces of the fining agents can be absorbed into the wine which makes it not suitable for vegans and occasionally some vegetarians. Unfortunately, winemakers are not required by US wine labeling laws to provide a list of ingredients on their product labels. This makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to identify a vegan wine from the bottle itself.

FAQs Expand menu Collapse menu. FAQ Why should I drink organic wine? What is biodynamic wine? What is vegan wine? Here at The Organic Cellar, we get that question a lot. If you didn't know wine could even be vegan, don't feel bad - you're not alone! Isn't all wine vegan? The short answer is no. And others skip the fining practice altogether by giving the wine time to settle before decanting it into bottles. Annoyingly, winemakers do not disclose fining ingredients on the label.

But you can easily go online to check the vegan status of most of the top brands. Just visit Barnivore , which has researched and cataloged vegan alcohol of all types. These include:. Also be sure to check out our vegan guides to beer and alcohol. All rights reserved. Common Fining Ingredients Isinglass from fish bladders Gelatin from boiled cow or pig body parts Albumin egg whites Casein animal milk protein Fortunately, many winemakers use vegan fining ingredients.

All of these molecules are natural by-products of the winemaking process and are completely harmless to consume. And the only way to do this is by extracting the molecules using fining agents. Many of the fining agents that were traditionally used contained animal products.

For red wine, it has historically always been egg whites known as albumin , while for white wine it was milk protein known as casein.

Once the fining process has been complete, the agents used are removed. However, due to the nature of wine, tiny traces of the animal product can be absorbed, thus making it non-vegan.