It’s easy to believe that several things are vegan, even though they might not be.
Wine, for instance, is made from crushed grapes. Most of us believe that as it is a fruit-based product, wine is vegan, but is this the case?
Unfortunately, many wines aren’t suitable for vegans.
Most wines available to purchase are non-vegan, as they are often processed with egg whites. Wine can also contain other examples of animal matter, like gelatin, fish oil, and bone marrow.
Wine is usually filtered to remove any animal products later on, but the remaining product is still unsuitable for anyone following a vegan lifestyle.
You’ll learn how to tell if wine is vegan in this post, including why all wine isn’t vegan and whether its vegan form has a different taste from regular wine.
Why Is Wine Not Vegan?
Many wine manufacturers use a variety of animal products while fining their wine. They will remove these substances from the wine later on, but trace amounts of animal matter may remain.
This means that many wine bottles are unsuitable for a plant-based lifestyle.
The food industry has changed a lot from the past and has become more accommodating to vegans.
Many vegans may wonder why winemakers wouldn’t follow this route and make their wine without using animal products.
The reason is that wine manufacturers are concerned about their final product’s taste and appearance. Choosing to use animal matter when fining the wine can help a lot with these two elements.
Whether the wine is filtered or not depends on the manufacturer.
Filtering doesn’t make wine taste better than unfiltered wine. Fining and filtering can eliminate any particles which make the wine cloudy, as a lot of people think that the particles ruin the wine’s overall look.
How To Find Vegan Wine
Now you know why a lot of wine bottles won’t be suitable for a vegan lifestyle, here are some tips that can help you find vegan wine.
Find Unfined or Unfiltered Bottles
Winemakers will only need animal products to filter the wine. Unfined or unfiltered wine won’t be treated with animal matter, so it will be vegan.
Unfiltered wine tends to come with vegan labels printed on them, so you can be certain that your bottle is compatible with your lifestyle.
Look For The Label
A certified vegan label ensures that the item is entirely vegan-friendly. A vegan label can save you a lot of time, as you won’t have to look through an extensive ingredient list to ensure the product is vegan.
Do Your Research
If there isn’t a lot of information on the bottle’s label to indicate whether the wine is or isn’t vegan, search for the winemaking company online. Look for what sort of wine it is and whether it is vegan.
Another method of doing this is by searching for any unknown ingredients that you don’t recognize, then finding out if they are plant-based.
This might not be necessary if you are up to date with the names of animal-containing substances. However, many manufacturers label ingredients with complicated language, so always double-check to be safe.
Look At Advertising
In the modern age, you’ll know when a wine company is vegan, as they’ll be drawing attention to being a vegan-friendly business.
Creating vegan products gives the company a wider audience to sell its products to.
Wine manufacturers which don’t filter or treat their wine with animal matter will often advertise this fact.
This may be through regular advertising, social media, or on their website.
Check Social Media And Websites
A lot of winemakers go into their ingredient list in more detail online, unlike the basic wording on a bottle’s label.
The manufacturer may tell you where the wine was sourced from, background details regarding the vineyard, and go into the process itself.
You can look into the process and find out if they leave the wine unfiltered, as this indicates that the wine is likely to be vegan. The winemaker may also display whether their wine is vegan on their website.
Looking through a winemaker’s website can be useful, as well as looking at their social media, like Facebook and Instagram.
They may have uploaded previous posts which declare whether their products are vegan-friendly.
What Makes Wine Vegan?
Essentially, a vegan wine will not have been treated with a process, known as fining.
This process helps wine manufacturers remove any unwelcome substances from their product, but fining renders wine unsuitable for vegans.
The choice to leave wine as it is, allowing particles to sink to the base and leave the drink cloudy, is optional. However, some wine enthusiasts believe that skipping this step can ruin the wine’s final taste and appearance.
Fortunately, more and more stores are beginning to stock vegan wine. As veganism continues to grow in popularity, several wineries are choosing to produce vegan options, or switch to becoming completely vegan companies.
For example, some winemakers are opting to filter their products with bentonite, a type of clay. This allows the manufacturers to filter wine without using animal matter.
Does Vegan Wine Have A Different Flavor?
No, vegan wine doesn’t taste different from regular wine.
Vegan wine doesn’t need to be filtered, so whether a winemaker chooses to use the fining process or not won’t affect the way the product tastes.
This is a good point for wine-loving vegans, as they won’t have to forgo any distinct flavors as a result of their lifestyle.
Non-vegan and vegan wines may not differ much in terms of taste, but they can look different.
Vegan wine which hasn’t been treated with the fining process can look cloudy, due to sediment remaining within the glass. Non-vegan wine which has been treated with animal matter may look smoother and clearer.
Final Thoughts
Wine may be made with grapes, but this doesn’t mean that all wines are vegan.
Many wines that you see on the shelves will have been treated with a fining process. This involves using animal matter to filter certain elements from the final product, making it look more appealing.
Despite this, many winemakers create vegan wines. Unfiltered wines are usually vegan, as well as ones that have the ‘vegan’ label printed on them.
Filtering doesn’t affect the way a wine tastes, just its appearance. This means that you’ll be able to enjoy vegan wines without sacrificing flavor.
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