Vegan and vegetarian wine

How can wine not be vegan, it is just grapes isn't it?

This is where things get a bit more technical. Once the grapes have been pressed and fermented there are all kinds of microparticles in the juice, before bottling this needs to be removed to give a clean and clear wine. There are many methods of doing this, some more industrial than others but even with filtration there may still be some cloudiness.

In order to remove this speedily most wines are 'fined' to make all the particles in suspension coagulate and drop to the bottom of the fermenting vessel. The products used for fining vary enormously and traditionally include isinglass and egg white; gelatine and skimmed milk are also used. Isinglass is made from fish swim bladders and gelatine from animal stock / bones so definitely not suitable for vegetarians. The egg white and skimmed milk would preclude vegans buying these wines.

Thankfully there are other methods available which do not involve animal products, the most common of these being bentonite, this is a rather unusual form of clay which is very effective at absorbing the proteins and stabilising the wine. While talking to Sam Lindo at Camel Valley for this article he said that they only use bentonite when they need to stabilise the proteins, otherwise they are able to let the wines settle naturally. Silica and charcoal are also used very effectively in this process.

The other area where wines are deliberately not fined is with natural wines - but that is a topic for another day.