What is vegan wine?

The world of food and beverages, as we have always known it, is slowly changing: as every aspect in our culture, is evolving, according to our necessities. One of the greatest examples of this phenomenon is the rise of eating styles such as vegetarianism and veganism. These life choices, determined by many different factors, can influence your whole life, since you will have to pay more attention to food, clothes, house products, but also beverages. In fact, you must be careful t international or Italian wines, because they might be vegan wines or not.

What is vegan wine?

Not a lot of people know about this characteristic about wine and they just assume that wines can be drank in all situations, without taking into account dietary restrictions. However, this is the furthest from the truth. In fact, as it has been stated before, wines can in fact be vegan. But what is vegan wine and how it differentiates from other kinds of wines?

According to the regulation standards, a vegan wine is described as wines that have not been fined, filtered or come into contact with anything derived from an animal or dairy source. In the last few years, 270 wines have been listed as vegan, a huge wine if we consider that in 2018, we had just 39.

And although most of wines can be considered vegan friendly and can be assumed without worrying about such specifics, wines can also contain, sometimes, animal derived products and, consequently, not be considered vegan. Therefore, it is important, whenever you are getting close to the Eno gastronomy sector and you want to know more about wines, not only to understand how to decant wine or create the best food and wine pairings, but also to understand the wine components and how they can affect the wine and yourself.

However, a worry can be arisen: what is it in wine that can make it vegan or not vegan?

What it is in wine that is not vegan?

There could be many different reasons that could determine if a wine can be vegan friendly or not, but one of the main characteristics or agents that can label a wine as unsuitable for vegans are the following: in fact, there might be some egg products or casein (a particular protein that is in milk), that are usually used in order to remove tiny particles of sediment, that unfortunately cannot be removed by filtration or other processes.

There could be also other reasons that could occur, in order to make a wine vegan friendly or not: for example, animal derived products could be used also in the wine post-production, such as beeswax, that can be implied while sealing the bottles, or even in the making of agglomerated corks, in which milk-based glues could be used. Even in these cases, wines cannot be considered vegan.

What is the difference between vegan wine and normal wine?

After analyzing in details what could be the defining factors in the wine production that could delineate a vegan friendly wine or not, it is possible to outline even more the differences between the two types. As it has been mentioned before, normal wine production can imply the use, in every step of the process, of animal products or animal derivates. On the contrary, a vegan wine is produced by eliminating all these details and substituting them with vegetal products.

Although it is difficult to respect all these criteria, the vegan wine production is slowly increasing: in fact, over the last few years, the awareness around the subject and the efforts on ethical wine production have become more important and consistent. The proof of this social change in the sector can be the growth of the number of vegan wine cellars, but also on the rise of wine cellars that have changed their policies and decided to use vegan friendly processes or products for their wines.  Therefore, vegan friends should not worry, because finding vegan friendly wines is becoming easier and easier. So, next time you will ask yourself ‘is red wine good for you ?’,  you could also ask yourself if the wine will be good for the nature and vegan friendly.