Isn't All Wine Vegan?

Sorry to say its
not vegan :(

First you take the grapes and you crush ‘em, you crush ‘em, then you take the juice and  you pour it, you pour it… well maybe a little more high tech then this but this is how I thought wine was made. Basically fruit with yeast to ferment the sugars into wine. But sadly no, this is not true. One of the things I have just learned is that some alcohols, including wine, may contain things like, fish, eggs and even milk. Crazy as it sounds, but this is true.

How you may ask? Well it has to do with how the wine is clarified and a process called ‘fining’. Fining is the process of filtering out tiny molecules such as proteins, tartrates, tannins and phenolics in young wines. Which in the beginning look murky and cloudy. These are save to drink, but wine companies like a clear clean looking wine so they use this process to clean them up.

Some of the most common fining agents are casein (a milk protein), albumin (egg whites), gelatin (animal protein) and isinglass (fish bladder protein). These fining agents are not ingredients in the wine, they are just processing aids and are filtered out through the removing of the haze molecules. For the vegans out there who are mainly concerned about consuming the animal products, these are safe because it has all been removed. But this is now a problem for ethical vegans out there, just because there are no traces of the animal products doesn’t mean that they were not used in the process of making it.

There is hope though! There are new ways of filing wine that a lot of winemakers are using today. Carbon, bentonite clay, limestone, kaolin clay, plant casein, silica gel, and vegetable plaques are all suitable alternatives and are vegan friendly. Also in a move towards more natural wines, some wine makers are moving to not fining their wines at all, and leaving them to self-clarify and self-stabilize.

Captain Morgan is vegan!

So how do I find out if my wine is vegan or not? There is a great website called Barnivore that lists both vegan and non vegan wine and also beer and liquor. Another website that focuses on just wine is www.vegans.frommars.org/wine, it has a lot of foreign wines if that is what you tend to drink.

I have listed below some of the most common alcohols and whether they are vegan or not. Some wines I am pretty sad about because I really enjoyed them, but on the plus side I now get to experiment with different types of wine! Yummm!

The information I listed is off of the Barnivore website, if you have a favourite drink that you are curious about you can look it up on there or email the company and ask. Barnivore has a great template for you to use in an email, as well as a polite email response. Good luck with your findings!

Sadly not Guinness 

Naked Grape – no

Sawmill Creek – no

Jackson Triggs – no

Apothic wine – no

Martini Brand – no

Silent Sam Vodka – no

Skinny Girl – Pina Colada – no

Skinny Girl – White Peach Margarita – no

Skinny Girl – Cranberry Cosmo – no

Smirnoff Espresso – no

Smirnoff root beer – no

Grandville Island, anything Casked – no

Richards Honey Brown – no

Guinness beer - no

Absolute vodka – yes

Appleton – yes

Amerito – yes

Bacardi – yes

Say yes to Absolut 

Beefeater – yes

Bombay Gin – yes

Canadian Club Whiskey – yes

Captain Morgan Spiced Rum – yes

Alexander’s – yes

Coors and light – yes

Miller – yes

Molson – yes

Corona – yes

Thanks for reading!
xoxo -N