Vegan Wine: What is it and How to Recognize it

The vegan culture also conquers the renowned world of Italian wine: when a wine can be defined as vegan and how to recognize it correctly

In Italy, the demand for vegan wines has grown considerably in the last year. What, however, is meant for vegan wine? And above all, how is it possible to recognize it for example among the many wines that crowd the wine cellars’ shelves?

Let’s start by defining vegan wine: vegan wine is a product without the use of meat and their derivatives and without the use of any derivative of animal origin. For this reason, obviously in the production of vegan wine, no animal derivative is used, such as egg albumin, casein or in general caseinates, ovalbumin and egg lysozyme, which can be used in vegetarian productions and in conventional productions.

Now let’s see in which wine processes, as well as obviously grapes, can be used in the cellar for technological aids and some of these can be of animal origin. Technological adjuvants are defined as those organic and inorganic substances, used to favor the desired process and which are subsequently eliminated. After their action, these substances are removed from the wine. In theory these substances should be completely absent in the finished product, but it cannot be excluded however that some residue of them is present. The most widely used technological adjuvants are the so-called clarifiers, materials through which food liquids are passed to make them clear and remove impurities.

The clarifying agents of animal origin are mainly egg albumin, casein, bone glue, isinglass and gelatine. So how to recognize a vegan wine? Are there any indications on the label? The discipline of vegan wine, to date is not yet completely regulated in a specific way by EU and national standards. However, in the new EU labeling regulation it is expected that rules will be defined for the use of information, including information on the characteristics of foods, to be defined as vegetarian or vegan. However, today this information is exclusively optional to the will of the producer. However, there are some brands available on the market that clearly identify their vegan characteristic.