'(Vegetarian wine) has been helped by the use of a new fining agent' gushes Jane MacQuitty on Times online.
Not really dah-ling Bulgaria has been using it for simply ages, and the plebs who love home brew. The best Wine kits rarely use anything else.
She continues - 'a special, ultra-efficient clay called bentonite, which is both vegetarian and vegan-approved. Previously, to create clear, star-bright stable wines, producers often fined and filtered their wines with whatever they had to hand, including dried ox blood powder, isinglass (made from fish bladders), gelatine, casein (the protein found in milk) and egg whites. Today, for health reasons, fining ingredients such as these are used less and less. Good ordinary wines are fined earlier and more rigorously than expensive wines, which is why bentonite is such a godsend for cheap reds and whites. Fancier reds and whites spend more time in the cellar and the numerous barrel rackings ensure that only minute traces of egg white, say, is present in the finished wine. For vegans, and some vegetarians, this trace is unacceptable and, again, bentonite fining leaves no detectable particles in the wine.'
It's good she's finally noticed and getting the word out there, I've lost count of the number of wine merchants who have no clue how their wine is clarified, but this is actually all very old news despite the lack of common knowledge.
Most of the main supermarkets now have a symbol for vegetarian and vegan wines. Co-op have for many years now included a full list of ingredients on their wines that includes sulphites and clearing agents such as isinglas, in addition to a vegetarian or vegan rating on the label.
1999 Only retailer to label the ingredients in wine, despite the fact that the move is technically illegal.
