Going Vegan: The Wine World’s ‘Lo-Fi’ Evolution

Although they comprise just a small percentage of sales in the wine industry, certified vegan wines are gaining traction. Winemakers are starting to pay more attention to consumers' concerns about their own well-being, as well as to animal ethics and the environment. But the difference between vegan and non-vegan wines is less obvious, at least as far as what is finally poured in your glass. It's just fermented grape juice – isn't it?

While the end product may be almost completely free from animal products, the winemaking process often is not. The clarification, fining and filtration of wines – to make a product that is clear, bright and pleasing in appearance and texture, as well as more stable in the bottle – has traditionally employed the use of animal products. Egg whites, gelatin, casein (a milk protein) and isinglass (from fish bladders) are all used to remove unwanted phenolics from the wine, such as any browning or tannin bitterness. The popularity of food products made with excess egg yolks in some red wine regions – like canelés, the rum- and vanilla-flavored pastry found in Bordeaux – is a testament to the longstanding use of egg whites as a fining agent.

And even though French winemakers have largely stuck to their traditional winemaking methods – only four of the 463 vegan wines we rated were from the country – those in other countries are rushing to meet consumer demand. Spain, for example, has nearly one-third (148) of the vegan wines on our list, while two other Spanish-speaking countries, Argentina (80) and Chile (65), gave us another third. Although each of these countries produce dozens of excellent vegan wines, the highest-quality producer could be Germany, which placed nine of the top 10 wines on our list – all rieslings and from just three producers: Eva Fricke, Immich-Batterieberg and Riffel.

Producers of vegan wines either use fining agents that contain no animal products or avoid fining agents altogether. Instead of egg whites, casein or gelatin, they use products like bentonite, a type of clay that absorbs unstable proteins and colloids; PVPP, an insoluble powdered plastic that removes browning from white wines; and vegetable protein products derived from potatoes or legumes, which can remove unwanted phenolics. Charcoal is also sometimes used to remove color and odors, but this can also strip the wine of much of its goodness and flavors.

Only some winemakers who use no fining agents can be considered producers of vegan wines, though, as many use animal products in the vineyards, including fertilizers, or even allow chickens, pigs, snakes or armadillos to roam freely to keep pests down. Such producers can label themselves “organic” (the definition of which often depends on how much sulfur is used in the winemaking process) or “biodynamic,” rather than “vegan.”

Although there are no precise figures on what percentage of wines sold internationally are vegan, an analysis by Transparency Market Research predicted that the organic/vegan wine market as a whole would reach $30 billion in value by 2030, with a “surge in demand for preservative-free, vegan-friendly, carbon-neutral, certified, and biodynamic organic wines likely to drive market development” from 2020 to 2030.

'UNFINED AND UNFILTERED' OR VEGAN?

In the United States, many wine producers prefer to label their wines as “unfined and unfiltered” rather than as “vegan,” showcasing their winemaking processes instead of appealing to what some would consider too narrow a consumer market. Some of these producers also use cold stabilization in their cellars to clear their wines rather than using any fining agents, dropping the temperature of the wines to 30 degrees Fahrenheit (minus-1 Celsius) for at least 36 hours or allowing their wines to clear in their cold cellars over the winter.

One of the first vintners to popularize using “unfined and unfiltered” on his wine labels was Napa legend Robert Mondavi, who perhaps saw his noninterventionist winemaking as aligning with the California hippy-chic vibe at the time. Robert’s son Tim has continued the tradition at Continuum Estate. Another Napa winery that doesn’t use fining or filtration agents, but also doesn’t consider itself “vegan,” is Tor Wines. It has long focused on making small-batch cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay and Bordeaux varieties with minimal intervention, and from single vineyards. Only a few barrels of each wine are made, with Tor Wines’ founder, Tor Kenward, providing exacting oversight in the winemaking process, from the vine to the bottle, with Kenward hewing to the philosophy that it is his job “to stay out of the way” and let the vineyards do the talking.

A Tor wine “should have everything it needs to be a great wine, and part of my job from that point is to fool with it as little as possible and leave as much of its heritage/expression intact,” Kenward said by email. “If something (say a great barrel) doesn't add to the wine, then anything outside of the normal winemaking process like fining/filtration just takes a little bit of the wine’s soul with it when you do it.”

Kenward also said he “hadn’t ever really considered” labelling his wines as “vegan,” although he does see a trend on the high-end wine scene in Napa for an unfiltered product. You can check out James’ tasting interview with Kenward as they go through Tor Wines’ latest vintages here.

But many wineries that do label their wines as “vegan” follow the same minimal intervention philosophies. Amato Vino – a trio of small-batch, artisanal vegan winemakers based in Margaret River, Western Australia – make their wines with a “Lo-Fi” approach, meaning few additions and as little handling of the wine as possible, along with sourcing organically and sustainably farmed grapes. And this approach comes through in the wines. We particularly enjoyed their Amato Vino Savagnin Margaret River 2020, a concentrated, textured and layered white, as well as the Amato Vino Trousseau Margaret River 2020, a raspberry-colored red with fragrant notes of wild red berries, flowers and orange peel.

In the German wine region of Rheinhessen, Carolin Riffel, co-owner of Weingut Riffel with her husband, Erik Riffel, explained that their focus is likewise on organic grape growing with little intervention in the winery. Grapes are carefully selected and hand-picked, and are only filtered in the cellar using diatomaceous earth (a type of sedimentary rock that is crumbled and used as a filtration aid) and perlite. The wines also stay on the lees longer than usual, she said. These methods are widespread and not vegan-specific, but allow filtration without animal products and assist natural clarification from longer time on the lees.

Riffel explained that the process of being certified as vegan was simple, as they already had their organic certification for their 18 hectares of vineyards, “which we want to give to the next generation in a perfect and healthy condition.” After having their fining process certified as vegan, the final step was a matter of getting labels for the wine bottles and filling out some paperwork.

She said many wines from the top producers in Germany are in fact vegan but fail to go through the process of being officially certified by the Germany’s governing body on the matter, ProVeg Germany, which operates, like all European countries, under the umbrella of the European Vegetarian Union (EVA).

The EVA coordinates international cooperation on the “V-Label.” Vegan consumers, she said, usually look for this label to confirm that the products they’re buying meet their ethical and other standards.

READ MORE: 12 MONTHS OF ORGANIC RATINGS: UNCOVERING SOME OF NATURE'S FINEST

In any case, Weingut Riffel’s wines speak for themselves. The Riffel Riesling Rheinhessen Scharlachberg Trocken 2020 displays enormous power and length, while the sweet Riffel Riesling Rheinhessen Scharlachberg Trockenbeerenauslese 2020 was described by the James Suckling Tasting Team as an "embryonic masterpiece" with "brain-rattling, stony freshness."

Another vegan-certified German winery, Eva Fricke, also forgoes the fining and clarifying process altogether. Eva Fricke spokeswoman Katrin Sunderhauf said it was the winery’s philosophy “to work as close to nature as possible and make our wines pure and ‘clean’” while abiding the interests of the consumer. “It is very important … to be aware of the future and preserve our planet wherever we can,” she said. “This is a holistic concept which allows us to produce wine in a healthier environment – this is what interests the consumer.”

We were blown away by the Eva Fricke Riesling Rheingau Krone Trocken 2020, a wine with enormous minerality, structure and ageing potential, and a long finish “in which slatey and chalky elements are beautifully interwoven with the white-peach and amalfi-lemon aromas.” Her 2019 Krone Trocken received a perfect score last year.

CONSUMER'S CHOICE

For Maria Urrutia Ybarra, a fifth-generation director of Spanish winery CVNE, meeting the demands of the consumer is utmost in their minds. “Over the last few years we realized that [some] consumers would not drink our wines because they were not suitable for vegans,” she said – and so CVNE adopted vegan processes. Their philosophy now is “to be open-minded and always think ahead.”

Their wines are aged in oak barrels, which are racked every six months, allowing natural settling and clarification. Before bottling, further clarification is done through inactivated yeasts, when before it was done with egg whites. Their wines also take the EU’s “V-Label,” through Spain’s Union Vegetariana Española.

“We strongly pursue the idea that we need to communicate this on the labels,” she added. “There are probably wineries that make wines suitable for vegans and do not identify them, but we believe it is important that the labelling is as clear as possible for the consumer.”

Below is a list of the 463 vegan wines tasted by the team this year to date. But as with wine made from organically and biodynamically farmed grapes, the label does not capture all – there are without doubt many other quality-focused wineries producing vegan wines (as yet) without certification.

– Claire Nesbitt, Associate Editor

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated for this report by the tasters at JamesSuckling.com. They include many of the latest releases not yet available on the market, but which will be available soon. 

Note: You can sort the wines below by vintage, score, country and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.