Defining and certifying vegan wine

Director of Proveg South Africa, Donovan Will explains how the South African wine industry is keeping up with the modern consumer and ethical demands influenced by the plant-based movement.

There are several reasons a wine may not be vegan-friendly - from pesticide use on the vineyard and how the soil is treated, to additives and preservatives and even the bottling and labelling of the finished product.

During winemaking, several wines are often hazy because they contain tiny molecules such as proteins, tartrates, tannins, phenolics and other organic particles. These can be removed before or after fermentation when filtered through substances called ‘fining agents’. Veganwines.com explains that fining is a winemaking process that aims to “clarify and stabilise a wine”, whereas a fining agent is “one of a range of special materials added to the juice to coagulate or absorb, and quickly precipitate the particles suspended in the juice”.

In effect, the fining agent acts like a magnet: unwanted haze inducing molecules coagulate around the fining agent, forming larger particles that can easily be filtered out. Common practice is to remove the fining agents along with the unwanted particles before the final product is bottled, but residual fining agents may still be present in the final wine product.

Not all wines are fined and most young wines self-stabilise and selffine with time, but winemakers choose to use them for a variety of reasons: it saves them and the consumer money and time, it clarifies the wine and can be used to correct imperfection or fine-tune the taste of a wine.

There is a wide variety of fining agents available in the winemaking industry, most commonly derived from animals. According to FactsSA, popular animal-derived fining agents include casein (milk protein), chitin (fibre from crustacean shells), egg albumen (protein derived from egg whites), fish oil, gelatin (commonly derived from collagen taken from animal body parts – bovine, fish or pork), and isinglass (gelatin from fish bladder membranes).

Several winemakers are opting to move away from animal-derived fining agents and replace them with natural fining agents like bentonite clay, carbon (charcoal) and silica. Globally, many nations are declaring animal-derived fining agents as allergic substances and must, by law, declare the use of such agents on their labels if it is above a detectable level. Vegan wine is, therefore, either natural wine that has not been fined or wine that has been fined using substances that are vegan-friendly.

Several factors must be taken into account for brands who are considering making their wine range vegan.

1 and considerations Most vegan-based lifestyles are driven by one of two factors: strong ethical or health considerations. Claiming that a product is vegan, and therefore does not contain any animal products or by-products, may suggest to consumers that it is free from these allergens. If falsely advertised, allergic consumers could assume that the product is safe for their consumption. In South Africa, four of the eight regulated common food allergens are of animal origin, namely cow’s milk, egg, fish and shellfish. Products derived from these allergens are commonly used as fining agents in wine.

2 The price at which vegan products are offered in a competitive and “trendy” market is a very important consideration for the success and ethicality of a product. Many products suitable for a vegan diet may come ata premium price, although no substantial extra costs were absorbed to create the vegan version. Manufacturers mustn’t financially exploit their customers.

3 The Foodstuffs, Cosmetics and Disinfectants Act (Act No.54 of 1972) and the consumer protection Act (Act 68 of 2008)(CPA) prohibit direct or indirect marketing to the consumer of goods if the marketing implies a false, misleading or deceptive misrepresentation concerning a material fact. If a product is advertised as vegan or vegan-friendly, whether formally or informally, but does contain animal-derived ingredients, it is in direct violation of these acts.

4 verification and certification agency Choosing a trusted verification and certification agency is an all-in-one step to ensure the above-mentioned considerations are actioned.

There are several internationally recognised vegan accreditations, with V-Label and Vegan SocietyUK being the most prominent. While the Vegan Society UK label is available internationally, V-Labelis the only accreditation option with a team in South Africa andis administered by the local food awareness organisation, ProVegSouth Africa. V-Label SA focuses solely on vegan certification.

V-Label is the world’s leading vegan and vegetarian trademark. It is an internationally recognized, registered seal for labelling vegan and vegetarian products and services with more than40 000 certified products from more than 3 500 licensees globally*. The label has a reliable and transparent system that standardises the meaning of vegan or vegetarian products.

It is important for those wishing to label their wines as vegan to keep in mind that logos like V-Label’s vegan leaf are internationally trademarked and can not be used without a licence.

In recent years, vegan labels have begun to appear on wine bottles as well. In South Africa, there are wine farms that are leading the movement in officially certifying their range of wines with V-LabelSouth Africa, increasing their transparency and binding them to a serious stance on how their activities may affect animals’ lives.

This does not mean that allwines that are not vegan-labelledcontain animal products, but toimprove transparency, a V-Labelseal guarantees that winehas been treated according tocompletely vegan methods at allstages. Consequently, wine mustprove their vegan actions with theV-Label criteria.

It is important for manufacturersto meet the growing demandof the vegan community, andto adapt to the enormoussustainability trend that hasproven to be a priority amongtoday’s consumers. With thispositive industry turnaround, wecan now appreciate certifiedproducts that come from thetechnical artists as winemakersare - without having to rely onanimals.

* In Europe, V-Label licences vegetarian and vegan products. This number reflects the total number of both vegetarian and vegan certified products.